Media Report to Women – Summer 2015

Transcription

Volume 43, Number 3
Summer 2015
Women See Lack of Respect,
Parity in Sports Coverage
Tennis champion Serena Williams continued to
dazzle the sports world this summer with her amazing
play, scorching the court at Wimbledon on her way to next
month’s U.S. Open. However, coverage of this tennis great
has a nasty undercurrent of racism and sexism, with her
prowess regarded as unusual, even unnatural, for a woman.
Sports competitions
featuring women garner much
less print space and television
airtime than sports featuring
men, and sports magazines
continue periodically to depict
female athletes as pinups under the guise of featuring their
strength (check out ESPN’s
The Body Issue, which features naked men, too). And
then, of course, there’s the
infamous Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue, which has zero to do with sports and everything to do with titillation.
The imbalance of resources devoted to covering
Serena Williams at
men and women isn’t new,
Wimbledon in 2012
but it is actually worse than
ever, according to a new study by researchers Michael A.
Messner and Michela Musto of the University of Southern
Sports Coverage, Page 2
Social Media Editor Jobs:
Female Ghetto?
Social media editor positions at
news outlets can be a path to more influential roles in the organization or an
anxiety-producing dead end, writes
Alana Hope Levinson in Medium.
Levinson, a staff writer at
Matter, formerly a social engagement
editor at a political news site, described
the head-rolling that occurs when there
is pushback from readers about a site’s
tweet or Facebook post that the object
to. Online pushback is instantaneous
and often vicious, and the social media/
social engagement editor often is the
one who pays for reader discontent.
Levinson opens a window on
what contemporary newsrooms are
like: “In a culture of fast-paced digital
newsrooms where traffic is king,
‘social’ can make or break a story. For
sites relying on advertising as their
bread and butter, social media editors
help to save the newsroom from inevitable slumps in traffic. (For context,
BuzzFeed, whose numbers are the envy
of the online news industry, gets 75
percent of its traffic from social media).
My work was critical to the success of
my colleagues, reporters and editors
with high page view goals— a reality
that was both empowering and stressSocial Media Editor Jobs, Page 3
Latest Research Shows Persistent Inequality in Media ………………………….. 4
Research in Depth: Fashion Journalism’s Cultural Power ………………..……... 6
Research in Depth: Slutwalk, Feminism and the Media ………………………….12
Violence and the Women Who Cover It ………………………………………….. 20
‘Astronaut Wives Club’: Not Enough of the Right Stuff ………………………... 24
Sports Coverage, from Page 1
California, and Cheryl Cooky of Purdue University.
They found that coverage of women’s sports has
barely budged in a quarter century, despite dramatic
increases in the number of girls and women playing
youth, high school, college and professional sports.
The survey of Los Angeles broadcast affiliates and
ESPN’s SportsCenter reveals that coverage is actually
less than it has been in the past. The study report is
here: http://com.sagepub.com/content/
early/2015/06/05/2167479515588761.abstract
In 2014, LA-based network affiliates devoted
only 3.2 percent of airtime to women’s sports, down
from 5 percent in 1989. SportsCenter devoted a scant
2 percent of airtime to women’s sports, a number that
has remained flat since the study began tracking the
nightly cable broadcast in 1999. When women’s
sports are covered at all, 81.6 percent of coverage is
focused on basketball.
At the same time, men’s sports coverage of
the Big Three – football, basketball and baseball – has
increased. The study found broadcasters devoted 74.5
percent of their sports reports to Big Three coverage,
up from 68 percent in 2009. Big Three sports coverage
continues well into the off-season, continuing storylines about teams and players even when no actual
games are being played.
The survey of sports news coverage has been
conducted every five years since 1989. When it began,
women rarely appeared, except to be portrayed as sex
objects or the butt of a joke. Over time, that overt sexism has been replaced by a general absence of women
altogether: Women’s sports are rarely covered, and
when female athletes are interviewed in any depth,
it’s to portray them as mothers or girlfriends, stressing those roles over their roles as athletes.
The news is also delivered differently, the
researchers said. Sports announcers, famous for their
boisterous, colorful commentary, seem to rein in their
humor and enthusiasm as soon as female athletes are
onscreen. The delivery then becomes flat.
“That’s what it feels like when the broadcast
focuses on women’s sports: ‘We’re going to give you
the main course, then eat your vegetables [the women’s sports coverage] and then we’ll give you the dessert,’ ” Messner said.
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MEDIA REPORT TO WOMEN
Sheila J. Gibbons, Editor
Dr. Ray E. Hiebert, Publisher
MEDIA REPORT TO WOMEN, ISSN –01459651, Copyright © Summer 2015, Communication
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Vol. 43, No. 3, Summer 2015. Published quarterly. Annual subscription rates: Individual, $45, Institutions, $75. Supporting Subscriber rate for individuals (names appear in each issue), $55. International subscribers, add $15 for air mail. Single copies $15 for current year, $25 for others. All payments in U.S. funds only.
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Media Report to Women Summer 2015
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The way the news was delivered is as troubling to Messner and his colleagues as how rarely it
was delivered at all. Airtime is precious, and a 30second segment goes a long way in connecting viewers with the storylines happening within a particular
sport or league. While women’s sports gets little coverage, these stories did make it to the air:
He explained, ‘I am not fundamentally opposed to
junk in the trunk, although my preference is a
stuffed onion over an oozing pumpkin.’”
And this: Writing for Rolling Stone in 2013,
Stephen Roderick observed, "[Maria] Sharapova is
tall, white and blond, and, because of that, makes
more money in endorsements than Serena, who is
black, beautiful and built like one of those monster
trucks that crushes Volkswagens at sports arenas."
There are more appalling comments in Desmond-Harris’s roundup, within which one can easily
detect the sexism that resonates through evaluations
of successful female athletes and the “othering” of
those who don’t conform to sports writers’ expectations about appropriate looks and playing styles.
Mona Gable, writing in the Sacramento Bee, has a
great take on this: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/
the-conversation/article29672905.html
Ben Rothenberg’s New York Times article on
body image in women’s tennis, which sparked a
great deal of discussion and considerable criticism, is
here: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/sports/
tennis/tenniss-top-women-balance-body-image-with
-quest-for-success.html?smid=twnytimes&_r=4&referrer=
Sydney Smith’s critique of Rothenberg’s article for iMediaEthics.org, including comments from
New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan, who
called the article “a missed opportunity,” is here:
http://imediaethics.org/nyt-article-on-serenawilliams-female-tennis-players-bodies-a-missedopportunity/
• a swarm of bees invading a Red Sox/Yankees game
• a giant corndog that cost $25 at an Arizona Diamondbacks game
• a ribbon-cutting for a restaurant opened by baseball player and manager Tommy Lasorda
• where former Lakers player Kendall Marshall will
find a good burrito in Milwaukee (Chipotle)
• a stray dog that became a spring training mascot
for the Brewers
Though broadcasters have made admirable
attempts to diversify their reporting teams in terms
of race, gender has been overlooked. In the 2014
study, women made up less than 5 percent of sports
anchors and 14.4 percent of ancillary sports reporters.
“With this research, we are trying to get
women’s sports on the radar not only for fans, but
for generations of girls and boys,” said Cooky, associate professor of women’s, gender and sexuality
studies at Purdue University. “Seeing women’s
sports through the same lens as we see men’s would
go a long way in shifting the cultural perceptions of
gender roles and expectations.”
Which brings us back to the often misogynistic coverage of Serena Williams. In an essay for Vox
Video (http://www.vox.com/2015/3/11/8189679/
serena-williams-indian-wells-racism), Jenee Desmond-Harris chronicles the analyses that demonstrate “inappropriate scrutiny and sexualization of
her body's size and shape.” An example: In 2002,
after Williams competed at the US Open wearing a
black spandex catsuit, Sunday Telegraph columnist
Otis Gibson, seemingly struggling to find appropriate language in his critique of her outfit, wrote, “On
some women [the catsuit] might look good. Unfortunately, some women aren't wearing it. On Serena, it
only serves to accentuate a superstructure that is already bordering on the digitally enhanced and a rear
end that I will attempt to sum up as discreetly as possible by simply referring to it as ‘formidable.’”
“It's not all white observers who make these
types of comments,” Desmond-Harris says. “Jason
Whitlock, a black sports writer, slammed Williams in
a 2009 Fox Sports column for having ‘chosen to
smother’ her beauty ‘in an unsightly layer of thick,
muscled blubber.’ His main gripe, unsurprisingly,
was about what he called her ‘oversized back pack.’
Social Media Editor Jobs, from Page 1
ful.” When she began talking to other social engagement editors, she discovered that an enormous number of them were female and began looking into that
further.
“Social media is one of the few areas of the
news industry where women outnumber men in
leadership positions,” Levinson says. “A study by
the Colorado Women’s College at the University of
Denver found that women are only 23.3 percent of
leaders in media at large, but in social media that
number is 55 percent. The role of social media editor
stands in opposition to that of writer or editor, which
is still predominantly male.”
Levinson talked with peers who said they
believe the social engagement editor slot, though
critical to the success of digital news, is femaledominated because women are still steered away
from hard news; the job itself is perceived as something a rookie can do; that social media is fluff and
women are better suited for that. It’s also not as visi-
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Summer 2015
Media Report to Women
panies that create those platforms are largely white
and male.
The full report is here: http://
wmc.3cdn.net/83bf6082a319460eb1_hsrm680x2.pdf
For the second consecutive year, the WMC
commissioned its own study of how many women
were among the nation’s journalists and the issues
they were assigned to cover.
Men were more likely to write or report on
the topics of politics, criminal justice, science,
sports, and technology, according to WMC’s
“Divided 2015: The Media Gender Gap,” a threemonth analysis released as part of the Women’s
Media Center’s Status of Women in U.S. Media report. This study looked at the nation’s 10 most
widely circulated newspapers, the national evening
news broadcasts, the most-viewed Internet news
sites, and two international wire services.
“With the 2016 presidential election already under way, this is especially problematic,”
said Burton. “We hope that one good result of releasing these discouraging numbers will be that
media can take a hard look at their newsrooms and
make changes to improve the ratios in their reporting. Media companies should establish goals for
improving their gender diversity and create both
short-term and long-term mechanisms for achieving them. They should ask themselves why their
newsrooms aren’t 50 percent women and what
steps they need to take to get there. And if they
aren’t asking themselves these questions, then
that’s a problem.”
WMC’s research examined 27,758 pieces of
content produced from October 1, 2014 through
December 31, 2014. Only three outlets achieved or
exceeded parity: the Chicago Sun-Times, The Huffington Post, and the two anchor chairs at PBS NewsHour. The data can be viewed here: http://
www.womensmediacenter.com/pages/2015divided-media-gender-gap-infographic
ble a form of work as reporting and editing, and
sometimes is poorly understood by those who manage the people in these positions, particularly if the
supervisors are executives who had careers in legacy media and don’t fully grasp the intricacies of the
social engagement editor’s workload. Where those
conditions exist, there is not a likely path toward
advancement, Levinson says.
A particularly dark conclusion about the
social engagement editor slot comes from Tiffani
Lennon, the lead researcher and author of the University of Denver study on women’s leadership,
who told Levinson that a rise in stature for the job
has a downside. “If social media gets more credibility, you are going to see men pushing women out of
leadership roles,” she says. “That’s what happens in
every field once it becomes more institutional.” Historically, it’s been easier for women to dominate
spaces that men don’t want to be part of, Levinson
concludes.
Her excellent, anecdote-rich report is here:
https://medium.com/matter/the-pink-ghetto-ofsocial-media-39bf7f2fdbe1
Women’s Media Center 2015 Research:
‘Inequality’ Defines Media
The Women’s Media Center (WMC) in June
released its yearly report on the status of women in
U.S. media. The report is based on new and original
research that finds that the media landscape is still
dominated by male voices and male perspectives.
