POST-FEMINISM AND TELEVISION NEWS

By

VALERIE BOSER

Integrated Studies Project

submitted to Dr. Collette Oseen in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts – Integrated Studies

Athabasca, Alberta

June 2008

1

MAIS 701 Final Project

Post-Feminism and Television News by Valerie Boser

The images in the media of leaders in the private and public sector are

predominantly male, reinforcing stereotypes and contributing to the glass

ceiling that excludes women from the key jobs that signal corporate power

and influence. (Catalyst Canada 2006).

Purpose: Thesis Statement

While there is continued debate about whether or not a glass ceiling1 exists, there is no doubt something is happening in organizations that is keeping women out of important positions of leadership and influence. In fact, since the feminist

1 The term glass ceiling was introduced in a 1986 Wall Street Journal article by Carol Hymowitz and Timothy Schellhardt. They wrote, “Even those women who rose steadily through the ranks eventually crashed into an invisible barrier. The executive suite seemed within their grasp, but they just couldn’t break through the glass ceiling.” Laura Liswood of the Council of Women World Leaders says, “There is no glass ceiling: only a very think layer of men.”

2 gains of the 1970s and 80s, the number of women in positions of top leadership is regressing.2 Even though there has been considerable research to try to reveal the dynamic of gender practices in the workplace, this type of study is difficult to conduct due to the challenge of seeing inside an institution. Television news provides a unique window on a real workplace that is also an influential form of popular culture. On a daily basis, the gender practices of the television newsroom are revealed for all to see. What this researcher discovered in a sample of six television newscasts in Canada is that women are largely excluded from leadership roles and stereotyped as supporting players. Based on a content analysis, this paper argues that the assumptions of post-feminism are readily apparent in television news. Normative positions and coercive gendering in television news are contributing to the subtle reintroduction and acceptance of discrimination against women.

Introduction

The numbers tell a story of discrimination against women in Canada today.

Statistics Canada reports that women make up slightly more than 50% of the population and account for 47% of the employed work force. Yet, Catalyst

Canada says only 5.4% of executive positions are held by women. Among the

535 most senior and highest paid positions in Canada’s top 100 public companies, just 5.7% are held by women. Canadian Business magazine named

2 Catalyst is a non-profit organization working globally with businesses and professions to build inclusive workplaces and expand opportunities for women in business. It’s Statistical Overview of Women in the Workplace reports Fortune 500 corporate officer positions held by women in 2007 is 15.4%, down from 15.6% in 2006. www.catalyst.org

3 its 2007 CEO of the year and top 10 CEO’s to watch: all men. The Financial

Post’s Top 100 CEO’s included only two women. In politics, it’s no better. The

Prime Minister of Canada and the Premiers of every province are men. The goals of the feminist movement of the 70’s and 80’s have not been realized in social change resulting in equal opportunity for women in Canada. In fact, this period of post-feminism from the early 1990s to the present appears to have quietly yet actively undermined feminist gains and led to the subtle reintroduction of sexism into our society. It is subtle because it is unofficial. Public and organizational policies not only support gender equality but make discrimination against women against the law (The Canadian Human Rights Act and the

Employment Equity Act).

As this paper was being written, the drama of Hillary Clinton’s run for the

Democratic nomination was unfolding. For a while, it looked like a woman held a good chance of being a presidential candidate in the United States. Over the course of the campaign involving dozens of primaries, much was written and discussed about whether sexism or a glass ceiling was what turned such promise into defeat at the hands of a younger, less-experienced senator from Illinois,

Barack Obama. Judith Timson wrote in The Globe and Mail (June 4, 2008) that the media climate permitted an atmosphere of hatred directed at Hillary Clinton

“that I think was unprecedented. And then they sought to make her invisible, by simply ignoring her, focusing more on Mr. Obama’s victory laps than on the wide

4 swath of voters she was still winning over in key states.” 3 Yet even Timson couldn’t conclude it was discrimination against women. In her column she asked:

“what stopped Hillary Clinton from becoming president? Gender or character?

Biology or baggage? Maybe all of the above.”4 Writing in The Toronto Star

(June 5, 2008), Bob Hepburn said “…at the heart of Hillary’s loss was overt sexism, which manifested itself I how she was treated throughout the campaign.”5 Hepburn had written an earlier column saying Clinton should stay in the race because she was carrying the hopes and dreams of millions of women who saw her as a trailblazer. The response he received was huge and negative.

