Feministe Feedback: How to cover feminist issues in the media

15 thoughts on Feministe Feedback: How to cover feminist issues in the media

1. Sounds like a great internship – obviously there is no shortage of material to work with!

   I think one of the things that peeves me most about the way that the mainstream media covers feminism is it’s insistence that feminism is a monolithic movement that can be understood solely by looking at the positions of the biggest feminist organizations — basically that all feminists feel the same way about everything, and that institutional feminism speaks for everyone all the time. One of the things I love about feminism is that there is no one “feminism” — there are many “feminisms,” which largely agree on some basic principles but which can come at issues in a variety of ways. This also ties into a lack of coverage of intersectionality; I wish there was more discussion the ways that many feminists are trying to right the movement’s past mistakes and include previously marginalized voices. I think many in the media want so badly to see feminism “declared dead,” that they refuse to look at the ways that feminism is evolving and tackling issues differently in order to adapt to this supposedly “post-feminist” world.

2. I’d like to have them stop being defined as “women’s issues” instead of just “issues that are important to everyone”.

   Childcare is important to everyone. It’s is not a “lifestyle” section thing.
   Abuse of women is important to everyone. It’s not a “style” section thing.
   Birth control and access to it is an issue for everyone.

   I’d also like to start seeing more publications make a point of not centering their reporting on these issues around white, straight, able-bodied women. Women of Colour are not a Special Interest anymore than “women” are. I’d like to see things that aren’t “Look at our Black Issue!” but that have Women of Colour included as these important issues.

   I don’t have a real idea on how difficult it is to do this sort of job, so forgive me please if I’m expecting a lot. But I’d really like to see the media make an effort to reach out to the less-often-featured, and do it as a matter of course, not as something special we’re doing just right now. (Women with disabilities also have childcare issues and are often victims of crime and abuse and have problems getting birth control, too.)

   I really don’t know how much can be done, but if someone gave me the Magical Power to Make Everything Better, that’s where I’d start.

3. As Anna and Caro say, I’d love to see a broadening what is seen as constituting “women’s issues” to include women of color, queer women, transwomen, poor women, women in other countries, disabled women. I’d also like to see a move away from marginalizing issues as “women’s issues” (which is often codespeak for “less important issues that don’t matter to us”).

   Overall, I like male-dominated progressive spots like HuffPo, kos, TPM, etc. despite their frequent misogyny, but how many times must I hear about abortion as if it’s the end all of feminist issues? What about men’s violence against women? Forced sterilization? Maternal and paternal leave? Media representations of women? Abuses of immigrant women?

   Oh, also, I wish they’d stop picking some random spokesperson to represent all of feminism–virtually always someone white, rich, established, blah blah blah. I wish that just once, women from organizations representing something other than the most privileged voices in feminism would be interviewed.

4. Second and third what Anna and Ashley say—I think it is really important to look at these issues in an intersectional manner, not just a wealthy-white-woman manner. Also, I think it is good to reframe the issues as human issues, not just women’s issues. Even if something mostly affects women, if you can draw parallels to things in men’s lives, you open up discussion.

5. Reproductive Health Reality Check blog is a great model for talking about reproductive health within an inclusive, progressive, feminist framework.

6. P.S. My respect tripled for RH Reality Check with the following posts. (Search their site, I am too lazy to do it myself. sorry.)

   -when they did a story of the pregnant F2M and mainly how fucked up the media coverage of it was and why. Great information on trans-men. And incredible depth of understanding of the same and insightful. Even on other progressive sites.

   -post about the differences between sex trafficking and sex work. I would love to see this discussion on Feministe, by the way. I have been thinking about blogging about it too. Hmm.

   Personally, I love how they take extremely complicated and nuanced discussions and simplify it with informed and insightful writing. Informed, being the key word.

7. “How would you like to see these issues covered? What issues aren’t being covered enough?”

   Once again we see the media issue attacked from the wrong and losing angle. The question should be “How do we frame feminist issues so that the reports boost ratings and the media companies can hike ad rates?” This is not cynicism.

   CNN or FoxNews, regardless, their reporting breaks down into hard news, financial analysis, or tabloid journalism (which includes so-called political analysis). Since hard news leaves little airtime for tangential doctrine (because hard news rarely rates more than five minutes every half hour) and tabloid journalism is a bad match for feminism for obvious reasons, that leaves financial analysis, and if a writer cannot find ways to tie feminism to finance and insert doctrine, then that writer is not a writer.