Taken together, the 49 studies are a snapshot of women in media platforms as diverse as
news, literature, broadcast, film, television, radio,
online, tech, gaming, and social media.
“Inequality defines our media,” said Julie
Burton, president of the Women’s Media Center.
“Our research shows that women, who are more
than half of the population, write only a third of the
stories. Media tells us our roles in society—it tells us
who we are and what we can be. This new report
shows us who matters and what is important to media—and clearly, as of right now, it is not women.”
As the 2016 presidential campaign takes
shape, WMC’s original research shows that in 2014,
men reported 65 percent of all U. S. political news
stories. In addition, as the summer entertainment
television and movie season gets under way, figures
documenting all sectors of film and television production find that women still have limited creative
input in shaping the characters, images, and depictions on screen. And although women use social
media platforms at greater rates than men, the com-
Summer 2015
Kopenhaver Center Sponsors Study of
Women in Communication Leadership
Communication academics working with
the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication at Florida
International University met in San Francisco in
August to lay our plans for a comprehensive and
comparative study in 2015 of the role women play
across the major communication professions in the
U.S.
Judy Van Slyke Turk, professor emerita,
Virginia Commonwealth University, leads a team
that analyzed existing research and documented
4
the need for a broader type of analysis. They met at
the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication to map
out next steps for the undertaking.
In the introduction to a benchmarking study
that documented gaps in research, the team says,
“It’s a decades-long query that even now has no real
answers and has led to a discussion that has reached
no consensus or conclusions: Where are women in
the U.S. communication professions? Are they
providing leadership, or at least managing these
communication professions? If they’re not leading
or managing, where are they and what are they doing?
“It’s not that research into the status of
women in communication in the United States
doesn’t exist. Much has been researched and written
in the last decade about the role and status of women in communication professions. Most has focused
on one specific professional discipline: the newspaper industry, for instance, or advertising or public
relations. Some, like the Women’s Media Center’s
annual overview of the status of women in U.S. media that examines gender in major broadcast, print,
online and wire outlets, address multiple professional disciplines. And the research has provided
‘snapshots’ of different communication professions
taken at different times using different methodologies.
“In this benchmarking study, we identified
and summarized the most current secondary research into and documentation of the position of
women in the major professional communication
industries. We found not one single piece of research or published article between 2005 and 2015
that explored the role and status of women across
all of the arguably most significant professional
communication and journalism industry categories:
newspaper, magazine, broadcast (radio/television)
news, online news, advertising and public relations.”
This report will serve as the research upon
which the Kopenhaver Center will base it believes
will be the first research study to assess simultaneously the role and status of women across all major
communication and journalism professions. The
Kopenhaver Center plans to develop a survey,
based on the findings of this secondary research, to
be administered in 2015 to professionals in all of
those industries.
The benchmarking report can be viewed
here: http://www.kopenhavercenter.org/wpcontent/uploads/sites/11/2015/08/Women-inCommunication-Professions-InfographicsFINAL.pdf
Briefly…
Hollywood’s fantasies about female journalists: quick to jump in the sack, slow to put down the
wine bottle. The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman fumes
about how persistent this old stereotype is, citing Judd
Apatow’s Trainwreck as just the latest example. The
history is appalling: “Whereas male journalists in movies work by using their malicious minds (Kirk Douglas
in Ace in the Hole, Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler) or
unimpeachable morality (Robert Redford and Dustin
Hoffman in All the President’s Men, George Clooney
and David Strathairn in Good Night and Good Luck),
their female counterparts use a part of their anatomy
that has nothing to do with their brain,” Freeman says.
Attributing the pattern to the sexual fantasies of Hollywood suits, she chronicles a long list of offending films
here: http://www.theguardian.com/
commentisfree/2015/jul/29/hollywood-sexual-fantasiesfemale-journalists-sex-lives
A distinguished actress adds to the discussion of Hollywood sexism, saying it’s worse than ever. Emma Thompson, in an interview with the UK’s
Radio Times, saying, “I don’t think there’s any appreciable improvement and I think that for women, the
question of how they are supposed to look is worse
than it was even when I was young. So, no, I am not
impressed at all.” More of her comments are here:
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-07-20/emmathompson-the-acting-industry-is-more-sexist-todaythan-it-was-in-my-youth And USA TODAY’s Brian
Truitt serves up damning evidence that Hollywood
continues to present one-dimensional depictions of
women – when it depicts them at all: http://
www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/06/21/
sexism-in-hollywood-summer-blockbusters/28909217/
And ageism persists, too, as we learn from Kyle Buchanan’s analysis in Slate, “Leading Men Age, But
Their Love Interests Don’t”: http://www.slate.com/
blogs/browbeat/2015/05/26/
leading_men_age_but_their_love_interest_don_t.html
Amanda Marcotte takes down another old
trope about women in media: the lack of effectiveness
and authority in female voices that makes them inappropriate for assignment as broadcasters and voiceovers. It’s astonishing how long, and how many,
women were held back because of this ridiculous
belief. “When I began co-hosting a video series on
‘Game of Thrones,’ I braced myself for complaints
about my voice,” Marcotte says. “Not because it’s a
Briefly, Page 18
5
Summer 2015
Research In Depth
Newspaper Fashion Journalism: The Province of
Savvy Women Covering A Powerful Industry
wrote for and edited these sections actually played
a large part in the public sphere.
Fashion journalism was a place for women
to have some authority. The American Press Institute’s 1951 industry publication Fashion in Newspapers noted: “No aspect of the news is further from
the comprehension of the average male editor than
fashion (Byrnes, 1951).” Women journalists knew
this and took advantage of their positions. They
traveled both nationally and internationally, as
well as getting to know their local community and
readers.
It was Milwaukee Journal women’s page
editor Aileen Ryan who first got newspaper fashion editors into New York shows. It was 1931 and
at that time, only buyers and magazine editors
were allowed into fashion shows. She convinced
designers to change that policy (Voss, 2004). By
1945, there were enough competing fashion shows
in New York City that women’s page journalist
Ruth Finley created an official calendar of the
shows – The Fashion Calendar – to help fashion
editors keep them straight. She later produced the
calendar in a digital format until she gave it to the
Council of Fashion Designers of America, Inc.
(Piazza, 2012).
The destruction and rationing in Europe
following World War II allowed American fashion
to advance. As American consumer culture developed, there was a new emphasis on fashion and
consumerism. According to the Fashion Institute of
Technology: “When World War II stemmed the
flow of imported fashion news and imported originals, American fashion creativity, from sportswear
to grand couture, came into full flower and recognition. American designers championed as their
own American girls and the contemporary woman” (Lee, 1975). It was the beginning of the entry
of American designers into the fashion world, even
if it would take a few more decades before they
could fully compete with Paris designers during
the 1970s.
International travel for fashion journalists
was common, too. Take, for example, Houston
women’s page journalist Marjorie Paxson. With a
journalism degree from the University of Missouri
and experience in hard news during World War II,
By Kimberly Wilmot Voss
Kimberly Wilmot Voss, PhD, is an associate professor of
journalism at the University of Central Florida. She is the
author of The Food Section: Newspaper Women and
the Culinary Community (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014)
and a co-author of Mad Men & Working Women:
Feminist Perspectives on Historical Power, Resistance and Otherness (Peter Lang, 2014). She was the
winner of the 2014 Carol DeMasters Award for Service to
Food Journalism given by the Association of Food Journalism .
“No aspect of the news is further from the comprehension of the average male editor.”
— Garrett D. Byrnes, Sunday Editor of the Providence Journal
Everything changed for American fashion
designers on November 28, 1973, the day they found
their place at the international fashion table. Pulitzer
Prize winner Robin Givhan documented the events
of that evening in her 2015 book, The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the
Spotlight and Made History.
In large part, the day was notable because of
the fashion reporters covering the event. The lead
fashion reporter was Eugenia Sheppard, long of the
New York Herald Tribune. Givhan wrote that Sheppard “nursed modern fashion reportage through its
infancy in the 1950s and 1960s with her emphasis on
personalities and trends”(p. 162-163). During that
time period, Sheppard’s column, along with illustrations by Joe Eula, was syndicated in newspapers
across the country. During the height of her power
in the 1950s and 1960s, no designer started his or her
fashion show until Sheppard arrived to take the
front-row seat reserved for her.
One of the few places that women journalists could find employment in the 1950s and 1960s
was the women’s pages of newspapers. The content
of the section was described as devoted to the four
Fs: family, fashion, food and furnishings. There were
also bridal announcements, advice columns and
women’s club notices. While some have criticized
the content for reinforcing women’s traditional place
in the private sphere, the women journalists who
Summer 2015
6
she returned to the women’s pages in peacetime. In
ally presented The Eugenia Sheppard Award for
1955, Paxson and her fashion editor Rosemary Sulfashion journalism. The following is a brief study of
livan spent five weeks in Europe reporting about
Sheppard’s analysis of fashion in Time magazine
fashion. They worked for the Houston Chronicle;
from the 1950s and 1960s.
its women’s page slogan was “The Newspaper
Smart Women Read.” From Florence, Italy, Paxson
Work of Eugenia Sheppard
wrote about the latest milliner fashions including
long-haired felts and Bristol velour (Paxson, 1955a).
Sheppard graduated from Bryn Mawr ColFrom Paris, she wrote about skirt lengths (1955b).
lege in 1921 and became a society reporter at The DisLater, she reported from the same city about Chrispatch in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio. She then
tian Dior’s conservative new designs (1955c).
became a society reporter at the New York Post before
Likely the most
moving on to the New York
significant newspaper
Herald Tribune in 1940. In
fashion journalist of the
1956, she began her fash1950s and 1960s was the
ion column “Inside Fashpreviously mentioned
ion.” Initially it ran twice a
Sheppard. She was
week and eventually it
known for her way with
became a daily column.
words. This was how
Illustrator Joe Eula’s glamshe wrote about the
orous drawings appeared
1957 European fashion
with the columns. As a
shows and the use of
book about Eula recently
buttons and bows: “It's
noted, “They were an unall terribly cute, but like
beatable team: both short
giving a girl candy
and feisty” (Horyn, 2014).
when she craves steak.”
Sheppard was deOf Lanvin-Castillo's
scribed as “fiercely comnew extra-short skirt
petitive” by reporter Gail
length: “Pretty sexy for a Eugenia Sheppard “nursed modern fashion reportage through Sheehy (2014), yet she was
tall girl, but it may make
also supportive of her reits infancy in the 1950s and 1960s with her emphasis on persona short one disappear
porters and was not afraid
alities and trends,” wrote fashion critic Robin Givhan.
altogether.” Of Jean
to give designers her opinDessès' “dovetail look”:
ions. Designer Bill Blass
“Dresses have always been inspired by birds. I
wrote that she had given him some of the toughest
think it's time somebody came right out and told
and most important advice of his career. She told him
this nice guy to switch to biology or some other
that he should stop trying to produce clothes for the
ology. Anything but birds” (Time, 1957).
middle of the country and stick to the New York
Sheppard’s ground-breaking approach to
women who made him famous. He wrote that it was
covering fashion journalism is described in The Padifficult to hear but that she was correct (Blass, 2002):
per: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune
(Kluger, 1986): “With the introduction in 1956 of
Eugenia never missed a trick. She
her thrice-weekly column, 'Inside Fashion,' Shepwas the first journalist to write about
pard revolutionized the journalism of style by adme because she sensed the social anjusting its focus from inanimate fabric to the people
gle – and Eugenia could see how that
who designed and wore it. ... By deciding whom
story, the merger of society and fashand what to write about she could create a whole
ion, was shaping up as one of the
new pattern of social commentary (p. 625).” Acbiggest stories of the sixties.
cording to the New York Times, Sheppard “became
known for her breezy writing style, a personalized
Sheppard was interviewed by Time magazine
approach to fashion and her ability to spot trends
each year on her opinions about fashion collections.
even before the trend-setters realized they were
In 1954, she described the Flat Look. “Christian Dior
setting them (Shiro, 1984).” Beginning in 1987, the
today dropped the waistline to the hips, flattened the
Council of Fashion Designers of America has annubust and sent women’s fashions back to the Jazz Age
7
Summer 2015
Research In Depth
of the 1920s,” she wrote. “Dior has abolished bos“sex.” (The more prim New York Times described the
oms.” Designer Jacques Faith also included “a boyish
look as “femininity.”) Bohan had positioned beltlook.” Yet, Sheppard noted that fashion journalists
lines lower on the hips, leading Sheppard to declare,
were not necessarily buying the new look and ap“Dior has squared the fanny” (Time, 1962). By 1962,
plauded each time a busty model appeared. “But it
Sheppard was investigating what First Lady Jacquelwas as if the crowd was making a last stand and aline Kennedy was going to wear on her trip to Asia.
ready knew it was licked,” Sheppard said (Time,
There had been a White House leak about the Park
1954).”
