By Sarah Harvard
In the United States, more women are becoming journalists and some are even shattering glass ceilings in the media industry. But at what cost?
According to a 2015 report by the Women’s Media Center (WMC), only 37% of women write print stories. Despite the existing biases, many female journalists are launching their own media initiatives.
Disruption as Empowerment
In a 2005 report titled The Glass Cliff: Evidence that Women are Overrepresented in Precarious Leadership Positions, researchers S. Alexander Haslam and Michelle Ryan coined the term “glass cliff” to highlight the disadvantages and obstacles women face when trying to achieve leadership positions and break glass ceilings. They found that in the media industry, women are only considered for leadership positions when their company faces financial trouble—mainly because of stereotypes toward women as ineffective leaders.
Jenan Matari, a 25-year-old media entrepreneur, founded Miss Muslim, a feminist Muslim-focused online publication. Matari launched it when she noticed the lack of opportunities for female voices—specifically Muslim women—in the American media industry. She attributes this culture into a society, where women are put in a disadvantage for engaging in leadership qualities.
“We’re taught to tip toe and almost be submissive to our male counterparts because we’re told they know more, and we only speak when asked or when spoken to rather than creating our own dialogue out of fear of being pressured into silence,” Matari says. “Empowered women are seen as emotional and aggressive rather than simply powerful—and if we get too powerful, we’re cut off out of fear of damaging the male ego,” she adds.
Fight for equality
With international networks like Binders Full of Women Writers (Facebook support group providing resources and advice for veteran and aspiring female journalists), there’s a mission to disrupt the traditional or white male dominated publications.
However, even with a strong network and camaraderie, female journalists are still having a hard time making their way through an industry when executives and editors are largely made up of men.
In the U.S., editors mainly have a roster of steady freelancers—many of whom belong to an all boys’ club—resulting in the lack of interest in new-to-them writers. But when there’s a need or public pressure to incorporate more female voices, these female journalists are offered paid lower rates and are assigned soft stories on topics about women’s issues.
This can be seen in simple statistics from the 2015 WMC report: 67% of coverage on criminal justice; 65% of domestic political stories; 64% of world politics and 63% of science coverage are all dominated by male journalists.
Joy Bager Cruz, a 32-year-old New York City former Scholastic editor, decided to become a freelance journalist after seeing what was only a temporary breakthrough for women in U.S. Media. She noticed a lack of skilled female editors as a cause for the lack of opportunities for female journalists.
“As much as we’ve advanced in media, there are still fewer editors who are women—which is a real problem. And in issues in which sensitive information is delivered, we still don’t have allies in the newsroom, who will help us publish these pieces with dignity,” Cruz says.
A lot of this disregard for female voices is based on misunderstanding for the need of female journalists. But with new editorial projects, like The Skimm, a newsletter with a highly-dominated female audience, women are becoming on of the biggest consumer of news. Cruz believes that it is imperative for the media industry to promote women’s voices if it wants to survive and remain relevant.
“Why is it important for us to publish more women voices? Because we consume the news and often make it,” she concludes.
