It’s almost National Women’s History Month!
Yes, March. We share it with several other notable causes: Irish American Month, Music in Our Schools Month, National Craft Month, Red Cross Month and Social Workers Month.
Perhaps most importantly, March is also National Peanut Month and National Frozen Food Month, giving women full license to celebrate our month by indulging in peanut butter cup ice cream for 31 days.
Aww, nuts - March is also National Nutrition Month. Never mind.
Besides, is there really that much for women celebrate? Not if you examine the dismal “The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2014” study recently released by the Women’s Media Center (WMC) - a group that bills itself as a “progressive, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that is raising the visibility, viability and decision-making power of women in media.” Co-founders include Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem, who have never been accused of being nonpolitical.
Feel free to analyze the whole 66-page report of stats and graphs about women’s place (or lack of) in TV, news, movies and social media at tinyurl.com/kez7hbl for yourself.
It does address some strides made (like Shonda Rhimes “breaking barriers in prime-time TV” and Jill Abramson “helming the globally influential The New York Times,” for example). “Yet, as we compiled the findings in this third annual report … we couldn’t avoid reaching the same concerning conclusion: The American media have exceedingly more distance to travel on the road to gender-blind parity,” writes WMC president Julie Burton.
Some findings that jumped out at us:
Men were quoted 3.4 times more often than women in New York Times Page 1 stories during a three-month period in 2013.
On the plus side, perhaps women were warring/in trouble/ indicted/extradited less?
The above male voice domination rate “was not as high when women wrote the story.” But high is the chance a male would write the story; newsrooms are only about 36 percent female, a statistic that has not changed much in 15 years.
On the plus side, perhaps other women are finding more lucrative employment as surgeons, orthodontists and petroleum engineers?
Men wrote about 82percent of all film reviews during three months in 2013.
On the plus side, at least women didn’t have to sit through The Smurfs 2 and The Hangover Part III.
In 2012’s top 100 films, women were “more than four times as likely to wear hypersexual clothing and roughly three times as likely as men to be partially naked.”
On the plus side, maybe the Magic Mike sequel will show even more skin?
Also in 2012’s top 100 films, females had only 28.4 percent of roles with speaking parts.
On the plus side, less of actress Anne Hathaway’s voice? Women did make some TV strides, getting 43 percent (a historical high) of speaking roles in 2012-13 prime-time television … however, they tended to be much younger than men.
On the plus side, less of actress Fran Drescher’s voice? “White men continue to dominate the ranks of Sunday morning news talk show guests.”
On the plus side, women get to sleep in?
“At the nation’s three most prestigious newspapers and four newspaper syndicates, male opinion page writers outnumbered women 4-to-1.”
On the plus side, in the Style section one gets a color logo picture and engaging mail from readers?
Send engaging emails - or peanut butter cup ice cream - to: jchristman@arkansasonline.com What’s in a Dame is a weekly report from the woman ’hood.
Style, Pages 27 on 02/25/2014