Avenue store Chez Ninon featuring clothes by CaliTwo years later, Sheppard described what
fornia designer Gus Tassell. She called the designer
was called the “undressed
for confirmation. “She
look.” Unlike the previous
wants to play it cool and I
collection, Dior debuted
want to keep her wearing
slinky gowns that puffed
my clothes,” he told her.
up the bosom and included
Sheppard further explained
a low neckline. “Dior has
that orders for Kennedy
designed a collection for
came with a note requestmen this time,” Sheppard
ing that a store or manufacwrote. “The kept lady look.
turer not reveal the inforThe undressed look (Time,
mation, yet someone was
1956).” By 1957, Time noted
“hot on the telephone to
her witty style in a profile
Mata Hari in a few minutes.
that described her as one of
Actually, it’s not so much
the most astute critics in
what Mrs. Kennedy is buythe business. The magazine
ing as the thinking behind
quoted her about a dress
it that makes the
that bunched at the waist –
news” (Time, 1962).
Joe Eula sketches
“Believe me, you could be havIn 1963, designer Yves
ing twins.” – and a shapeless dress – “…just a gunny
St. Laurent was the star with his “Robin Hood
sack with diamonds.” When the press was barred
Look.” “It made a week of life on gilt ballroom chairs
from Balenciaga’s and Givenchy’s fashion shows,
worthwhile,” Sheppard wrote. “St. Laurent has alSheppard convinced a buyer who had been at the
ways known that what modern women really want
shows to sketch the designers’ creations on a bar napto look like are little boys” (Time, 1963). The followkin. Accurate stories on both shows ran in her newsing year, it was the swimsuit that took center stage.
paper the following day (Time, 1957). The next year,
Designer Rudi Gernreich presented a topless bathing
Sheppard described all the belts, buckles and bows: “I
suit as “a prediction of things to come.” Designer
was a wreck by the end of the show, and to tell you
Norman Norell responded, “It has no dignity.”
the truth, my notes are a mess” (Time, 1958).
Sheppard weighed in: “Now, come on, boys. Girls
By 1960, the fashion styles featured greater
have been dropping the tops of their suits for
variety – more of a democratic approach than previyears” (Time, 1964).
ous years. The only commonality was that dresses
A 1966 Time article predicted the Battle of
were sleeveless. “How to look old hat this summer
Versailles, which would occur a few years later. The
will be simple,” Sheppard wrote. “Wear a dress with
reporter noted that fashion in the United States was
sleeves (Time, 1960).” The next year featured the denow a $15 billion industry and that a distinctive look
but of a new designer in the Christian Dior line, Marc
had developed. Vogue editor Diana Vreeland deBohan. Many were openly hostile about Bohan, Shepclared, “The days of fashion dictatorship are dead as
pard included. “I had a poisoned typewriter ribbon
mutton.” Others noted that Europe still played an
ready,” she admitted. Surprisingly, his hip-hugging
important role in fashion. “Paris is as important to
skirts and bright colors were a hit. “Five minutes after
fashion as Santa Claus is to Christmas,” Sheppard
the show started, I felt like a cat before a saucer of
maintained. “It may be a sentimentally cherished
cream” (Time, 1961), Sheppard conceded.
myth, but there’s nothing like it to make the whole
The following year, Sheppard described the
world feel like shopping” (Time, 1966).
emphasis on bosoms, hips and knees as being about
Summer 2015
8
Future Fashion Journalism Research
ing the rules of her day” (2010). She covered fashion as
those rules soften and faded away. “I also would NEVWhile Sheppard was a significant fashion ediER have guessed jeans would become a fashion musttor, other women deserve to be studied. Historian Eihave, she declared. “Maybe that is really the trend I nevleen M. Wirth (2013) has noted that local history needs
er saw coming and was surprised when it
to be included in the study of female journalists. “We
did” (Knezovich, 2010). Ultimately, her reporting was
cannot understand the history of women in the United
about the heart of journalism: people. For all the talk of
States unless we consider local and regional dimentrends, hemlines and fabrics, she quoted Halston:
sions),” she wrote (p. 164). Several fashion editors
“Fashion is made by fashionable people – not designers
made a mark in their communities and documented
(Cloud, p. 86).”
changes in fashion. Graydon Heartsill was a longtime
Cloud developed her own fashion reporting
fashion editor at the Dallas
style and influence. As she
Times Herald, beginning in
noted, it was not every re1943. Dallas was a signifiporter who could call and get
cant fashion city because
through to Ralph Lauren as
of the high-end Neiman
she could (Knezovich, 2009).
Marcus department store,
(This was because she first
which hosted the counmet him selling neckties at
try’s first boutique fashion
Kaufmann's Department
show (Texas Monthly,
Store in Pittsburgh. After a
2002). Five years later, she
more than 100-year reign in
went to Europe to cover
Pittsburgh, the store became
the first fashion shows
a Macy's in 2006.) In 1972 she
after World War II
interviewed Calvin Klein,
(Castleberry, 1994). By
who predicted that women
Barbara Cloud at the Post-Gazette in 1961: “It’s a myth that would wear pants for the
July 1955, she was honfashion writer’s get their clothes for free.”
ored for attending the
next decade. She wrote about
fashion shows in New
model Naomi Simms, a PittsYork City 25 times (United Press, 1955). Heartsill noted
burgh native, who was the first African-American modthat the clothes that were shown at the major fashion
el to appear in a national television commercial and the
shows would later be shown at Neiman Marcus (Ash,
first to appear on the cover of a major women’s maga1958). She won numerous prizes for her work, includzine – the Ladies Home Journal.
ing a Penney-Missouri Award for fashion writing in
Judy Lunn took a different path to her position
the 1960s.
as a fashion editor. While she had a knack for writing, it
Barbara Cloud reported about fashion in Pittswas fashion that caught her interest so she attended the
burgh for 33 years. Her writing was truly for a local
Rhode Island School of Design to study fashion design.
market – her sources were often based on who visited
(She liked to draw and design but hated to sew.) She
her city and the department stores that dominated the
and her family relocated to Houston in 1968 and she
local market. While her job did include traveling to
took time off to be a stay-at-home mother for her two
fashion shows across the country and abroad, it was
daughters, Linda and Susan. It was her daughter, Linda,
not as glamorous as some may have thought. “Fashion
who led Lunn to the eventual post of fashion writer. In
writers do not spend leisure hours on the Riviera or in
hopes of earning some change, Linda knocked on a
fashion salons,” she wrote in a 1991 column (Cloud,
neighbor’s door with an offer to recite the Pledge of Al2009). “I’ve never been to the Riviera. And it’s a myth
legiance for a quarter. That neighbor was the fashion
that fashion writers get their clothes for free. Newspaeditor of the Houston Post, Lynn Van Deusen, who asked
per’s ethics policy forbids it” (p. 188).
to meet the mother of the precocious child. With that
Cloud’s reporting was done at a significant
fortuitous encounter, Lunn’s fashion journalism career
time, as fashion went from having well-defined rules to
began in 1971. Lunn developed the Fashion Today seca time of a casual, anything-goes attitude. She recalled
tion for the Post and won many national fashion prizes
her mother’s generation – one of corsets and hosiery.
with that section, including a Penney-Missouri Award.
And, women of a certain age would never bare their
She was not fazed by the celebrity of fashion although
arms. As Cloud wrote of her mother, “She was followshe had met the big names. She traveled to the major
9
Summer 2015
Research In Depth
fashion markets twice a year, every year. She was in
the home of Coco Chanel. She visited with Bob
Mackie when he came to Houston and Galveston.
She had strong opinions about fashion, believing that
Tommy Hilfiger was a non-designer and instead just
a smart marketer. She believed that when Gianni
Versace died, the magic died with him.
Another significant fashion reporter of the
1960s and early 1970s was Marian Christy, who later
became a celebrity columnist. She started as a fashion
reporter at the Boston Globe in April 1965 and her
work was later picked up by the UPI. Her work then
ran in 104 different newspapers, characterized by
sharp insights. For example, she described the seethrough blouse from a late-1960s Saint Laurent fashion show: "Haute couture is a laboratory for new ideas. Saint Laurent was not advocating public nearnudity. It was poetic exaggeration to shock the eyes.
Once you see the extreme overstatements, watereddown versions seem reasonable and palatable. This
was the late sixties and Saint Laurent seemed to be
suggesting that women's bodies should be unharnessed” (Christy, 1984). She won Penney-Missouri
Awards in 1966, 1968 and 1970. Christy took a progressive, sociological approach to fashion, rather
than writing for advertisers, which eventually cost
her the position of fashion reporter (Christy, 1984).
Her less-than-flattering report on the Paris fashion
show led to a brief revocation of her French press
card in 1972.
the gender-based view of news: that hard news
covered by men was significant while the soft
news handled by women was less important. The
consensus was that women journalists were
steered toward soft news beats while male reporters were recruited for the “more important” hard
news assignments (Lumby, 1994). In journalism
history, hard news topics were outside the women’s section where the supposed soft news, or feature stories, was located. The difference had big
implications in the industry. As media historian
Kay Mills wrote (Yang, 1992), “Hard news and soft
news were by no means gender-free terms. Instead, they evoked rich gender implications” (p.
51).
Regardless of its placement in the newspaper, fashion journalism deserves its place in journalism history. It was the beat held almost entirely
by women for decades. Fashion, while fun, is also
an important, powerful industry to cover. The
fashion beat allowed for international travel and
exposure for journalists who also had to meet the
needs, aspirations and expectations of a local readership. Recognizing fashion reporting as having
significant cultural value elevates women’s role in
the history of journalism and raises the status of
soft news.
References
Ash, A. (1958, July 14). 200 visitors getting set for a fashion
marathon. New York Times.
Conclusion
Blass, B. (2002). Bare Blass. New York, NY: Perennial.
The newspaper industry has long given more
value to hard news or what can be defined as news
based on institutions in the public sphere, such as
government, economy, and law. Soft news was what
was left over – feature stories and human interest
material. Communication scholars have noted that
soft news “does not necessitate timely publication
and has a low level of substantive informational value (if at all), i.e., gossip, human-interest stories,
offbeat events” (Wilzig & Seletzky, 2010). This concept of hard versus soft news has also been explored
from the role of the journalist in defining what topics
are newsworthy (Tuchman, 1973). In addition, researchers have found that it is not just the topic that
places it in a soft or hard category; the framing of the
story – or how the story is told – should also be considered (Reinemann, Stanyer, Scherr, & Legnante,
2012).
Several communication scholars have noted
Summer 2015
Byrnes, G. D. (1951). Newspapers in fashion. New York, NY:
Columbia University Press.
