On Balance: The Journalism of Sex
Female’s activists and their male supporters have actually made a large factor recently that the media do an inadequate job of “standing for” women. Male, on the other hand, have actually revealed little frustration with the means they are dealt with in the press. Prior to we wrap up that women have to therefore be enduring an extreme indignity and that males are being dealt with well, we ought to observe that sometimes a complaint informs us more about the needs and assumptions of the bellyacher than the value of the claim. We could require time to observe whether any of America’s unsqueaky (male) wheels may be looking for some media-fairness grease.
Feminism attempts to verify anti-female media bias by tallying the gender of people pictured and quoted in papers. Because there are a lot more guys than ladies in the news, their thinking goes, papers are exhibiting a sexist predisposition versus women. A current example of this accusation can be found in an April 8, 1991 news release from the Women, Men and Media Project, which observed seriously that “the vast bulk of [Gulf War] tales had to do with men, their jobs, their weapons, their opinions.”
Yet take into consideration the nature of those stories. Were they regarding males(!) or concerning selfless servants whose gender is …