Women Politicians And The Media

This book analyzes how the media covers women leaders and reinforces gendered evaluations of their candidacies and performance. It deals with current transformations in political communication that may change the nature and scope of leadership in contemporary democracies with implications for relations between female leaders, media and citizens.

All American politicians face the glare of media coverage, both in running for office and in representing their constituents if elected. But for women seeking or holding high public office, as Maria Braden demonstrates, the scrutiny by newspapers and television can be both withering and damaging -- a fact that has changed little over the decades despite the emergence of more women in politics and more women in the news media. Particularly disturbing is the fact that the increase in the number of women reporters appears to have had little effect on the way women candidates are portrayed in the media. Some women reporters, in fact, seem intent on proving that they can be just as tough on women candidates as their male counterparts, thus perpetuating the misrepresentations of the past. Braden examines the political fortunes of Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the U.S. House; those of the congressional "glamour girls" of the 1940s, Clare Boothe Luce and Helen Gahagan Douglas; the long Senate career of Margaret Chase Smith; the political struggles of diverse women of more recent decades, including Bella Abzug, Elizabeth Holtzman, Nancy Kassebaum, Barbara Jordan, Dianne Feinstein, and Ann Richards; and the disastrous vice presidential bid of Geraldine Ferraro. Braden traces a persistent double standard in media coverage of women's political campaigns through the past eighty years. Journalists dwell on the candidates' novelty in public office and describe them in ways that stereotype and trivialize them. Especially demeaning are comments on women's appearance, personality, and family connections -- comments of a sort that would rarely be made about men candidates. Are they too pretty or too plain? What do their clothes say about them? Are they "feminine" enough or "too masculine"? Are they still just ordinary housewives or are they neglecting their families by heading for Washington or the state house? Braden's study is based on both media accounts and the revealing personal interviews she conducted with a broad range of recent women politicians, including Margaret Chase Smith, Bella Abzug, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Nancy Kassebaum, and Ann Richards. All describe agonizing struggles to get across to the public the message that they are serious and competent candidates capable of holding high office and shaping our nation's course.

All American politicians face the glare of media coverage, both in running for office and in representing their constituents if elected. But for women seeking or holding high public office, as Maria Braden demonstrates, the scrutiny by newspapers and television can be both withering and damaging—a fact that has changed little over the decades despite the emergence of more women in politics and more women in the news media. Particularly disturbing is the fact that the increase in the number of women reporters appears to have had little effect on the way women candidates are portrayed in the media. Some women reporters, in fact, seem intent on proving that they can be just as tough on women candidates as their male counterparts, thus perpetuating the misrepresentations of the past. Braden examines the political fortunes of Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the U.S. House; those of the congressional "glamour girls" of the 1940s, Clare Boothe Luce and Helen Gahagan Douglas; the long Senate career of Margaret Chase Smith; the political struggles of diverse women of more recent decades, including Bella Abzug, Elizabeth Holtzman, Nancy Kassebaum, Barbara Jordan, Dianne Feinstein, and Ann Richards; and the disastrous vice presidential bid of Geraldine Ferraro. Braden traces a persistent double standard in media coverage of women's political campaigns through the past eighty years. Journalists dwell on the candidates' novelty in public office and describe them in ways that stereotype and trivialize them. Especially demeaning are comments on women's appearance, personality, and family connections— comments of a sort that would rarely be made about men candidates. Are they too pretty or too plain? What do their clothes say about them? Are they "feminine" enough or "too masculine"? Are they still just ordinary housewives or are they neglecting their families by heading for Washington or the state house? Braden's study is based on both media accounts and the revealing personal interviews she conducted with a broad range of recent women politicians, including Margaret Chase Smith, Bella Abzug, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Nancy Kassebaum, and Ann Richards. All describe agonizing struggles to get across to the public the message that they are serious and competent candidates capable of holding high office and shaping our nation's course.

Although women constitute half of the world's population, their participation in the political sphere remains problematic. While existing research on women politicians from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada sheds light on the challenges and opportunities they face, we still have a very limited understanding of women's political participation in emerging democracies. Women in Politics and Media: Perspectives From Nations in Transition is the first collection to de-Westernize the scholarship on women, politics and media by: 1) highlighting the latest research on countries and regions that have not been 'the usual suspects'; 2) featuring a diverse group of scholars, many of non-Western origin; 3) giving voice through personal interviews to politically active women, thus providing the reader with a rare insight into women's agency in the political structures of emerging democracies. Each chapter examines the complex women, politics and media dynamic in a particular nation-state, taking into consideration the specific political, historic and social context. With 23 case studies and interviews from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Russia and the former Soviet republics, this volume will be of interest to students, media scholars and policy makers from developed and emerging democracies.

In particular, the strategies which women employ to gain some control over the ways in which they are presented and reported on by journalists are discussed, making explicit the tension between publicity and privacy but also making clear that women are not irrevocably positioned as "victim." The critique offered here also factors in the ways in which political parties themselves, their elites as well as their rank and file, are seriously implicated in supporting processes which attempt to undermine the potency and potential of women's political contribution through a variety of convert and overt mechanisms." "This is an important book as it integrates the debates about women, media and politics in ways which give equal voice to the embodied political woman and her views as well as discussing the representational image of "women politician" as the subject and object of research on mediated discourse."--BOOK JACKET.

In the last fifty years, many of the institutional and societal barriers keeping Canadian women from public office have disappeared. Yet today, women hold only a quarter of the seats in the House of Commons � a proportion that rose by just seven percentage points between 1993 and 2011. In this illuminating study, Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant examines a significant obstacle still facing women in political life: gendered media coverage. Based on interviews with MPs and party leaders, and on an analysis of print and television media in the 2000 and 2006 federal elections, Gendered News reveals an unsettling climate that affects the success of women in office, and that could deter them from running at all.

Ms. Prime Minister offers both solace and words of caution for women politicians. After closely analyzing the media coverage of former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell; two former Prime Ministers of New Zealand, Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark; and Australia’s 27th Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, Linda Trimble concludes that reporting both reinforces and contests unfair gender norms. News about female leaders gives undue attention to their gender identities, bodies and family lives. Yet equivalent men are also treated to evaluations of their gendered personas. And, as Trimble finds, some media accounts expose sexism and authenticate women's performances of leadership. Ms. Prime Minister provides important insight into the news frameworks that work to deny or confer political legitimacy. It concludes with advice designed to inform the gender strategies of women who aspire to political leadership roles and the reporting techniques of the journalists who cover them.

This text focuses specifically on three interrelated sets of questions with respect to gender, politics and communication: How do serious and popular media alike represent male and female politicians, how do they frame their politics and how can these representations and frames be explained? What is the role of mainstream and movement media for the women's movement, how are feminist issues covered in the media, and what kinds of media-related activities do women's movements undertake? How are the social and political concerns of ordinary women voiced in the media - in talkshows in particular - and how does this different popular platform interact with mainstream and feminist politics?