Castleberry, V. A. (1994). Daughters of Dallas. Dallas, TX:
Odenwald Press.
Christy, M. (1984). Invasions of privacy. Reading, MA: Addison
-Wesley Publishing Company.
Cloud, B. (1992, September 17). Pants future is solid in designer’s view of next decade. Pittsburg Press.
Cloud, B. (2009). “Way to Go Harley,” By-line: Pittsburgh’s
Beloved Columnist Shares a Lifetime of Interviews and Observations. Tarentum, PA: World Association Publishers.
Cloud, B. (2010, May 8). Becoming my mother: Who’s that old
woman in the mirror? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Cloud, B. (2011, February 11). Author email interview with
Barbara Cloud.
Fashion: All about Yves. (1963). Time. (82).
Fashion: Barely a bore. (1964). Time. (83).
Fashion: Potent force. (1962).Time. (79).
Fashion: The Americans. (1966). Time. (88).
10
Fashion: The old look. (1961). Time, (6).
Books
Fashion: The undressed look. (1956). Time, (7).
Fashion: The word from Paris. (1962). Time, (5).
New contributions from and about journalists of color.
Fashion writers honored by institute. (1955). United Press.
Foreign news: The flat look. (1954). Time, (6).
How Racism and Sexism Killed Traditional
Media: Why the Future of Journalism Depends on
Women and People of Color by Joshunda Sanders.
Praeger, 2015.
Givhan, R. (2015). The Battle of Versailles. New York: Flatiron.
Horyn, C. (2014). Joe Eula: Master of twentieth-century fashion
illustration. New York, NY: Harper Design.
Kluger, R. (1986). The paper: The life and death of the New York
Herald Tribune. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Sanders unpacks the media working environment, describing newsrooms and outlets often
fraught with racist and sexist tension. She analyzes
the traditional media's efforts to integrate both women and people of color into legacy newsrooms, highlighting their defeats and some successes. Sanders
draws a direct line from non-diverse newsrooms to
poor coverage of minorities and considers what the
future of media could, and should, be.
Knezovich, S. (2009). By-Line: Pittsburgh's beloved columnist
shares a lifetime of interviews and observations. Pittsburgh Magazine, 40(9), 116.
Knezovich, S. (2010). Barbara Cloud. Pittsburgh Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/PittsburghMagazine/January-2010/Barbara-Cloud/Cloud
Lee, S. T. (1975). American fashion: the life and lines of Adrian,
Mainbocher, McCardell, Norell [and] Trigere. Quadrangle/The
N.Y. Times Bk Co.
Lehman-Wilzig, S. N. & Seletzky, M. (2010). Hard news, soft news,
‘general’ news: The necessity and the utility of an intermediate
classification. Journalism, 38-39.
Alone Atop the Hill: The Autobiography of
Alice Dunnigan, Pioneer of the National Black Press
edited by Carol McCabe Booker. University of
Georgia Press, 2015.
Line for line. (1960). Time, 75(10), 95.
Lumby, C. (1994). Feminism and the media: The biggest fantasy of
all. Media Information Australia, (72). p. 49-54.
A gem in that this is Dunnigan’s own account of her life. This sharecropper’s daughter describes her journey from hardscrabble Kentucky to
becoming the first African-American woman journalist to be credentialed at the White House. Public
service — through the Works Project Administration
— gave her civic and intellectual engagement. The
regional black press was her launch pad and she
took her skills all the way to the nation’s capital.
Neiman Marcus timeline. (2002). Texas Monthly. Retrieved from
http://www.texasmonthly.com/2002-03-01/webextra5.php
Paxson, M (1955a, July 29). Italian milliners know their way
around felt. Houston Chronicle.
Paxson, M (1955b, August 5). A conservative Dior retains magic
touch. Houston Chronicle.
Paxson, M (1955c, August 11). Beautiful Fall styles emphasize
curves. Houston Chronicle.
Piazza, J. (2012). Fashion’s calendar keeper. Wall Street Journal.
Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/
SB10001424052970203646004577213553872295964
Reinemann, C., Stanyer, J., Scherr, S., & Legnante, G. (2012). Hard
and soft news: A review of concepts, operationalization and key
findings. Journalism, 221-239.
Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First
Lady of the Black Press by James McGrath Morris.
Amistad, 2015.
Schiro, A. (1984). Eugenia Sheppard, fashion columnist, dies. The
New York Times. p. 18.
Ethel Payne arrived at the White House for
the Chicago Defender, the nation’s top AfricanAmerican newspaper, in 1954, having worked her
way through clerical jobs and matron of a girls’
school, all while nurturing her love of writing and
her considerable intellect in the face of segregation.
Her world opened up when she landed a job as a
USO social director for black service members stationed in Japan. While there, she kept a journal,
which convinced Chicago Defender editors of her potential as a journalist. She covered the White House
until she was 70, then moved into journalism education. The road Payne traveled is fascinating.
Sheehy, G. (2014). Daring: My passages. New York, NY: William
Morrow.
The press: Belts, buckles & bows. (1958). Time, (6).
The press: Hemlines of the week. (1957). Time, (7).
Tuchman, G. (1973). Making news by doing works. American
Journal of Sociology, 79(1). p. 110-131.
Voss, K. W. (2004). Aileen Ryan: Fashioning her place in Milwaukee journalism. Milwaukee History, Fall-Winter 2004.
Wirth, E. M. (2013). From society page to front page: Nebraska
women in journalism. University of Nebraska, (164).
Yang, M. (1992). Women’s pages of the Washington Post and gender ideology in the late 1940s and the 1950s (Master’s Thesis). University of Maryland. (51).
11
Summer 2015
Research In Depth
Slutwalk, Feminism and News
By Kaitlynn Mendes
izers from around the world.
Kaitlynn Mendes is a lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester, UK. She is an expert
on representations of feminism in the media and the ways
feminists are turning to new media technologies to engage
in feminist activism. She is the author or co-editor of three
books.
Is SlutWalk a Feminist Movement?
When thinking about SlutWalk’s mediated relationship with feminism and to what extent
it has been represented as a feminist event, my
analysis points to the ways it was sometimes ambiguous, and often complex. These results were
complicated by the range in views SlutWalk organizers themselves had with feminism. While
most of the 22 organizers I interviewed identified
as feminists well-before their involvement with
the movement, a number of others came to
“discover” feminism through their involvement.
For example, SlutWalk Toronto cofounder Heather Jarvis indicated that she has
identified as a feminist for “many years – at least
10” (2012, personal interview). Similarly, SlutWalk
Perth organizer Beth Castieau has long identified
as a feminist, and is someone who is “passionate
about feminist issues” (2012, personal interview).
Although Castieau says she has “always seen it
[SlutWalk] as part of the feminist movement,” she
recalled the “aha” moment when one a fellow organizer came to embrace this identity after organizing a local event. Jarvis recounted a similar experience with her co-founder Sonya Barnett:
In January 2011, Toronto Police Constable
Michael Sanguinetti addressed a small group of
York University students on campus safety. According to the student newspaper, he said: “I’m told I’m
not supposed to say this, but women should avoid
dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” (Kwan 2011). While his intentions might have
been to protect women, his comments that “slutty”
women attract sexual assault perpetuated the longstanding myth that victims are responsible for the
violence used against them. In response to PC Sanguinetti’s comments, a group of local women translated their concern into political activism. Three
months later, the first SlutWalk took place in Toronto, attended by thousands. Since 2011, SlutWalks
have taken place in more than 200 cities in 40 nations, mobilizing tens of thousands of women, men,
and children.
Because there has been an erasure of
(western) news coverage of feminist activism and
protest since the Second Wave (Mendes 2012), with
feminism frequently being labelled “dead” or
“redundant” (see Gill 2007; McRobbie 2009; Mendes
2011a), SlutWalk”s global reach and its ability to
generate international headlines provides an opportunity to assess how women’s collective activism has
been represented cross-nationally. As a result, this
research is interested specifically in the relationship
between SlutWalk and feminism in our supposedly
“postfeminist” era, when feminism is said to be a fait
accompli, dead, or redundant. This relationship is
examined through a qualitative content and critical
discourse analysis of 284 mainstream news articles
from eight nations that have organized SlutWalks
(Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, UK, and USA). All material was collected between 1 January 2011 and 31 December
2012 using the search terms “SlutWalk” and “Slut
walk” as a major mention. The results from the textual analysis were supplemented with insights from
semi-structured interviews with 22 SlutWalk organ-
Summer 2015
Sonya didn’t have the same experience as I had with women’s
studies, and she said she had a lot
of misconceptions about feminists
– as being angry, or living a life of
a certain aesthetic. When we
talked about it initially, she said
she wasn’t sure about if she identified as a feminist. I remember
saying that was OK, and that I’m
not going to tell you how to identify. However, in later conversations, she talked about how she
did come to identify with feminism through her participation.
(Jarvis 2012, personal interview)
So while most SlutWalk organizers were
(eventually) happy to identify as feminists, others,
particularly those from non-Western nations such
as Singapore and South Africa, were neither as
12
the total) mentioned feminism or the women’s movement, nevertheless labelling it as a feminist initiative.
Such omission raises questions such as, why was
feminism so rarely mentioned in news accounts of
SlutWalk? Can this be constituted as part of a general
erasure of feminism in popular culture? Is there a
perception that the two are not connected? Or alternatively, is it assumed SlutWalk is part of feminism,
and therefore this connection does not need to be
made explicit? A more qualitative reading of the texts
provides insights into these questions, as articles can
broadly be divided into three categories: those
which discuss feminism; those which make no reference to feminism; and those in which feminist rhetoric or analysis were used but which fail to make any
mention of feminism itself.
keen to embrace the label, nor to brand the movement as such. As SlutWalk Singapore organizer
Vanes said:
I personally have a very complicated
relationship
with
the
label
“feminist,” however, many of my
team members do identify with the
label…That said, we never once labelled the movement a feminist
movement, but we always agreed
that there are strong feminist aspects
to it. (Ho 2012, personal interview)
SlutWalk Singapore was not the only branch
to consciously not embrace the feminist label as part
of its marketing strategy. SlutWalk Johannesburg
organizer Karmilla Pillay-Siokos argued that a disassociation between SlutWalk and feminism was “a
good thing for our publicity” as “people tend to have
formed a stereotype about feminists and feminism
that could alienate people who would otherwise have
supported the cause”” (2013,
personal interview). Similarly,
despite identifying as a feminist, SlutWalk St. Louis organizer David Wraith acknowledged
a conscious decision not to
brand their walk as feminist for
risk of alienating it, noting that
the word feminist “has as much
baggage as the word
slut” (2013, personal interview).
Wraith added, “I know there
are a lot of people who won’t
support us because the word
slut is in the title and I think a
lot of people wouldn’t support
us if the word feminist in the title.” These responses
indicate that although feminist activism is certainly
not dead, there is still a long way to go, particularly
among the younger generation who attend SlutWalk,
before the “f-word” is reclaimed as a positive label.
From this limited study, this appears to be particularly true for those operating in non-Western contexts,
where feminism is likely to be negatively associated
with colonialism and imperialism from the West. As
a result, more research into this is needed.
A Relationship Exists
Out of 284 articles, only 88 (31 percent of total) made any reference to feminism or the wider
women’s movement. Of these articles several explicitly discussed SlutWalk in the
context of feminism. This is evident in headlines such as:
“New feminism or just a parade?” (2011, p. A26),
“SlutWalk: Is a woman’s body
the best way to get a feminist
point across?” (Rogers 2011),
“The new feminists: As slutty
as we want to be” (Valenti
2011), and “Toronto SlutWalk
sparks blogosphere feminism
debate” (Barmak 2011, p. IN2).
