Joanna Everitt, PhD
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of New Brunswick (Saint John)

(Reprinted with permission)

This presentation is based on work that I have conducted with Dr. Elisabeth Gidengil of McGill University.

Let me begin by saying that when I speak of gender bias in the media, I am not accusing reporters, editors or even political cartoonists of being consciously sexist in the coverage that they give to women in the political world. I don't think that anyone begins their story thinking "how can I treat Belinda Stronach, Sheila Copps, Alexa McDonough or Kim Campbell as unfairly as possible". No, I do not think that journalists are any more consciously biased than anyone else. But it is not the conscious bias that I am concerned about. It is the more insidious unconscious bias that is the problem.

We all have unconscious stereotypes that we use to frame our understanding of how women and men should behave – and of how politicians should behave. Unfortunately, those stereotypes that we so often hold of "women" do not map well over the stereotypes that we hold of "politicians". As a result, women who seek elected office frequently face expectations that are very different from the expectations facing male politicians. These differences are built into our evaluations of male and female politicians and they are reflected in the media coverage that they receive. And, there is lots of evidence that the coverage that women receive is very different from the coverage that men receive.

Now before I get into some of the results of our studies, let me first say that there are several factors that affect how political stories are covered. The first is that the news media are trying to capture and maintain audience attention in an increasingly competitive media market. If you are not a political scientist, a politician, a member of the media, or someone closely connected to the workings of government, what makes you want to watch the news? Well part of it is that there is something about the stories that get covered that grips you, some sort of conflict, something unexpected or some sort of novelty that captures your interest and pulls you into the story. It is for this reason that these news values, conflict, novelty or unexpectedness are often played up in the actual news reports.

The second thing to keep in mind is that politics has traditionally been a male dominated field … and political journalism has also been pretty male dominated. The result, we argue is that political reporting typically employs a masculine narrative that reinforces conceptions of politics as a male preserve and treats the male as normative. This basically means that the language that is used to report on politicians and their activities tends to reinforce the image that politics is something that men do. It does this through the images that it evokes, most explicitly through the use of metaphors. These metaphors describe elections as campaigns or battles and parties as armies prepared to go to war with one another. These images fit well with the news value of "conflict". However, they do little to change the image of politics as being a male activity. Despite efforts to attract women, the military is still a male dominated profession, so metaphors that evoke images of war, evoke images of men, not women. Political events such as debates are often described in the same terms as boxing matches with leaders going into the ring and trying to land the knock out punch, or as back street brawls, free-for-alls, with punches landing everywhere - again not images that immediately bring women to mind.

A beautiful example is the case of Alexa McDonough in Craig Oliver's post debate coverage for CTV in the 2000 election. Oliver's commentary on the debate referred to it as a game of verbal hockey – a game that despite the Canadian women's team's success in the past Olympics is not one we immediately think of women as playing.

Oliver described the leaders as if they were NHL hockey players taking shots on net, skating off the ice bent and battered and unable to make break-aways on an open net. Not once in his post-debate report did he make mention of McDonough's performance in the debate. It was as if she wasn't there, or if she was, she was on the sidelines, on the sidelines of a game that women haven't traditionally played. Just like politics. So one of the real problems with the use of such a masculine narrative in describing election campaigns is that women are often left out or ignored, especially when they do not conform to traditional expectations of "political behaviour" - tough, assertive and combative behaviour.

On the other hand, if women do assert themselves, get in there and play rough, they are also punished by the media. Women, who adopt traditional masculine behaviours and behave combatively, often find that those behaviours are over-emphasized in the coverage that they receive. Combative behaviour is newsworthy, but combative behaviour on the part of a woman is doubly newsworthy because it runs counter to deeply held expectations about how women should behave. It is "unexpected behaviour" and therefore it gets played up in the news stories.

Take for example, our studies that compare male and female party leaders' debate behaviours with post-debate news commentary. We coded the debates to determine as objectively as possible who displayed aggressive behaviour: interrupting, shaking fists or pointing fingers. What we found was that the female leaders were no more aggressive than the male party leaders. In fact, both [Audrey] McLaughlin and McDonough were less aggressive than their male counterparts in the debates that they participated in, Campbell was equally aggressive.

However, when we analysed the post-debate coverage in these three elections we found that the media regularly used a disproportionate number of attack metaphors to describe the women's conduct during the debates – even McLaughlin's and McDonough's behaviour. This was not true for the male leaders. Their "aggressiveness" tended to be under emphasized. We also found that the sound bites and news clips that were used in the post debate coverage showed the female party leaders interrupting and using other assertive behaviours such as shaking their fist or pointing their finger far more often than their behaviour in the debates warranted. The men, who for the most part were more aggressive than the women, were not shown behaving in this manner. The result is that someone who had not watched the debates would have come away from watching the post-debate coverage thinking that these women were perhaps a little bit too much on the attack.