Hepburn wrote, “What shocked me was the vehemence of some readers who spewed vicious, sexist insults about Hillary.” On June 7, 2008, Hillary made it official by ending her bid for the Democratic nomination and her quest to become the first woman president of the United States of America. Hepburn asked, “Did

Hillary lose the race solely because of sexism? Impossible to say for certain, but few can doubt that it deeply affected her chances.”

Does sexism and discrimination against women still exist? Obviously it does, but the problem is that it is hard to expose, just as in the case of Hillary Clinton.

Barbara Czarniawska writes in Doing Gender Unto The Other: Fiction as a Mode of Studying Gender Discrimination in Organizations that there is a growing body of research showing that women are negatively discriminated against at work however it is not widely accepted or believed to be a systemic problem. In order

3 Timson, Judith, The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Canada, June 4, 2008. 4 Ibid. 5 Hepburn, Bob, The Toronto Star, Toronto, Canada, June 5, 2008

5 for workplace discrimination to stop, the evidence must be presented and accepted and habits of conduct must change. In order to facilitate such a major cultural and behavioural change, researchers are using various methods to try to demonstrate how this discrimination occurs, to examine the dynamics of the social practices that constitute discrimination and to show how gender discrimination is reproduced in daily organizational life.6

Difficulties in Researching Gendering Practices

There are specific difficulties in researching gendering practices in workplaces.

It is hard for a researcher to actually see inside an organization. Negative discrimination is rarely revealed in interviews with men or women. Interviews with victims of discrimination are given little credibility on the grounds that they must be biased if they feel they have been wronged. Showing negative discrimination in action requires prolonged unobtrusive but direct observation of the work place. Given the difficulty of unobtrusive direct observation, researchers have come up with creative solutions including the analysis of popular culture. Czarniawska successfully uses fiction because “fictional texts are reflective of the societies in which their authors have been raised”. She analyzes modern novels and scripts from television programs (including Linda

Laplante’s Prime Suspect with its protagonist Inspector Jane Tennyson) to look inside what actually happens in organizations.

6 Czarniawska, Barbara. Doing Gender Unto The Other: Fiction as a Mode of Studying Gender Discrimination in Organizations, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 13, No. 3 May 2006, p. 235.

6 There are many reasons to take popular culture seriously when studying gender as a social practice. Czarniawska notes that:

In so far as it reflects actual practices, it provides a field material

on par with traditional interviews and documents. In so far as it

shapes actual practice, it may be priceless in understanding the

formation of actual practices.

Angela McRobbie writing in Post-Feminism and Popular Culture says that the media has become “the key site for defining codes of sexual conduct”.7 The reason so many researchers are looking at popular culture is because of the circular model of culture which suggests that:

…the production, circulation and consumption of cultural products

constitute a loop rather than a line. Expression becomes control,

as popular culture selects and reinforces certain wishes and

anxieties of its audience.8

It also reinforces cultural norms including the continued exclusion of women from positions of leadership in society.

7 McRobbie, Angela, Post-Feminism and Popular Culture, Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3, 2004 8 Czarniawska, Barbara. Doing Gender Unto The Other: Fiction as a Mode of Studying Gender Discrimination in Organizations, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 13, No. 3 May 2006 p. 250

7 Why Television News?

Television news is a particularly influential form of popular culture because it purports to be a factual reflection of what is happening in our communities and our world. If the consumption of television news is indeed a loop, then it has the power to reinforce images of what leadership looks like. If in this period of post- feminism, those images are unapologetically and predominantly male, television news can serve to perniciously reinforce stereotypes and contribute to the exclusion of women from leadership roles not only in the newscasts but in politics, business and society in general.

Television news also presents a unique look inside a work organization. As modern institutions, work organizations demonstrate sets of repeated social practices that are legitimized by normative justifications. 9 Czarniawska describes these repeated social practices in organizations as comparable to the black boxes in airplanes. They are taken for granted and not opened for inspection by anyone but a specialist. They are also only opened in an emergency, usually after a catastrophe (or perhaps a complaint or lawsuit in the case of discriminatory practices). Most people would agree that today’s institutions are supposed to be gender-neutral, well-functioning instruments permitting the achievement of the goals of all citizens. But the institutional black box contains practices that are routine and considered legitimate beyond any written rules and policies. It is these often subtle and undocumented practices that result in the prevalence and acceptance of gender discrimination.