In addition to being linked, it
also became clear that some
articles constructed SlutWalk
and feminism as being mutually beneficial. For example, one article optimistically
identified SlutWalk as a potential route into feminism: “SlutWalks bring in different people who may
not be as exposed to feminist issues” (Chen 2012).
Because it was seen as “fun” and “fresh” (Midgley
2011, p. 33), SlutWalk was also constructed as more
accessible to the supposedly disengaged youth (see
Barnhurst 2003), being labelled “feminism for the
Facebook generation” (Bannerman 2011, pp. 32-33).
SlutWalk was also used as evidence of a resurgence
of feminism and a model for “what the future [of
feminism] could look like” (Valenti 2011, p. B01; see
also Barton 2011; Craig 2011; Gold 2011; Laucius
2011; Purves 2011; Watson 2012).
Although a handful of articles clearly connected SlutWalk and feminism, a number of others
highlighted ambivalence between the two. Canada’s
SlutWalk, Feminism and the News
Given that the relationship between SlutWalk
and feminism was ambiguous and complex among
SlutWalk organizers, it is of little surprise that this
held true with regards to the mainstream news. In
total, only 88 out of 284 news articles (or 31 percent of
13
Summer 2015
Research In Depth
that fashion was not necessarily a frivolous topic, and
was often used as an entry point into more serious
discussions about feminism, feminist issues, or feminist critiques. For example, in the column “Feminism
and fashion: the (other) two solitudes,” author Katrina Onstad (2011) spends nearly 1,000 words discussing the historically tense relationship between women’s appearance and women’s liberation. She relays
how suffragists and second-wave feminists discouraged women’s interest in fashion as a distraction
from their fight for equality. She also explains how a
focus on “natural beauty” (e.g. a rejection of makeup
and body-contorting clothing) has long been a radical
way of giving the “middle finger to conventional notions of femininity” (p. L14), and presumably patriarchy. Onstad rounds up the article by asking how
clothes might continue to be used as a political tool
for protest, or if fashion will always be another
means of upholding patriarchy.
Cognizant that SlutWalk raised questions
about women’s dress, another columnist lamented
the fact that “feminism is suddenly all about clothing” and worries that SlutWalk is being co-opted as
“just another way to chat about fashion” (Coren 2011,
p. 34). Conversely, others complained that “fighting
for the right to decide what to wear is not on the feminist agenda” (No Byline 2011e). Writing in The Times
of India, another columnist recalls a story about a local woman who was branded a “witch” when her
husband died because she refused to stop wearing
white as is custom. With regards to SlutWalk, the
author insists that the focus on fashion is justified
because by “never questioning that unwritten law of
dress codes, we actually endorsed the ‘I’m asking for
it’ line of thought” (“From bra-burning to brabranding” 2011).
Given the importance of consumption and
the reign of neoliberal ideologies in contemporary
culture, it is unsurprising that SlutWalk was used as
an entry point to discuss fashion, empowerment, and
choice. Although most of these articles within the
overall sample failed to discuss feminism (many
were simply focused on advantages and disadvantages of dressing like a “slut”), my analysis reveals that others used SlutWalk as an opportunity to
introduce feminist critiques to these issues. While
this section focused on articles in which feminism is
clearly visible, I will now explore articles in which
feminism has been ignored, erased and actively repudiated in regards to news of SlutWalk.
Globe and Mail described how a “trio of 20-something
women” attended the march, despite “not considering themselves political” (and therefore presumably
feminist) and never having attended a demonstration
before, none-the-less a “quasi-feminist uprising” (McArthur 2011). Similarly, the BBC quoted a
Slutwalk London organizer who acknowledged that:
“A lot of people are taking part [in SlutWalks] who
would not describe themselves as feminists, but they
are doing it” (Bell 2011). This last quote is particularly interesting and can be interpreted in two ways:
either that participants are unaware that SlutWalk is
part of a larger feminist movement, or that they have
decided to participate despite its feminist orientation.
Neither option is particularly appealing, as the former highlights young people’s ignorance of feminist
history (see Baumgardner & Richards 2000), while
the latter indicates their rejection of feminism (see
Jowett 2004; Scharff 2012; Zaslow 2009). The latter
explanation was evident in other articles, including
one commenting that SlutWalk was evidence that
women were “bending over backwards – in high
heels – not to look like feminists” (Petri 2011).
Feminism, Fashion and Empowerment
Because previous research has highlighted
the news media’s tendency to link feminism to such
“lifestyle” issues (Genz & Brabon 2009; Mendes
2012), it was of no surprise to find a range of articles
focusing on feminism, fashion, empowerment and
choice. This was evident in headlines such as:
“Feminism and Fashion: the (other) two solitudes” (Onstad 2011, p. L14), “Frocks are not a feminist issue: The fight for women’s rights is being waylaid by needless talk about what women
wear” (Coren 2011, p. 34), and “Feminists should
promote the right to be openly sexy” (McCartney
2011). Interestingly, however, while a handful of the
88 articles mentioning feminism solely constructed
SlutWalk as a means to demonstrate women’s empowerment – e.g. “no one has the right to tell me
how to dress” – most approached this relationship
from a more critical point of view. One columnist
from Canada’s Globe and Mail used fashion as a
means to reflect upon the challenge of raising a
daughter in a patriarchal society. While rejecting the
common myth that “slutty” clothing “provokes”
rape, she admitted perpetuating rape culture by advising her daughter to “cover up” and not to “leave
the house looking like a hooker” (Timson 2011, p.
L3). Such confessions demonstrate the difficulty even
feminists have in challenging rape myths in their
everyday lives.
Through these brief examples, it is fair to say
Summer 2015
Erasing Feminism
Evidence from the content analysis indicates
that most articles (196 or 69 percent) in this sample
14
made no explicit reference to feminism or the women’s movement. If drawing only data from the content analysis, the easy conclusion would be to assert
that feminism has indeed been erased from representations of SlutWalk. However, a more qualitative
analysis of the texts reveals the relationship is far
more complex. For example, as the next two sections
will show, the absence of the term “feminism” does
not necessarily mean feminist critiques or ideologies
are lacking. Similarly, I argue that erasure does not
happen merely by the absences of the term
“feminism,” but occurs when the news media actively attempt to construct it as dead, redundant or frivolous.
date” and that “The great causes which animated it
[feminism] have been won.” Such discourses are part
of the long-standing backlash to feminism which insists on feminism’s illegitimacy by claiming either
feminism’s goals have gone “too far” (and therefore
must be rejected), that they are “out of touch” or that
the public was better off before feminism (see Faludi
1991; Mendes 2011a, 2011b). I argue that such articles
are part of a general erasure of feminism, not because
they ignore it, but because they actively contribute to
its dismantling. Ironically, previous research has also
indicated that backlash discourses tend to emerge at
times of renewed feminist activism (see Mendes
2011b), suggesting that as long as SlutWalks continue, so too will discourses which attempt to erase their
potential.
While the above section presents a few examples of how feminism has actively been erased or
discredited, the next section will discuss instances
when feminist theory and rhetoric, if not the label
itself have been used, and raise questions about the
extent to which feminist thought has been slowly
appropriated into public consciousness.
Backlash
Backlash discourses are a particular type of
anti-feminist discourse which suggests that feminism
is redundant, unnecessary, and often harmful either
because its goals have been achieved, or because it
has gone too far (see Faludi 1991; Mendes 2011a).
Because backlash discourses feign support for feminism, while all the while undermining it, they are
particularly ideologically dangerous (see Mendes
2011b). In this particular
study, SlutWalk was often
used as evidence of feminism’s frivolity and redundancy. Although such discourses tended to be found in
my more conservative publications, they were scattered
throughout the sample. For
example the religious and
conservative Washington
Times ran a column titled
“SlutWalking our way to Gomorrah” (Shaw Crouse 2011,
p. B1), making reference to
the biblical city which God
burnt to the ground because its inhabitants were consumed with vice and sin. This column not only suggests that SlutWalk is headed down a dangerous
path, but insists that SlutWalkers are merely
“publicity-starved feminists” who persistently used
“in your face” tactics to harp on and on about
“women’s rights” – which, presumably, have already
been won. The author also wrote SlutWalk off as evidence of how “outrageous and passé the [feminist]
movement has become” (p. B1). In a similar vein,
Britain’s conservative The Daily Mail had one headline reading: “These ‘SlutWalks’ now prove feminism
is irrelevant to most women’s lives” (Phillips 2011),
noting that feminism is now well past its “sell-by
A More Ambiguous Relationship
Although not quantified in the content analysis, I
noticed through qualitative
reading of the texts that, while
ignoring the feminist label, a
series of articles did indeed
employ feminist language and
concepts. For example, several
articles discussed how SlutWalk brought issues of sexual
violence into the public arena
or sphere (Chemaly 2011;
Hichens 2011). Since at least
the 1960s, feminists have
played an influential role in
calling for personal, private issues such as sexual assault, to be renamed as public political questions (see
Jaggar 1983; Petchesky 1981). In doing so, feminists
have encouraged society to question the supposedly
“natural” and inherently gendered division between
these spheres. Although neither of the news texts
above discuss feminism or the women’s movement,
both use a range of other feminist terminology and
rhetoric. For example, in the article “SlutWalk brings
sexual violence squarely in the public arena,” author
Joanne Hichens (2011) draws from feminist theory
which dismisses claims that rape is a crime of passion or sex, and instead argues it is about power,
domination and control (see Brownmiller 1975; hooks
15
Summer 2015
1982, 2000; Jaggar 1983; Rozee 1999). This reconceptualization of the nature of rape has been a
key feminist argument since at least the 1960s, and is
one of SlutWalk”s key goals (Jarvis 2012). Other familiar feminist arguments were found in Soraya Chemaly’s column titled “Why you should bring your
teenager on SlutWalk” (2011):
feminist language or concepts (even if there was no
mention of feminism itself), the link between feminism and SlutWalk was more ambiguous in a number of other articles. For example, some headlines
constructed SlutWalk as part of a “fight for women’s
rights,” but made no further connection to the women’s movement or other feminist ideology. Surprisingly, only a handful of articles made any direct connection between SlutWalk and the larger anti-rape
movement or demonstrations (such as Reclaim the
Night/Take Back the Night), which have existed
since the 1960s and 70s in places such as the US, Canada, Australia, India, Belgium, Italy, Germany and
the UK (see Cuervo 2011; Hope 2011; Horin 2011;
Szego 2011; Tanenbaum 2011). As scholars have argued, having a historic understanding of women’s
quest for equal rights and liberation is important and
might prevent feminists from having to “reinvent the
wheel every 50 years or so” (Baumgardner & Richards 2000, p. 68). It would also help situate movements such as SlutWalk into a broader feminist context and build upon the successes feminists have already made in challenging rape culture.
Although SlutWalk was not recognized as
part of a long-standing anti-rape movement, it was
regularly constructed as a contemporary global
movement. Such articles therefore do help create a
sense of collective activism – and represents a shift
away from the (neo)liberal feminist rhetoric of individual freedom and choices which have dominated
much of the (Western) news media of feminism in
recent years (see Gill & Scharff 2011; Mendes 2012;
Thornham & Weissmann 2013). Typical examples
include: “SLUTWALK, an international movement
rapidly gaining momentum worldwide after being
started earlier this year to object to a suggestion that
women could avoid sexual assault by not ‘dressing
like a slut,’ is coming to South Africa” (Mposo 2011,
p. 5). The global nature of the march was also evident in headlines such as: “SlutWalk goes global” (2011, p. A2), “SlutWalk sparks worldwide movement” (Church 2011, p. A6), and “New Delhi
“SlutWalk” brings global sexual violence protest
phenomenon to India” (2011). That SlutWalk was
seen as a global phenomenon provided it with credibility and a certain amount of newsworthiness, important for bourgeoning social movements, but historically rare for feminist activism. And while I argue that this global frame was useful in providing
the movement with credibility, and challenging the
idea that women cannot get along (Douglas 1994), it
is necessary to ask why it is not contextualized as
part of a global or historic feminist movement. Has
feminism simply been forgotten, or worse yet, does
this suggest it has deliberately been ignored?
