News coverage of women by the nation’s most prominent news outlets is consistently skin deep and fleeting. The establishment press should stop treating women merely as spectacle, novelty or eye-candy and begin taking women and gender issues seriously.
Tag: Women in Media
Centering Trans Voices Is Essential in News Coverage, New HRC Report Finds
A new report from the the Human Rights Campaign gives new insight on how media coverage and broader “visibility” can both affect society’s perception of the transgender community as well as transgender individuals.
I Love Lizzo—But Body Positivity Isn’t Enough to Fight Racialized Misogyny
Pop singer Lizzo is known for spreading body positivity, an important message for girls and women—but body positivity alone cannot solve the problem of racialized misogyny.
How Algorithms Enforce Women’s Silence—and How To Stop It
Many think of search engines as a public service. They are not. Gender, race and ethnic analysis need to be at the heart of business tools and development of software and digital tools, along with regulation. Simple technical fixes can automate and elevate or surface women’s voices in online conversations, so women’s voices rank with men’s.
“Sadly, the fossils of historic gender segregation and the official exclusion of women from the public square have functioned as the new bones of digital technology and the public conversations they support.”
Sundance 2022: “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” Is an Edifying, If Familiar, Look at Film Language and the Male Gaze
Nina Menkes’s documentary Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power is based on a lecture Menkes, a filmmaker herself, began giving about the representation of women in film. Brainwashed has a clear thesis: The visual language of film (and its “male gaze”) objectifies women characters, a phenomenon that is further linked to employment discrimination and sexual harassment in Hollywood and beyond. (Of course, media studies and gender studies programs have been actively attempting to challenge these long-held patriarchal structures for decades.)
Figure Skating Will Stop Calling Women Skaters ‘Ladies’—A Step Toward Dismantling a Century-Long Culture
Calls for a cultural shift in figure skating have led to small changes in terminology and costume rules and larger changes that have created a more accepting culture for women and LGBTQ+ skaters.
#MeToo, Charlie Rose and Newsroom Practices: Teaching Ethics and Leadership in Journalism
A case study of Charlie Rose’s explicit actions in the newsroom and the workplace culture that allowed it to go on, is the center of a new teaching module designed to educate aspiring journalists in becoming effective and ethical leaders. It’s part of an effort to create media workplaces free of sexual harassment and employment discrimination.
Journalists who covered the story and individuals directly impacted by Rose’s behavior were interviewed to inform the study. Throughout the course, students are provided with knowledge of the legal tools they can use to fight sexual harassment, as they are often asked to wrestle with these issues and consider what they might have done in such a situation.
Jex Blackmore Swallows Abortion Pill on Fox News: “It’s Literally This Easy”
Activist Jex Blackmore took an abortion pill live on Fox News. Ms. spoke with Blackmore about activism, art and direct action.
“People really believe it should be hard to find out about abortion. It should be difficult to make the decision. And for those reasons, I think it was absolutely the right way to go because that kind of narrative does nobody any good.”
Keeping Score: 49th Roe Anniversary Sees Record Abortion Restrictions; Federal Employees Achieve $15 Minimum Wage; Sotomayor Calls S.B. 8 “Egregious Violation of Constitutional Rights”
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in in this biweekly round-up.
This week: Senate fails to pass landmark voting rights legislation; the 49th (and last?) anniversary of Roe v. Wade; OPM raises minimum wage for federal employees to $15 per hour; Minneapolis City Council elects Andrea Jenkins as its first Black, transgender woman president; D.C. mothers eligible for $900 in monthly assistance; Michaela Jaé Rodriguez is first transgender actor to win a Golden Globe; women patients see significantly better outcomes with female surgeons; and more.
It’s Time We Talk About Blackfishing
Blackfishing, as generally defined online, is a term that refers to a non-Black person’s manipulation of Black aesthetics for the purpose of attaining social capital or monetary benefit. What kind of representations are these artists attempting to convey through the manipulation of such aesthetics?