9 Ibid, p. 235.

8

Television news opens its black box daily for all to see. We can see who is in a leadership role and who is not; we can see the hierarchy of jobs and the gender of those holding them; we can see what decisions are made about the inclusion of women and how they are included (or excluded) in the daily work of reporting the news; we can observe the importance placed on topics by looking at the line up of the newscast; and we can see how topics are gendered by the sources selected to speak on those topics. Television newscasts open the black box of broadcast news organizations to reveal social practices that are difficult to see in other organizations. Gender jumps right out of the screen. Work processes are transparent and revealed day after day. Status and importance are clearly stated in the program line up. It is as if a camera was set up on a workplace showing the daily work unfold. If not quite unobtrusive direct observation, it is voluntary direct observation for part of a work day.

Post-Feminist Assumptions

To understand post-feminism, it is important to start with a definition of feminism.

Here’s how Susan Faludi describes it in Backlash:

Feminism remains a pretty simple concept, despite repeated and

enormously effective efforts to dress it up in greasepaint and turn its

proponents into gargoyles. As Rebecca West wrote sardonically in 1913,

"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: l

9 only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments

that differentiate me from a doormat."10

Essentially, feminism is a set of ideas about the rights of women linked to a social movement for change. Feminism encompasses agitation for political and legal rights, equal opportunities, sexual autonomy and the right to self- determination. There has never a single definition of feminism or a single movement. And somehow, as Susan Faludi observes, the waves feminism of the 1970’s and 80’s and all that was achieved came to be disparaged and disavowed today, especially by young women who benefited from its advances.

Thus, we entered the period of post-feminism in the 1990’s. Feminism was seen to have accomplished its goal of achieving equality for women and was no longer required. It was aged and redundant. Post-feminism takes the view that

“feminism has attained its goals, that gender discrimination has been successfully reduced by structural measures, and that to claim anything else is an indication of being old-fashioned (an accusation often formulated by young women), a proof of a poor capacity for observation, or a sign of radical, man- hating feminism,” says Czarniawska. 11 (Interestingly, a Gallop Poll in 2005 revealed that 61% of men in the United States believe that women have job opportunities that are equal to men, but only 45% of women believe the same.)

10 Faludi, Susan, Backlash, The Undeclared War Against American Women, 1991, Doubleday, New York, New York. 11 Czarniawska, Barbara. Doing Gender Unto The Other: Fiction as a Mode of Studying Gender Discrimination in Organizations, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 13, No. 3 May 2006, p. 250

10 Ann Braithwaite’s article Politics of/and Backlash (2004) describes post-feminism in the media as replicating “long standing patterns and images, with women again being presented in an unrealistic and negative light…signaling a reaction to

– and rejection of – the many changes in women’s lives brought about by feminist social movement.”12 Post-feminism is largely associated with the neo- conservatism of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

There are three commonly held assumptions of post-feminism. The first is a pervasive belief that discrimination against women is history and such things don’t happen here in our country. Institutions in Canada and the United States see themselves as modern and advanced. Gender discrimination is to be found in developing countries or in primitive cultures, for example, in Islamic countries where women are not allowed to drive and must cover their heads. The second assumption is that if there is any discrimination, it is men treating women badly.

In fact, Czarniawska says that observation of workplaces shows that negative discrimination against women means that men and women treat women worse than they treat men. The rejection of feminism by younger women and the belief that equality has been attained mean that while women might consciously oppose the inferior role ascribed to them in this society, they habitually react in the same way as their male contemporaries. The third assumption is that individual cases of discrimination can be explained by individual differences in accordance with the meritocratic ideology that sees success and failure as

12 Braithwaite, Ann, Politics of/and Backlash, 2004, Journal of International Women’s Studies, Vol. 5, No. 5,

11 determined by individual traits. If a man is given the job over a woman because he has more skills and she is lacking in leadership qualities, it isn’t discrimination; it is the result of individual traits. These justifications reveal the desire to keep intact “the plot of meritocracy and the narrative of rational, gender-neutral bureaucracy in the workplace” that is central to post-feminism.13 These assumptions will be held up against the results of the content analysis of television newscasts.

Conceptual Baggage

Sandra Kirby and Kate McKenna recommend in Experience, Research, Social

Change: Methods from the Margins that a researcher needs to come clean about her conceptual baggage both intellectual and emotional related to the focus of the research project. They write, “Since all research is done by someone, it is essential that that “someone” is identified and accounted for in the research.”14

I can trace my interest in the topic of women in leadership roles or more accurately the lack of women in leadership roles right back to my childhood in the

1960’s. Two experiences come to mind that still have the ability to make me angry. I can actually feel the emotion rising up as I’m writing this.