This [SlutWalk] is not about teaching
people about the insidious damage
that pervasive gender bias, often internalized, causes every day. It isn’t
about the right to wear revealing
clothes or have frequent orgiastic
sex. SlutWalkers march for safe and
equal access to the public sphere
even if, god forbid, you’re born with
a vagina.
Although there is no mention of feminism or
the wider women’s movement here, Chemaly’s insistence that women should have safe and equal access to the public sphere has long been a feminist
goal, dating back to the first wave (Bryson 2003).
Other feminist discourses can also be found
throughout the sample. For example, a handful of
articles discussed the concept of patriarchy, noting
for example how the word “slut” is deeply rooted in
a patriarchal “madonna/whore view of women’s sexuality” (Dines & Murphy 2011, p. 25). Others relay
how SlutWalk demonstrates women’s collective resistance to “sexual assault, rape and the patriarchal
controlling attitudes towards them” (Schutte 2011, p.
9). Consciousness-raising (CR) and education about
rape culture and prevention were also highlighted as
key SlutWalk goals (see Clarke 2011). For example,
one article constructed SlutWalk as a movement
which refocuses the “spotlight on a culture that
makes acts of sexual violence against women not only commonplace but actually accepted” (Moodie
2011). Making people aware that supposedly
“individual” or “personal” problems such as sexual
violence are in fact collective, public issues, and having safe spaces to share personal experiences, has
long been a first step in paving the way for political
activism and women’s potential liberation (Jaggar
1983; Sarachild 1973). Despite the absence of the
word “feminism” or references to the women’s
movement, articles such as these indicate that feminist ideology has slowly become appropriated into
public consciousness and discourse (see also Durham
2013). Consequently, while the feminist label might
be missing, the foundation and message are clearly
liberating and challenge patriarchal power.
While a number of articles used explicitly
Summer 2015
16
Conclusion
Coren, V. (2011) “Frocks are not a feminist issue: The fight for women’s rights is being waylaid by needless talk about what women
wear,” The Observer, 19 June, 34.
It is clear from this analysis that SlutWalk’s
relationship – and its mediated associations with
feminism -- is complex, particularly in regards to its
(in)visibility in the mainstream news. Although most
of the [Western] SlutWalk organizers interviewed
identified as feminist, and acknowledged the movement’s feminist roots, feminism or the wider women’s movement was only mentioned in one-third of
all mainstream news articles in this sample. As a result, I argue that there indeed has been a general
erasure of feminism from the mainstream news media both in terms of its sheer absence and lack of feminist critiques, but also through the ways many articles actively erased feminism’s utility through the
continual insistence that it is dead, redundant and
passé. These articles contribute to an overall backlash
towards feminism that has been ongoing for decades
(see Faludi 1991; Mendes 2011a). At the same time
however, there is evidence that feminist rhetoric has
at times seeped into public consciousness, even if not
identified as such. Several articles used explicitly
feminist analyses of patriarchy, the public sphere,
and the nature of rape without being linked to a wider feminist movement. Whether the omission of feminism was deliberate or not is hard to tell without interviewing each journalist, however, such articles
indicate that while feminism may perhaps be
“invisible,” its aims and theoretical understanding of
women’s oppression is certainly not irrelevant.
Craig, N. (2011) “A rally to find the slut in everyone,” Canberra
Times Online, 29 May, online.
Cuervo, I. (2011) “Toronto ‘SlutWalk’ spreads to US,” CBC, 6 May,
online.
Dines, G. & Murphy, W.J. (2011) “This is not liberation,” Guardian, 9
May, 25.
Durham, M.G. (2013) “’Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town’: The
politics of gender violence in The New York Times’ coverage of a
schoolgirl’s gang rape,” Journalism Studies, 14(1), 1-12.
Faludi, S. (1991) Backlash: The Undeclared War against Women
(New York: Crown).
Gill, R. (2007) Gender and the Media (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Genz. S. & Brabon, B.A. (2009) Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and
Theories (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).
Gold, T. (2011) “Marching with the SlutWalkers,” The Guardian
Online, 7 June, online.
Hichens, J. (2011) “SlutWalk brings issues of sexual violence squarely
into the public arena,” Cape Times, 29 August, 9.
Ho, V. (2012) Personal Interview, 6 December.
hooks, b. (1982) Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. London: Pluto.
hooks, b. (2000) Feminist theory: From margin to center (Cambridge,
MA: South End Press).
Hope, E. (2011) “Rally to counter sexual assault,” Hobart Mercury, 11
November, 15.
Horin, A. (2011) “SlutWalk turns apathy into action on sex attacks,”
Sydney Morning Herald, 13 June, online.
Jaggar, A.M. (1983) Feminist Politics and Human Nature (New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc).
Jarvis, H. (2012) Personal Interview, 7 December.
References
Jowett, M. (2004) ““I don’t see feminists as you see feminists’: Young
women negotiating feminism in contemporary Britain” in A. Harris
(ed.) All about the girl: culture, power and identity (New York:
Routledge), 91-102.
Bannerman, L. (2011) “I’m strong and proud, says 17 year old who
led the way for ‘sluts’“, The Times, 11 June, 32-33.
Barmak, S. (2011) “Toronto Slutwalk sparks blogosphere feminism
debate” Toronto Star, 9 April, p. IN2
Kwan, R. (2011) “Don’t dress like a slut: Toronto cop,” Excalibur, 8
February, http://www.excal.on.ca/dont-dress-like-a-slut-toronto-cop/,
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Barnhurst, K.G. (2003) “Subjective states: Narratives of citizenship
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Laucius, J. (2011) “Sensible shoes and a grey cardigan at SlutWalk,”
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Barton, L. (2011) “The view from a broad,” The Guardian Online,
13 June, online.
McArthur, G.(2011) “Women walk the talk after officer’s offending
‘slut’ remarks,” Globe and Mail Online, 4 April, online
Baumgardner, J. & Richards, A. (2000) Manifesta: young women,
feminism and the future (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux).
McCartney, R. (2011) “Feminists should promote the right to be
openly sexy,” Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August, online.
Bell, S. (2011) “SlutWalk London: ‘Yes means yes and no means
no’,” BBC Online, 11 June, online
McRobbie, A. (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture
and Social Change (London: Sage)
Bryson, V. (2003) Feminist Political Theory: An Introduction, 2nd
edn (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
Mendes, K. (2011a) Feminism in the News: Representations of the
Women’s Movement Since the 1960s (Basingstoke: Palgrave).
Casteiau, B. (2012) Personal Interview, 5 September.
Chemaly, S. (2011) “Why you should bring your teenager on Slutwalk,” Huffington Post (USA), 1 Oct., online.
Mendes, K. (2011b) “The lady is a closet feminist!: Discourses of backlash and postfeminism in British and American newspapers,” International Journal of Cultural Studies, 14(6), 1-17.
Chen, K. (2012) “150 join Ottawa’s SlutWalk to protest “victimblaming” attitudes,” Ottawa Citizen, 19 Aug., online.
Mendes, K. (2012) “’Feminism rules! Now, where’s my swimsuit?’
Re-evaluating Feminist Discourse in Print Media 1968-2008,” Media,
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Clarke, J. (2011) “Perth ‘sluts’ prepare to walk despite lack of support,” Canberra Times Online, 2 Dec., online.
Midgley, C. (2011) “Clothes don’t cause rape. Rapists cause rape:
17
Summer 2015
They aren’t fussy about what their victims wear,” The Times, 11
June, 33.
Briefly, from Page 5
Moodie, D. (2011) “Getting past the word ‘slut,’”, Huffington Post
(USA), 7 October, online.
bad voice—I have a relatively nondescript, mediumtoned voice—but because I had heard from countless
women in the radio and podcasting world that no
matter what you sound like, as long as you are a female speaking to a general-interest audience, you
will be told that you have an irritating voice. This is
doubly true if you work alongside a man. After all, a
woman is talking, so she must be doing something
wrong.” The problem is growing, Marcotte says:
“NPR also reported on the way that women always,
especially if they work in audio formats, are being
told the way they talk is all wrong—from upspeak,
where people lilt their voice for emphasis, to the
dreaded vocal fry, where people drop and rattle their
voice slightly for emphasis. You’ve heard it before:
Vocal fry is that thing where you drag your voice
down a little and creak it for emphasis. (Imagine a
young woman saying “sooooo cuuuute” with a little
growl and you got it.)” The reasons for this, and the
effect, are sinister, Marcotte says: “We like to think
these are all separate incidents, but they are part of a
larger pattern, a constant devaluing of women’s
worth.” Her important essay for The Daily Dot is
here: http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/vocal-fry-99percent-invisible-womens-voices/
Mposo, N. (2011) “SlutWalk is coming to SA,” Daily News, 6 June,
5.
“New Delhi ‘SlutWalk’ brings global sexual violence protest phenomenon to India” (2011) Huffington Post, 10 June, online.
“New feminism or just a parade?” (2011) Toronto Star, 12 May,
A26.
Onstad, K. (2011) “Feminism and Fashion: the (other) two solitudes,” Globe and Mail, 16 April, L14.
Petchesky, R. P. (1981) “Anti-Abortion, Anti-Feminism, and the Rise
of the New Right,” Feminist Studies 7(2), 206-246.
Petri, A. (2011) “Submissive Bachman versus the sluts,” The Washington Post, 12 August, online
Phillips, M. (2011) “These ‘SlutWalks’ prove feminism is now irrelevant to most women’s lives,” Daily Mail, 13 June, n.p.
Pillay-Siokos, K. (2013) SlutWalk Johannesburg 2013 Organizer,
Personal Interview, 25 May.
Purves, L. (2011) “Lay off the bitching, sisters! Just be nice,” The
Times, 13 June, p. 19.
Rogers, K. (2011) “SlutWalk: Is a woman’s body the best way to get
a feminist point across?” The Washington Post, 6 June, online
Rozee, P. (1999) “Stranger Rape” in M.A. Paludi (ed.) The Psychology of Sexual Victimization: A Handbook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press) 97-115.
Scharff, C. (2012) Repudiating Feminism: Young Women in a Neoliberal World (Farnham: Ashgate)
Sarachild, K. (1973) “Consciousness Raising: A Radical Weapon,”
Women’s Rights in New York City Conference, 12 March, New
York City [Online] Available at: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/
scriptorium/wlm/fem/sarachild.html (Accessed 14 March 2013).
Radio doesn’t get much respect as a medium, but it should, says Doug Schoen, writing in
Forbes. Recent Nielsen data shows radio actually has
the most reach among American media consumers.
93% of adults listen to the radio each week as compared to 87% who watch TV, a substantive difference. “Earlier this month, Amazon held its first global sale event called Amazon Prime Day. Afterwards,
Cumulus/Westwood One commissioned an IPSOS
study to determine how effective radio, TV and
online advertising were at driving purchases. The
results may surprise you as much as they surprised
me,” Schoen said. “Of those exposed to radio ads,
52% made a purchase. That compares with 48% of
people who saw ads online and 39% who saw TV
ads. (The online study surveyed 1,005 Americans
July 17 to July 20, 2015, via the IPSOS U.S. eNation
service.) The greatest Amazon Prime Day purchases
occurred among millennials, households with children and those with a full-time job – precisely the
profile of the American radio listener, according to
Cumulus/Westwood One.” Schoen attributes much
of this loyalty to radio to the American dependence
Schutte, G. (2011) “Stop telling women what to wear,” Cape Times,
29 August, 9
Shaw Crouse, J. (2011) “SlutWalking our way to Gomorrah,” Washington Times, 8 June, B1.