   Unfortunately, such an endeavor runs the risk of looking like Oprah or The View once the producers and execs get done with it.

8. I dont know if this is what you are refering too but when I teach sociology I encourage my students to not only listen carefully to how the media presents things but also to the order they present them. It’s pretty common for WOC to have their stories buried way in the back of the newspaper in areas that never catch people’s eyes and other such things.

9. in the interest of covering issues that are for everyone, if youre blogging/reporting under a womens issues of any kind id really like to see balanced and unbiased reporting of any stats or research you choose to use. So many numbers and citations just get recycled year after year with little attention paid to how they have actually changed. Challenge assumptions, both of the mainstream and of the progressives/liberals/feminists (not sure which label to choose).

10. The points made above are great. As a journalist, I’d like to just say that you should just be fair. Avoid using biased sound-bite language. I think that’s where journalists get hung up is; let’s say you interview someone from NARAL and then someone from Concerned Women of America (blech). The rep from CWA will say a phrase or word something a certain way and *bam* you subconsciously use it… well, not necessarily you, but any reporter. I see this all the time, and a lot of biased reporting is all in the little things: the words; the phrasing, the structure of an article; what goes in the lede and what gets buried in the kicker. Just be fair.

11. I agree with everything everyone has said so far, particularly Michelle. Quite often a lot of assumptions get incorporated without the journalist even realising (or the sub editor will change the gender of an “industry spokesperson” because of an underlying gender assumption depending on what industry we’re referring to). It is frustrating.

    Also in terms of reflecting the various aspects of feminism – the spectrum so to speak – as a journalist that is incredibly difficult. In a 30 centimetre lead you’ve usually only got room for two people to comment and the background to give it context. That generally means you only get a for/against argument rather than having the opportunity to delve into the subarguments of either of those or investigate the shades of grey in between.

    Probably specialist political publications have more opportunity but mainstream media is a blunt instrument in that respect. I wish we could do better but the assumption the news industry makes is that the reader/viewer has no background knowledge or political science degree – you’re working with broad strokes, not finer detail.

12. The only thing I have to add is that so often pieces dealing with feminism adopt a tone that suggests that its agenda or claims are somehow shrill, unreasonable, or false–i.e., all the criticisms that women are met with when they demand equal or even decent treatment (depending). I would really like to see that be avoided.

13. I second the domestic violence thing. Whenever I see the statistics they are absolutely staggering.

    To me, the main problem with feminism/”women’s issues” as reported in the traditional media is that it approaches it from the perspective of legal rights. Like, “You bitches can work and vote-what more do you want?” Or, “Those bitches can work and vote-but they still make less money/prioritize their families/fulfill my stereotypes of their behavior.” To me the important work that needs to be done involves creating a culture of support rather than a culture of harassment. That means more/cheaper/better child care, cheaper/easier birth control, more flexible hours and parent’s leave for men and women, etc. But it also means addressing domestic violence and harassment both in the workplace and by strangers.

14. Wow, Sonia, thanks for the compliment!

    Specifically on framing abortion and RH issues — one thing we are always trying to do at RH Reality Check (and always trying to do better, so please leave your comments and feedback) is emphasize that the common sense, scientifically-sound, public health-based way to reduce instances of abortion (which is what the anti-choicers say they want) is to embrace and support access to the comprehensive spectrum of women’s reproductive health care services, including contraception and sexuality education, and to respect women’s reproductive autonomy and self-determination. Often the MSM makes it seem like no one’s in the middle, promoting prevention strategies. As a matter of fact, pro-choice groups back prevention strategies that work because they also expand women’s reproductive options. They want to keep abortion legal both because a woman’s right to bodily integrity should guarantee abortion access and because outlawing abortion has nothing to do with its frequency, only its safety.

15. Check out WIMN’s Voices blog. All sorts of commentators about women and media. Owner, and director of the non-profit: Jen Pozner. If you have a chance to meet her, do so.

    http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog/

    As with all journalism, it helps to get a concrete instance of how a person is affected. And avoid picking the obvious stereotype.

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