Experience #1- The Catholic Church: I was raised in a mildly religious Catholic family and went to Catholic schools. Our family went to church every Sunday

13 Ibid. 14 Kirby, Sandra, and McKenna, Kate, Experience, Research, Social Change: Methods from the Margins. 1989, Garamond Press, Toronto, p. 49

12 morning and I studied Catholicism at school in a religion class called

“Catechism”. I actually did very well in the class and even won the Bishops

Award in third grade for getting 100% on the catechism exam. My prize was a plastic sculpture of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus. I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I started to question why all the leadership roles in the Catholic Church – from the pope to the priests down to the altar boys

– were reserved entirely for men and boys. The only role for women was having babies and doing domestic chores like volunteering to the clean the church or bake cookies for a charity sale. I do clearly recall the Sunday morning when I declared I was no longer going to go to a church that excluded me from any meaningful role. I was 13 when I locked myself in my bedroom and refused to go with the family to church. My mother and father both came downstairs and banged on my door ordering me to come to church. Eventually, they gave up and left and from that point on I no longer went to mass every Sunday.

Experience #2- Hockey (and Male Professional Team Sports): As kids, we all learned to skate as soon as we could walk because hanging out at the community rink was our main activity in winter. But the rink was segregated into a smooth, well maintained rink with boards and covered benches where the boys played hockey and the much bumpier, less maintained rink where little kids learned to skate and girls were supposed to figure skate. We actually had occasional figure skating lessons but that was pretty hopeless for most of us in our snow suits so we just skated around playing crack the whip, tag and horse. It

13 was obvious to us that hockey was really important and hockey was just for boys.

That carried over into Saturday nights when our TV was always tuned to Hockey

Night in Canada with my dad and brother watching every game. Since I knew nothing about hockey except that it was for boys and men, I wasn’t the least bit interested. If there was something I wanted to watch, say The Loretta Young

Show, it was too bad for me. It didn’t take long for me to notice that every sport was for men, from hockey to football to baseball to golf. The role of women was to be spectators or supportive spouses.

Both the Catholic Church and hockey told me (and continue to tell me) that women aren’t allowed to do the important stuff. Now it is 40 years later. Despite the rise and possibly fall of feminism, not much has changed with the Catholic

Church or hockey. Last time I checked, the pope was still a man and there were no women playing in this year’s Stanley Cup Finals between Pittsburgh and

Detroit. So, the conceptual baggage I bring to this research project is that even today, even after feminist movement, women still aren’t allowed to do the important stuff. The assumptions of post-feminism are just plain wrong.

Equality has not been achieved. It will be interesting to see what this content analysis of the local and network television news in Canada reveals about women in the media.

Experience #3- The Media: I have worked in the broadcast media since 1972 after I graduated with a diploma in Journalism. When I started, men were in

14 charge. Men were the managers, producers, anchors and program hosts.

There were some women in broadcasting as weather presenters, consumer reporters, associate producers and co-hosts but there were no solo news anchors and only a smattering of reporters. Women did seem to be making gains, but there were plenty of setbacks as well. As I began to work on this project, I picked up a copy of Christine Craft’s 1988 book Too Old, too Ugly and

Not Deferential to Men. I remember when her case was in the media and the humiliating story of how she was constantly being made over then finally demoted in 1981 because of focus group results that declared her “too old, too ugly and not deferential to men” at the age of 36. Each time she won her case, I cheered. And each time it was overturned in appeal and the Supreme Court refused to hear it. Once again, sexism was hard to prove. Even so, I thought it was a case peculiar to the United States and that things were changing for women in Canada.

By the late 1980’s, I was the producer of a major market morning radio program on CBC. Then I became the co-host of the program with no less than another woman, Elizabeth Palmer. Barbara Frum was the host of As It Happens, CBC

Radio’s flagship current affairs program. Frum went on to be the host of CBC

Television’s The Journal. Joan Donaldson was head of CBC’s Newsworld.

Donna Logan was vice president of CBC Radio. But that was in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Feminism was still alive and well.