In another study of all of the CBC election news in 1993 and 1997 we found that the media represented women's statements with more combative, expressive and unconventional verbs than they did men's. For example, while journalist reported the male leaders as "saying" or "talking" about something, the female leaders were reported as accusing, warning, insisting, boasting, challenging, daring and denying. Thus, while in these instances the women were reported on in language that fit with the combative, masculine image of politics, they were presented as behaving more aggressively than they actually had and described in a way that was dramatically at odds with traditional social expectations of appropriate female behaviour.

Journalists were also more likely to account for why the female leaders were doing what they were doing, in other words they interpreted the women's behaviour more than they did the men's. The statements and the actions of male party leaders tended to just be described - "Jean Chretien was in Halifax today to give a speech to …" "Giles Duceppe announced his party's policy on …". This wasn't so much the case for women. Rather than just stating that "Kim Campbell did such and such today" they felt obliged to provide some explanation for why she was doing what she was doing. For example, they would say "Kim Campbell did such and such today because … she needed to shore up support in the west, she wanted to appeal to this group or that …". They were also more likely to judge the statements or behaviours of female leaders, evaluating whether they had been successful or not. Often they judged not. This simply presents another avenue for mediation.

So why is all of this important? Why does it matter that we found these subtle differences in the coverage that male and female politicians receive, differences that most journalists would probably deny until they see the results of our content analyses?

First, by framing politics in a masculine manner the media highlight the "unnatural" position of women, the "unusualness" of women in these election campaigns. The masculine language used in political reporting implicitly presents women as abnormal participants in politics. Drawing attention to this uniqueness may raise questions in voters' minds about the appropriateness of a woman in that position or her abilities to perform effectively in a male-dominated environment.

However, I would not argue that acting tough, acting like a "traditional politician", acting like we might expect a man to act, is the answer for women. It is not the answer because of these news values that I have just outlined, news values of conflict, unexpectedness and novelty that govern political news coverage. As we have shown in our research these news values lead the media to focus disproportionate attention on those behaviours that we do not traditionally associate with women. In other words, women's aggressive behaviours get far more attention than their actions in the actual debates or election campaigns warranted.

While some might say this coverage could help women, show that they are as tough as the guys, we are a little more cautious. It is possible that this coverage may reduce the likelihood that voters will stereotype female politicians in traditional manners; however it does not necessarily imply that women will benefit from this coverage. Actions which run counter to stereotypes are often viewed as more pronounced or more extreme, making a women's assertive behaviour appear downright aggressive. This is a real problem as individuals who break these traditional expectations are often viewed more critically than others.

The under-reporting or negative coverage given to political women and their presentation in stereotypical or powerless roles that I talked about at the beginning of my presentation provide clear messages to voters that women just do not belong in this political world. Unfortunately, even when journalists cover female politicians using the same masculine narrative that they use to cover male politicians, the news values of conflict, novelty and unexpectedness that governing political reporting can still undermine women's opportunities. Female party leaders, female cabinet ministers or even your average female politician who try to fit in by adopting combative debating styles or taking strong stances will find that their aggressive behaviours are over-emphasized. As a result they are likely to appear "too aggressive" and evoke criticisms of their non-stereotypical behaviour.

Paradoxically, those women who do not conform to the traditional masculine approach to politics will continue to be sidelined, receiving far less coverage than a similar low-keyed performance by a male leader. In my mind this is a clear case of being "Damned if you do, damned if you don't". Given that these prevailing news values and the masculine narrative guiding political news are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, I can only believe that the media will continue to present a serious stumbling block to women seeking elite elected office.

Questions

1. What is the difference between conscious and unconscious bias?
   
   
2. Why does Everitt see unconscious bias as more of a problem in press coverage of female politicians?
   
   
3. According to Everitt, how do news outlets (newspapers, TV news, etc.) appeal to their audiences? How does this affect their coverage of female politicians?
   
   
4. Politics is frequently described in the news using metaphors. What metaphors for politics does Everitt's article discuss, and how do they affect coverage of female politicians?
   
   
5. According to Everitt, how does the news media communicate the message that women "just do not belong in the political world"?
   
   
6. Scan the political news in several Canadian newspapers, paying particular attention to headlines and the first paragraph of each article. Do you find that Everitt's conclusions hold true?
   
   
7. Everitt concludes that female politicians are "damned if you do, damned if you don't" by the news media. Can you imagine any changes that might be made to news coverage of politics or to the Canadian political system that would improve conditions for women in politics?