Three national women’s groups launched a campaign last week to make media coverage of female political candidates more fair and less sexist.
Women’s Media Center, Women’s Campaign Forum and Political Parity have partnered to develop the project, “Name it. Change it.” All three organizations are chaired by women who have run for elected office and say they have experienced sexism firsthand.
Siobhan “Sam” Bennett, a 2008 congressional candidate and president/CEO of Women’s Campaign Forum, said when she was running for mayor in Allentown, Pa., in 2001, she experienced “breathtaking, breathtaking misogyny from my own hometown.”
At Bennett’s first political forum while running for mayor, her opening remarks were interrupted by the Democratic Club president at the time who asked what her measurements were. Even more shocking, she said, was the fact that the newspaper reporter covering the story failed to mention the comment.
The project, which is being funded by a grant from the Embrey Family Foundation, is not only working with the media to maintain balanced attitudes toward women in the political world, but has also done research that suggests the depiction of women in the media might prevent women from seeking elected office.
“Women are looking at how women candidates are being handled by the media, and it is a direct deterrent to their running,” said Kerry Healey, former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts and one of the partners of the project. “These things frighten other women from doing these things where they could be judged publicly.”
The website for “Name It. Change it.” also features a pledge that journalists and members of the media are encouraged to take. The pledge includes a vow to “treat all subjects with respect, regardless of gender, and to create an overall media culture in which sexism and misogyny have no place.”
Gloria Steinem, a feminist activist and Women’s Media Center co-founder and board member, released this statement on equality Tuesday:
“The most workable definition of equality for journalists is reversibility. Don’t mention her young children unless you would also mention his … or say she’s shrill or attractive unless the same adjectives would be applied to a man. … Equality allows accuracy.”
Delmarie Cobb, a Chicago political consultant who’s worked for 5th Ward Ald. Leslie Hairston and a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, said there’s still a lot of gender bias in the media.
“Some of the phrases reporters were using to talk about Clinton – we often joked that ‘bitch’ was the new ‘black,’” she said. “As an African-American, if someone had said to me that the media could treat a white woman worse than an African-American woman, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
She said there are often differences in the way male and female candidates’ races are handled by the media.
“In 1988, when I was the traveling press secretary for Jesse Jackson, there was not one story that told him to drop out of the race,” she said. “Hillary Clinton was winning, and the media was telling her to drop out.”
Ultimately, she said the media has a responsibility to fairness and to cover people equally.
State Rep. Lisa M. Dugan, a Democrat from the 79th District, said she agrees the media doesn’t always balance its reporting when it comes to male and female candidates.
“I still think there is an imbalance when [the media] looks at a candidate,” she said, noting that the media will often focus extensively on female candidates’ clothing and hair, but will not do the same for the suit a male candidate might be wearing.
Despite these imbalances, she said political candidates should be cautious when taking on the media.
“I’ve dealt with enough media. I don’t take it as an insult. I don’t know why anyone would care what the heck we’re wearing, but I don’t let those things bother me,” she said. “Pick your battles. If it’s insulting or untrue, take them on.”
“In the end, the things that matter are the things that are important to the people of the state,” she said.
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