15 Today, I am again working at CBC as a senior manager and the local CBC News at Six has been my responsibility since July, 2006. I obviously know more about the inner workings of this program than I do about the others in the content analysis. For example, I know that this program is managed by two women

(including me) and that there has recently been a conscious effort to increase the number of women and minorities portrayed. However, when I set out to conduct the content analysis of the six newscasts, I picked the date at random. I honestly did not know what to expect in terms of how CBC News at Six would stack up against the other newscasts.

Methodology

This research project used content analysis to examine the portrayal of women in six television newscasts including local and national newscasts on different networks. All six were broadcast in Toronto on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008. The newscasts included:

• CBC’s The National

• CTV National News

• Global National

• CBC News at Six

• CTV Evening News

• CITY News at Five

The newscasts were recorded and analyzed to identify various leadership roles and the gender of those in those roles. The analysis identified the following:

16 1. Anchors are hosts who hold the main leadership role in the newscast. The anchor is the authority figure who tells viewers the news. The news anchor role can be solo or shared with a co-anchor. There are also other anchors at the news desk, typically sports, business and weather.

2. Reporters tell viewers the stories. They are the journalistic experts who have gathered the information. They often have positions of leadership in the newsroom such as bureau chief or political specialist. Reporters may also have a particular beat, for example crime or health.

3. Sources are anyone providing information in the news stories. This content analysis identified two kinds of sources: experts and non-experts, or ordinary people. Expert sources have a leadership role by virtue of being an official, an elected politician, a spokesperson, or a recognized professional. Ordinary people do not have a leadership role and are seen offering a non-expert opinion in a vox populi, or speaking as a victim of a crime or a mishap

In addition to coding the anchors, reporters and sources, the content analysis also coded the stories into topic categories to determine the relationship between subject matter and gender.15

The Findings - Overview:

The content analysis of the six television newscasts revealed the following:

• Leadership roles from solo anchors to bureau chiefs to expert sources are

dominated by men in nearly all of the newscasts

15 A sample coding form used in the content analyis is included in the Appendix.

17 • There are no women as news anchors in any of the national newscasts

• National and international news anchoring and reporting is dominated by

men.

• Men outnumber women 3 to 1 as expert sources in news stories

• Women as sources or reporters are largely shut out of important topics

like national and international affairs, security and warfare.

• Women as sources and reporters are most often found dealing with topics

like health, lifestyle, personal finance, and entertainment

The Findings - National Newscasts: Men dominate in all three national newscasts. The three national newscasts are all anchored by a single man.

Both Lloyd Robertson of CTV and Peter Mansbridge of CBC have been in the anchor chair for more than 20 years. Kevin Newman has been the news anchor since 2001 when Global introduced its national newscast.

There were 25 reporters filing stories in the three newscasts: 17 men and 8 women. CTV had 6 men and 1 woman; Global had 6 men and 2 women; and

CBC had 5 men and 5 women. All of the 5 senior reporting roles identified as a

“bureau chief” or “specialist” on all of the networks were held by men. CTV’s only woman reporter was on the health beat; Global’s 2 women reporters both did voice only reports and were not seen on camera; CBC’s 5 women reporters covered a full range of topics from international affairs to lifestyle.

18 The top two stories on CTV and Global (trial of London terrorists exposes bomb plot and Canada at the NATO Summit in Romania) were told entirely by men as reporters and as all expert sources. CBC’s coverage of these stories was also all male with the exception of one woman reporter. Topics further down the line up that included women as sources were personal investment problems, cross- border shopping, a health study on pre-mature babies, and reaction to new census figures on diversity.

A combined total of 88 sources were presented in the news stories on the national newscasts on all three networks: 60 men and 28 women. Of the 60 men as sources, 35 were expert sources. Of the 28 women as sources, 10 were expert sources. Stories done by women reporters were no more likely to include women as sources either expert or non-expert. The lack of women as expert sources was consistent across all three network newscasts (Table 1).

19

CTV Men Women Total Sources 17 10 27 Expert Sources 9 5 14 Non-expert Sources (Ordinary People) 8 5 13 Anchors 1 0 1 Reporters 6 1 7

Global Men Women Total Sources 14 9 23 Expert Sources 7 2 9 Non-expert Sources (Ordinary People) 7 7 14 Anchors 1 0 1 Reporters 6 2 8

CBC Men Women Total Sources 29 9 38 Expert Sources 19 3 22 Non-expert Sources (Ordinary People) 10 6 16 Anchors 1 0 1 Reporters 5 5 10

All National Newscasts Combined Men Women Total Sources 60 28 88 Expert Sources 35 10 45 Non-expert Sources (Ordinary People) 25 18 43 Anchors 3 0 3 Reporters 17 8 25

Table 1. Breakdown of sources (expert and non-expert), anchors and reporters into men and women for CTV, Global and CBC national newscasts on April 2, 2008.