“SlutWalk goes global” (2011) Toronto Star, 27 April, A2.
Soames, G. (2008) “Funky, fun and feminist,”The Times, 21 December, 18-19.
Szego, J. (2011) “Hold off the hate mail, sisters, but Slutwalk fails to
light my fire,” Sydney Morning Herald, 28 May, online.
Tanenbaum, L. (2011) “Topless women at SlutWalk demand respect: Is this the right tactic?” Huffington Post (USA), 5 October,
online.
Timson, J. (2011) “Why SlutWalk raises hackles – and hopes,” The
Globe and Mail, 13 May, L3.
Valenti, J. (2011) “The new feminists: As slutty as we want to be,”
Washington Post, 5 June, B01.
Watson, A. (2012) “The SlutWalk Paradox,” The Ottawa Citizen 17
Aug., online
Wraith, D. (2013) SlutWalk St. Louis 2012 Organizer, Personal Interview, 28 April.
Zaslow, E. (2009) Feminism, Inc.: Coming of Age in a Girl Power
Media Culture (New York: Palgrave).
Summer 2015
18
on cars, but radio’s longevity as a medium is still
pretty impressive. His entire analysis is here: http://
www.forbes.com/sites/dougschoen/2015/07/28/radiothe-all-but-forgotten-medium-with-the-biggest-reach/
and Public Policy has published a snapshot of efforts
to contain online harassment of women and a summary of scholarship analyzing the problem and responses to it. The situation is more than a little
alarming, and is increasingly regarded as a threat to
women’s civil rights. “Forms of harassment can
vary widely, from name-calling and trolling to persistent stalking and shaming to outright sexual and
death threats,” the Shorenstein Center report says.
“To some degree, the problem is structural and
dates back to the Internet’s early days: The Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed operators of websites to avoid liability for what users post, although
the limits of this continue to be tested in the courts
and many aspects of the Communications Decency
Act provision are not entirely settled. But it remains
the case that the wide-open environment that enables creativity, innovation and vigorous debate
online paradoxically also enables derogatory, anonymous speech for which there is often little legal recourse.” This excellent research review is here:
http://bit.ly/1dZ2V6H
NPR Ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen has taken
issue with FAIR’s criticism of the diversity of NPR’s
stable of commentators. FAIR has complained that
NPR commentary is dominated by white males who
don’t directly address political issues. Jensen counts
commentary somewhat differently than FAIR does,
but the overall results don’t show NPR as a diversity champion. In fiscal year 2014, 71 percent of NPR's
sources were male, and 29 percent female. Broken
down by race and ethnicity, 77 percent were white, 8
percent black, 8 percent Asian, 5 percent Latino, and
2 percent all other races, Jensen says. NPR is in the
third year of a diversity study, The Sourcing Project,
due out at the end of 2015. Read Jensen’s explanation
of NPR’s diversity record and its efforts to improve it
at: http://www.npr.org/sections/
ombudsman/2015/07/22/425036794/diversity-andcommentary-at-npr?
utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&u
tm_content=20150723&utm_campaign=dailydigest&u
tm_term=nprnews
On July 27, 2015, in conjunction with the
new exhibit “Reporting Vietnam,” the Newseum
presented a special evening program featuring
women who covered the Vietnam War. Denby Fawcett, Jurate Kazickas, Edith Lederer and Laura Palmer shared their experiences as female journalists reporting from Vietnam. CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr moderated the program. It constitutes an outstanding oral history of women journalists on the front lines: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?
v=BCPPKiEGYnI&list=PLncglHqQIdkYbZRtkHL5lJ
Q5p9KYs5irL&index=6
Important conversations about the online
harassment female writers experience have increased, and we need to have more. Michelle Goldberg, writing in The Washington Post, offers a comprehensive, eloquent brief on why women with outstanding reputations as writers and thinkers are considering retirement because of the relentless, sexualized threats they receive from trolls. Her report is
here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/
online-feminists-increasingly-ask-are-the-psychiccosts-too-much-to-bear/2015/02/19/3dc4ca6c-b7dd11e4-a200-c008a01a6692_story.html
Marlene Sanders, the distinguished reporter for ABC and CBS who covered the important
stories of her time and became a journalism educator as well, died in July at the age of 84. A nononsense, consummate professional, her career
ranged from gritty Vietnam reporting to hosting a
daytime program for women to being vice president
for documentaries at ABC. She was an advocate for
and supporter of women in journalism, authoring
the important book, Waiting for Prime Time: The
Women of Television News, with Marcia Rock. An
affectionate look at her remarkable life is here: http://
www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/style/marlenesanders-a-force-in-tv-journalism.html?_r=1
Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly experienced immediate, ugly feedback following the GOP
debate hosted by Fox August 6. Internet users inspired by Donald Trump’s misogynist comments to
Kelly in response to her question about his record
of disparaging women let loose with the kind of
vitriol reserved for women. An analysis of the comments, and examples of some of them, is here: http://
www.vox.com/2015/8/8/9120545/donald-trumpmegyn-kelly-sexist
The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics
19
Summer 2015
nalism field after the 1970s, women who did so
sometimes experienced the same threats and incidence of violence against themselves that they reported on in the field – and that their male colleagues
had experienced historically. However, only recently
have the various “watch groups” that track dangers
to journalists begun to aggregate data by gender, or
to examine more specifically what kinds of violence
women experience.
Feminist organizations have helped to fill
this gap. A 2014 Study by the International Women’s
Media Foundation and the International News Safety
Institute surveyed 977 women across regions of the
world, ranging in age from 18 to over 75, with the
majority between 25 and 44. Findings demonstrate
the great extent to which women have entered the
field as a result of modern women’s liberation. The
report also reveals the kind of abuse they encounter
in their work.
Among the study’s respondents, two-thirds
said they had experienced acts of intimidation,
threats and abuse in the course of their work, with
the majority being “abuse of power or authority” by
their own bosses. This single finding is shocking, as
it suggests the extent to which some male editors and
other authorities prey on their female subordinates.
This finding made me reflect on my own experiences
as a young journalist in the 1960s and 1970s when, in
one instance, a male publisher pushed me against a
filing cabinet wanting sex after other employees had
gone home; in other instances, several male sources
made unwanted advances. I never mentioned these
events until years later, after women began to talk
about sexual harassment in the workplace.
Nearly half of the IWMF survey respondents
said they had been sexually harassed in their workplaces by male bosses and co-workers. Less than a
fifth of these said they reported the incidents.
Respondents also said they encounter abuse
from police and other officials. More than a fifth of
the study’s respondents had experienced physical
violence as retaliation for their reporting, and half
said they experienced assaults in streets and other
public places where they were reporting.
A fifth said they experienced online violence,
from having their digital accounts hacked and their
work stolen, to being stalked and threatened.
Among the respondents to this survey, less
than a third said their organizations have policies or
other safeguards to protect women, and even fewer
said their organizations do anything to provide training or preparedness or to respond when women are
harmed. Small wonder, then, that most do not bother to report the abuse they experience on the job.
All women who enter the majority male
world of journalism face a range of threats as these
Violence and the Women Who Cover It
By Carolyn M. Byerly
Carolyn M. Byerly, PhD, is professor and chair, Department of Communication, Culture & Media Studies, Howard University. She worked in journalism and government
public relations before pursuing an academic career. She
researches gender and race issues in media, communications policy, and media and social movements.
The danger that women journalists face
when reporting on men’s violence – particularly violence against women – came strongly to my consciousness in 1978, while I was working as a volunteer at a rape crisis center in Washington State. In
that year, Carolyn Craven, a black female investigative reporter for a local television station in Berkeley,
California, had been reporting on the serial rapes by
a man dubbed “Stinky.” One night, Craven, who
lived alone, was raped by the very man she had been
reporting on when he broke into her home. “Stinky,”
so called because his victims said he smelled of gasoline and cigarettes, had been assaulting women living alone in the area for more than five years.
A few nights after Craven’s assault, she reported on her own rape during the evening news
and later wrote about her assault in Ebony magazine.
Craven’s courageous journalism offers us two lessons: Reporting on rape creates a better informed
public, and it is dangerous business for women journalists to report on men’s violence.
By raping the reporter, “Stinky” had tried to
silence the messenger. But he did not. The messenger – in this case Carolyn Craven – had been compelled to make “the personal” both political and professional in her role as a journalist.
Women journalists inhabit unpredictable
terrain when working in conflict areas. Arab women
journalists reporting the political uprisings in their
nations that began in 2010 were routinely harassed
and assaulted. Familiar to western audiences was
the 2011 on-camera rape of journalist Lara Logan, a
reporter for the US network CBS, as she covered
crowd violence in Egypt. Logan, twice hospitalized
for injuries she sustained during that brutal public
attack gave extensive interviews about her experiences following her recovery. British journalist Natasha
Smith, also brutally sexually assaulted in Cairo’s
Tahrir Square as thousands watched, blogged about
the assault and spoke on television.
Women journalists have helped to break the
silence on violence against women the world over.
Their stories have helped to bring these private experiences into the public light. As feminist movements
expanded opportunities for women to enter the jour-
Summer 2015
20
data show. However, the deeper reality is that
women who direct their reporting specifically to
men’s violence – whether it is interpersonal violence like rape or battering, structural violence like
official corruption or societal violence like war –
are vulnerable to retaliation.
In recognition of the dangers faced by
women journalists around the world, the International Journalists’ Federation, on International
Women’s Day, March 8, 2015, called for an end to
violence against women journalists (IFJ Launches,
2013). Mindy Ran, a European-based feminist
journalist, who co-chairs the Gender Council for
the International Federation of Journalists, reminds
us of the ultimate price that women journalists
have paid over the last decade. A few examples,
drawn from news reports in the previous decade,
suffice:
— Marlene Garcia-Esperat, who received
threats to her life because of her exposés on corruption in the Philippines, was killed in 2005 by a
man who walked into her home and shot her in
the head while her family watched. She was 45.
— Elina Ersenoeva, who reported for a
weekly Chechen newspaper, was abducted and
murdered in Grozny in the summer of 2006. A few
months Russian journalist and human rights’ activist Anna Politkovskaya was ambushed and
killed by gunmen in her apartment building as she
got off an elevator with her arms full of groceries.
Both women had reported on atrocities by Russians in Chechnya.
— Uma Singh, a campaigner against illegal
land seizures and caste and gender discrimination,
was stabbed repeatedly in her home in Nepal in
2009 by 15 men who shouted, “This is for writing
too much.”
— Maria Len Flores Somera was shot dead
in 2011 in an ambush near her home in Manila as
she walked to the bus stop. A popular radio talk
show host, she had aired public complaints about
government incompetence and corruption.
— Horriyo Abdulkadir, 20, a radio journalist in Somalia, was shot at point-blank range in
2011 by gunmen as she returned home from work;
they left a note saying “she talked too much.”
— Print journalists Marcela Yarce Viveros
and Rocío González Trápaga were found strangled, naked, with hands and feet bound, in Mexico, in 2011, after their investigative magazine Contralinea reported on several cases of corruption.
—The decapitated body of 39-year-old
Mexican newspaper editor María Elizabeth Macías
Castro was discovered by police in northern Mexico in 2011 with her headphones and keyboard next
to her head. A note said she had been killed for
writing about criminal activities on social media websites.
— German war correspondent and photojournalist Anja Niedringhaus and Canadian journalist Kathy Gannon were shot in their car in 2014 in
Afghanistan by men posing as police officers; Gannon survived two bullets, Niedringhaus died. They
were traveling with a convoy of election workers delivering ballots to an outlying area of Khost when
ambushed. Both were veteran reporters who had
worked extensively in the region.
Ran said that most of these deaths have never been investigated or the killers brought to justice.
