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‘If media are a mirror of society as they should be, they certainly need to reflect better the fact that gender equality is a fundamental human right.’
* International Federation of Journalists, Gender Equality in Journalism, 2009

 

Gender stereotyping, and women’s access to the media

Posted on 15 February 2010

Gender stereotyping in the media is of great concern to the EWL. The EWL monitors European policies on women and the media, engages in journalist training and is compiling European-level data on gender stereotyping, sexism and violence in the media.

Women and the media remains one of the objectives of the BPfA which is most neglected by the EU and its Member States. Women suffer from a serious lack of visibility in the mainstream media: in Europe, there are four men for every woman who gets news coverage, women are central to a news story only 10% of the time, and only 32% of principal TV characters are female. Stereotyping as homemakers, victims and sex-objects is also widespread: adverts showing boys place them outdoors 85% of the time while those featuring girls place them inside the home more than half of the time; women are more than twice as likely as men to appear in the news as victims and they are more than twice as likely to be portrayed in (semi-) nudity.

For a comprehensive overview of the current situation in terms of women and media in the EU, and the most recent European policies in this area, see the chapter in the EWL’s Beijing+15 Report on Women and the Media.

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