New research out of the UK has revealed the key for women to land on the front pages of British newspapers: become a Middleton sister.
A study into British media and gender diversity has revealed that sexism still permeates the front pages of Britain’s national papers.
With 78% of articles written by men and 84% of quotes attributed to males, Britain appears to be replacing the female perspective with unflattering and degrading images of famous women on the front pages of papers instead.
The findings were uncovered in research across nine national papers over a four week period by industry watchdog Women in Journalism. It found that there were no pictures of women in power used in the top 10 images during the month of research.
According to The Guardian, where powerful women were featured, the images were often unflattering. Although Home Secretary Theresa May appeared four times during the month, three of those images were the same picture of her “pulling her mouth down in an accentuated grimace.”
The study also revealed that the women most likely to be featured were Kate Middleton and her sister Pippa Middleton, and missing child Madeleine McCann.
The research from WIJ echoes similar findings from The 4th Estate, which found that men dominate all forms of media in the US, including narrating the media coverage of women’s issues on abortion, birth control and Planned Parenthood. The study found that men were quoted five times more than women on these issues.
Numbers like these are “shocking but not surprising,” Jasmine Linabary, a co-founder of The Gender Report told The Daily Beast. “Studies have consistently found that women are roughly a quarter or less of news sources. Counts like these continue to draw awareness and raise questions about why this might be the case. The answers are complicated, but the next question we need to ask ourselves is, what can be done about it?”
Click here to see how the Australian media rates for gender diversity.