NOW Targets Portrayals of Women

The National Organization for Women has vowed to renew its effort to pressure the media, the entertainment industry and the Federal Communications Commission to improve how women are portrayed.

At a three-day national convention that started Friday in Beverly Hills, NOW President Patricia Ireland announced that the organization will also work to ensure that broadcasters provide more public interest or community programming, particularly as the new technology of digital television will offer viewers more channels and interactive programming.

NOW plans to launch an advertising campaign calling for changes in how women are depicted in the media and an increase in the number of women broadcasters and experts used on news programs.

“The rich diversity of the country is largely excluded in entertainment, advertising” and news, Ireland said.

About 87% of the sound bites used on news and public affairs programs from those referred to as experts are from men, and 92% of those men are white, she said.

Only 10% of educational television programming features female protagonists, said Kim Gandy, NOW executive vice president.

And, Ireland said, “by the time a child turns 18, she or he will have seen 40,000 murders and 200,000 violent acts on television.”

In addition to media issues, the conference includes workshops on the Victory 2000 Campaign, an effort to recruit and elect individuals who will run on feminist issues.

NOW will be pushing for candidates to address such issues as poverty and equality, Ireland said.

Gandy said that Elizabeth Dole will not be getting NOW’s support because of her failure to support issues important for women, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Reproductive Rights Act.