Nelson Mandela pointed out, “…newspapers are only a poor shadow of reality; their information is important… not because it reveals the truth, but because it discloses the biases and perceptions of both those who produce the paper and those who read it” (Long Walk to Freedom, 1994). When the media industry is disproportionately full of men, news coverage does little more than reflect the perceptions of that same patriarchal demographic. There are few exceptions; in a recent New York Times article, Jim Rutenberg observed, “despite huge gains made by women in television news, [the position of] evening news anchor remains [a] male bastion; occupant has traditionally been [a] white, patriarchal figure" (NYT, June 3rd, 2002).

Guardian reporter Jessica Hodgson explored whether the “old-boy network discriminates against women journalists,” quoting a number of frustrated women reporters on the trials of being “massively outnumbered” and discriminated against—one commented that the fact that “most of the political editors of newspapers and broadcasters were men was an indictment of [this] sexism.” (The Guardian, May 25, 2001).

A report prepared for the United Nations by Mari Luz Quesada Tiongson about women in the media in Asia and the Pacific sums up the impasse perfectly. She writes, “The role of media remains crucial in communicating and popularizing women’s issues, concerns, and actions from women’s perspective. Conversely, media has the power to shut out and further make invisible the women’s agenda.”

Instead of communicating women’s “issues, concerns, and actions,” the media remains a male dominated news hierarchy. The thriving industry of “women’s magazines,” with its pages of scrawny yet buxom models and articles about “finding your man,” are sadly complicit in perpetuating both the derogatory representation of women in the media, and the myth that women don’t write about “real” news.

We’re all familiar with those tired, sensationalist, virgin/whore, victim/demon binaries. Women are, however, responding to the deep-rooted sexism that permeates this industry. A quick search on the Internet with the phrase “sexism in the media” revealed that gender is an issue in journalism; a number of web sites, organizations, and articles focus on discrimination against women—both in the media and by it.

My search provided a heartening list of alternative resources: women reporting news, collaborations of women journalists, news reflecting women’s issues, and watchdog organizations focusing on equality in the media. Working both from within the mainstream media industry and as activists on the fringe, these resources work to end discrimination against women in the media; providing a forum to articulate - and broadcast - women’s perspectives and concerns; as readers and as journalists.

The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) works “from the belief that no press is truly free unless women share an equal voice.” The IWMF offers leadership training and networks women journalists from all over the world. Women’s Enews was created to “distribute news of concern to women and …to provide women’s voices to commercial media.” Here, you can find articles by leading women journalists, such as Barbara Crossette, UN reporter for the New York Times. Women's Media Watch works with NGO’s and the media to “challenge and improve the portrayal and representation of women in the media.” And of course, there are wonderful sites like Sexing The Political, designed to “serve as a forum for the creative and radical political expression of third wave feminists” - nice work, Krista!

Back to the misogyny of mainstream media: last month, the organization I work for, Equality Now - an international human rights organization focusing on violations against women - brought Maha Abu-Dayehh Shamas and Terry Greenblatt, two Palestinian and Israeli (respectively) activists to the United States. They met with the United Nations Security Council to discuss the representation of Palestinian and Israeli women in conflict resolution efforts, and their views of the way towards a peaceful co-existence between Palestine and Israel. Newsworthy? I thought so. Most newspapers are interested in the Middle East crisis, but few, it turned out, were interested in alternative voices to Bush, Arafat and Sharon. CNN, surprisingly, stepped up to bat, but mainstream dailies wouldn’t touch the story.

Within an industry dominated by men, it follows that men also make most decisions about what even constitutes news. Mari Luz Quesada Tiongson observes, “as a powerful socializing agent, media has become an important tool as well as site of struggle for women seeking to eliminate sexism and violence against women.”

I wish I’d thought of that, when I asked a reporter from the Daily News if he would be interested in covering thework of Maha Abu-Dayehh Shamas and Terry Greenblatt. He laughed derisively, and told me I was wasting his time. Irritated, he asked me (before slamming down the phone), “Why would I want to write about women and peace?”

A staunch lesbian/feminist/antipodean, Alia Levine moved from New Zealand to her family's native New York in 1997 (she only planned to visit), where she works at Equality Now, an international human rights organization focusing on violations against women. A Women's Studies/English Literature graduate from Victoria University, NZ, Alia spends most of her time in her garden weeding the eggplants, cooking compulsively or trying out impossible positions at her local yoga center. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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