About eight deaths of women journalists are presently reported each year, but most still go unreported, so
the actual number is much higher. The group Reporters without Borders believes that women could
number as many as 13% of all journalists murdered.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, which has
tracked violence against journalists since 1992, reports that women accounted for 7% of the deaths in
the line of duty in that time, but CPJ, like other journalist rights organizations, has not always segregated
its data by gender, so this is certain to be low.
Feminist journalism organizations like CIMAC – Communication and Information on Women
– in Mexico are responding to the heightened violence against women journalists. CIMAC started 26
years ago as a feminist news agency, specializing in
journalism with a gender perspective. While reporting remains its primary work, this non-profit agency
has of necessity had to advocate for its own journalists, who cover the stories that many other reporters
in the country ignore in any depth. As CIMAC’s reporters began to step up their reports on the murders
of young Mexican women along the northern Mexican border in 2010, as well as on other forms of violence associated with drug trafficking and corruption
by Mexican police and politicians, violence against
their own and other women journalists spiked dramatically. The organization documented 13 cases of
acts of violence against female reporters in 2010, 39
cases in 2011, and 47 in 2013.
Mexico may be the most dangerous country
in the world today in which to practice journalism,
but these figures show a dramatic contrast between
male journalists, who experienced a 276% rise in targeted violence, compared to 2,200% rise of violence
targeted against women journalists over the past five
years. “Violence” has included threats, sexual harassment and sexual assaults, other physical assaults,
theft of records and files at their media workplaces,
retaliation for reporting these problems in the form of
worsening work conditions, and torture and murder.
When women journalists report these crimes to police, they are ignored and the cases rarely investigat21
Summer 2015
ed. Police routinely refuse to protect journalists in
the line of duty, they say.
In 2008, CIMAC offices in Mexico City were
broken into and vandalized, with most of the staff’s
computer equipment and archives stolen. The agency’s stories at the time had included the sexual abuse
of young girls by police, rapes of indigenous women
by soldiers, and the harassment of celebrated journalist Lydia Cacho, who was investigating pedophilia
rings. Such harassment of the agency’s offices and
journalists has persisted in one form or another over
the years. Since 2014, one young CIMAC journalist
named Luisa was stalked on the Internet and began
receiving very specific death threats after posting a
series of commentaries on gender and sexuality. She
had to take down all of her blogsites, Facebook page
and other online presences and has essentially retreated while she plans how to navigate the dangers
she faces. In a recent forum in Mexico City where I
was also a speaker, Luisa shared the impact of these
threats on her and vowed to continue writing.
The Poynter Institute, which advocates freedom of expression through journalism, calls crimes
of sexual violence among the most underreported
crimes in society. Poynter observes that the problem
of invisibility is compounded when the media either
fail to report on the known incidence or perpetuate
stereotypes and cultural myths about sexually violent
crimes, or fail to provide adequate gender analysis of
their causes and consequences.
Add to these problems the fact that media
organizations may also silence women journalists by
interfering with the reporting of sexual violence
through harassment or otherwise inhibiting their investigations, as well as having no policies in place to
protect their safety or professional practice. Let us
not forget that the male-dominated profession also
has other tools to control women and force them out,
such as lower pay, glass ceilings that thwart advancement, and denial of meaningful news assignments.
As a result, some women leave the profession, others
stay and try to navigate the best they can – which
may include self-censorship – and some die from
their determination to keep reporting the frontline
stories of men’s violence, as we have noted above.
In terms of remedies, let us first consider the
importance of organized campaigns to address the
safety and rights of women journalists when they
cover violence. Trade unions are important to women because they can pressure employers to improve
working conditions, to adopt worker safeguards, and
to address and punish workplace abuse of women
journalists. Two European-based unions, the International Federal of Journalists and the International
Labor Organization, have externalized their support
for journalists by running a high profile, international
Summer 2015
campaign on Ending Impunity against Violence
Against Journalists, urging authorities to investigate
the killing of journalists and to bring those responsible to justice. International bodies are also important.
Lobbying by IFJ and ILO (and other groups)
was instrumental in the UN Security Council’s
adoption of Resolution 2222, calling on governments
to safeguard journalists covering armed conflicts, in
May 2015. International journalism watch groups
like Reporters Without Borders and the Committee
to Protect Journalists, which document and publish
annual reports on journalists’ safety, violence, and
death, play a major informational role that complements action campaigns.
Feminist advocacy organizations like the
International Women’s Media Foundation help
bring the problems to light, sponsor new research,
advocate for women journalists, and honor those
whose reporting shows unusual courage.
We feminist scholars can give more attention to the dangers of women journalists’ lives in
our own work, bringing their personal accounts to
greater visibility, and critically examining the resistance that media organizations and governments
show in addressing problems faced by women journalists who cover men’s violence. Whether that violence be sexual violence, structural violence, or
broader conflicts like war, women’s role on the front
lines of reporting is a matter of gender equality
within the profession. On a broader though less
visible level, women’s reporting has been found to
bring the hidden dimensions of female reality to
light and therefore to give women a voice and a
more forceful presence in the social and political
realms that some scholars call the public sphere.
Feminist media researcher Margaret Gallagher (2012) has pointed out that gender-based censorship, such as that which occurs within the news
media and results in women’s relative invisibility
and silence, obscures the reality of women’s lives.
She points to reports by Amnesty International,
which has described women as living in “double
jeopardy” – likely to be discriminated against because they are women and then to become the victims of human rights violations. Women journalists
stand squarely in this same problematic space, of
course, but by virtue of their professional roles, they
are also potentially leaders toward solution. Women’s right to communicate is assured under Article
19 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, adopted
by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.
The role of women journalists then must be first understood as key to women’s right to communicate
about men’s violence and all other things in women’s interests.
22
time, the fear that existed during the Cuban missile
crisis, and the impact of the assassination of JFK.
What we don’t see is the development of
these seven women as full human beings.
“Astronaut Wives Club” doesn’t present developed and complex women. They are onedimensional and vapid. In Episode 1 we are teased
with feminist chatter from Rene Carpenter when she
says “It’s our time.” In Episode 5, we are teased
when a copy of “The Feminine Mystique” scrolls by
the screen but we never see the issues of the feminist
movement presented more than superficially. We
never really understand the discontent of these women with their lives. It is hard to keep track of who is
married to whom. Hinted-at flaws and secrets are
never fully examined or explained.
With each episode viewers expect to obtain a
better understanding of the First Ladies of Space.
Instead we see sophomoric, meaningless indiscretions, such as Louise Shepard throwing away a meatloaf cupcake and getting caught by Max. We are told
there’s competition between the Mercury 7 women
and the Gemini 9 women. Are we supposed to be
shocked when Jo Schirra and Betty Grissom visit a
Gemini wife only because she has air conditioning on
a hot day in Houston? The promised real story is
glamorized, superficial and mostly absent.
In Episode 2, when Duncan Porter quashes a
story that would reveal Marge Slayton is divorced
and lived in Japan as a single woman, it appears
viewers will learn more. Yet we are never privy to
any details.
There are some interesting scenes with President Johnson at a picnic in Episode 4 and Rene Carpenter’s starting a career in journalism in Episode 5.
Rene’s story has potential as a vehicle to tell the story
of women struggling to enter male-dominated workplaces in the ‘60s, but it is too underdeveloped to depict any real fight for equality. The short storyline of
the “First Lady Astronaut Training” (FLAT) initiative
is interesting, but we never have time to get involved
in the struggle. For all these reasons, it’s hard for
viewers to become invested in these characters.
The series feels more like a well-produced
journal with little context or motivations of the characters revealed. We get the “Who, What, When and
Where” of their stories. We don’t get the “Why.”
“Astronaut Wives Club” had great promise
and potential to be a strong female starring and female-driven program. After five episodes, it is clear
that Louise Shepard is no Betty Draper, Rene Carpenter is no Joan Holloway, and Trudy Cooper is no Peggy Olsen.
Maybe the Fall premiere of “Supergirl” will
live up to its hype!
Astronaut Wives Club, from Page 24
Shepard (Dominique McElligott), Betty Grissom
(JoAnna Garcia Swisher), Rene Carpenter
(Yvonne Strahovski), Trudy Cooper (Odette Annable), Marge Slayton (Erin Cummings), and Jo
Schirra (Zoe Boyle).
Four million viewers tuned in and ratings have gone up and down, but the show has
drawn a steady audience. Critics, however, have
not been kind.
New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley
(June 16, 2015) wrote, “The series purports to tell
the real story behind the Project Mercury publicity machine, but it is too enamored of the early
‘60s aesthetic that it can’t resist adding its own
flawless, cameo-faced gloss to its heroines.” She
continued, “The creators of ‘The Astronaut
Wives Club’ may have wanted to avoid belittling
their heroines … but they did them a disservice
by sugarcoating them almost as much as NASA
did some 50 years ago.”
USA Today television writer Robert Bianco described the period series as “totally inauthentic.” (June 18, 2015)
Episode 1, 1961: The women’s movement is in its infancy. Betty Friedan is writing
her landmark book, The Feminine Mystique, and
Ms. Magazine is 10 years away from the newsstands. The show promises to focus on the
wives’ stories, but the scripts haven’t delivered.
I wanted to see the stereotypes of perfect women, in perfectly coordinated outfits and perfectly
coiffed hairdos, dispelled for the era. Instead,
viewers saw the stereotypes of women perpetuated. I wanted to see feminism depicted and
discovered by these women. It wasn’t.
On “Mad Men,” Betty Draper showed us
the flaws and the reality of the perfect housewife
myth. “Astronaut Wives’ Club” shows us the
perfect housewife did exist and not just on TV.
We get some insight into the pressures
these women faced to be perfect. NASA PR specialist Duncan Porter, played by Evan Handler,
and LIFE magazine writer Max Kaplan, played
by Luke Kirby, are charged with projecting the
perfect image for the women. They give the
viewer an inside look at the relationship between
the media and the space program.
The use of NASA news footage and
news reports from the era give the episodes context and relevance. The hair, make-up, and home
décor are all authentic Sixties. We are reminded
of the importance of the space program at that
23
Summer 2015
ABC Summer Series “Astronaut Wives Club”
Not Enough of the Right Stuff
By Tina Pieraccini
Cristina Pieraccini is Professor Emeritus, State University of New York, Oswego. She specializes in research related to women and minorities in the media. She is author of the book Pink Television: Sixty Years of Women on
Prime Time Television (2010) and co-author of Color Television: Sixty Years of African American and Latino Images on Prime Time Television with Douglass Alligood, BBDO New York. (2005, 2009).
On June 16, 2015, viewers were introduced to a new ABC series, the “Astronaut Wives Club.”
Based on Lily Koppel’s book, it looked like a promising summer series about gender identity and the
‘60s second wave of feminism in America, seen through the real stories of the “First Ladies of Space.”
ABC promoted the premiere, saying, “When NASA chooses seven men to be the first Americans
in space, their wives become American royalty.” The first five episodes take us from Cape Canaveral to
Houston following the events around the space missions of Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn
and Gordon Cooper. But it wasn’t about the Project Mercury men, ABC promos promised; it was about
their wives’ secrets and flaws.
I tuned into “Astronaut Wives Club” to fill the void of ‘60s nostalgia left by “Mad Men.” It didn’t. I’d hoped Episode 1, titled “The Launch,” would show seven strong female leads on prime time network television. I couldn’t tell them apart from each other. I tuned in to see the result of a strong, behind-the-scenes, female-driven program. It disappointed. The potential for this limited series on ABC
was great. It failed.
We meet the seven women in Episode 1. They include Annie Glenn (Azure Parsons), Louise
Astronaut Wives Club, Page 23
Vol. 43, No. 3, Summer 2015
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Colton’s Point, MD 20626
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Media Report to Women – Summer 2015

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