My Field Notes - CTV National News: This was the first program that I coded.

I knew that Lloyd Robertson was the long time anchor but I was surprised at the lack of women in other aspects of the newscast. In the first 10 minutes of the newscast, there were no women to be seen in any role whatsoever. The top story was a report on the trial of terrorists in London who were alleged to be

20 plotting to blow up a plane including an Air Canada flight to Toronto. The reporter was Tom Kennedy and his two expert sources were male. The second story was on the capsizing of a seal boat being towed in the Atlantic. The reporter was Jed Kahane and his three expert and non-expert sources were male. The third story was on a NATO meeting in Romania where discussions were held about supporting the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. The reporter was Graham Richardson and his three expert sources were male. The only woman reporter in the entire newscast was Avis Favaro on the health beat with a story about the link between pre-mature babies and autism. She appeared as the fifth story in the lineup. This program was practically devoid of women in leadership roles.

My Field Notes - Global National: I expected Global National to be more female-friendly given that it is a more recently introduced newscast (2001), but it too was male dominated. Global National led with two of the same stories including the terrorist trial in London and the NATO meeting in Romania. The top story was a report on the NATO meeting by Ben O’Hara-Byrne who was identified as “traveling with the Prime Minister”. The second story on the terrorist trial was reported by Stewart Greer and included five men as expert sources.

Two other male reporters were identified as holding leadership roles including

“Ottawa Bureau Chief” and “National Affairs Correspondent with Canwest”. Of all of the reporters, only two were women: Tara Nelson and Crystal

Gumansingh. Interestingly, neither Tara nor Crystal was seen on camera: they

21 provided voice only reports. This further contributed to the scarcity of women in this newscast.

My Field Notes - CBC’s The National: This is the national newscast I have long watched. I have always associated it with leading roles for women including

Barbara Frum, Mary-Lou Findlay, and Ann Medina, but that was then, in the

1980’s. The National of April 2. 2008 had an equal presence of women as reporters (five women and five men) but the lead jobs of “chief political correspondent” and “specialist on Afghanistan” were held by Keith Bogue and

Brian Stewart respectively. One of the women reporters did a voice-only report and was not seen on camera contributing to the lack of presence by women.

The two top stories were told by women reporters: Nancy Wood and Susan

Bonner. Foreign correspondent Adrienne Arseneault is riveting in the command of her role. So, CBC’s The National was better in women as reporters, but was still overwhelmingly male in leadership roles for anchors, reporters and sources.

The Findings - Local Newscasts

Women are more successful in local news than in national news. This may be because local news is generally perceived to be of lesser status and importance as it covers issues closer to home, rather than national and international affairs.

It also pays less than national news assignments so it may be less attractive to men. Two of the three local newscasts include women as news co-anchors with a male partner. CTV has Christine Bentley paired with Ken Shaw; CITY at Five

22 has Merella Fernandez with Dwight Duncan. Only CBC has a solo woman news anchor in Diana Swain for a local newscast. There are other anchors in the local newscasts including sports and weather. CTV had Lance Brown as sports anchor and Dave Duvall as weather anchor; CITY had Hugh Burrill and Kathryn

Humphreys as sports anchors and Michael Kuss as weather anchor; CBC had

Nick Czernkovich as weather anchor and no sports anchor.

Women are well represented as reporters on local newscasts. There were 39 reporters filing for the three local newscasts: 16 men and 23 women. The top story in all the newscasts was told by a woman reporter; the top 3 stories varied in the newscasts and were split evenly between men and women reporters.

A combined total of 113 sources were presented in the news stories on all three local newscasts: 68 men and 45 women. Of the 68 men sources, 47 were expert sources. Of the 45 women, 18 were expert sources. The local newscasts used a larger number of women as both expert and non-expert sources than the national newscasts; however women as sources are still under- represented on all of the local newscasts. Even though there were more women reporters in the local newscasts, stories done by women reporters were no more likely than those done by men to include women as sources either expert or non- expert (Table 2).

23

CTV Men Women Total Sources 28 11 39 Expert Sources 20 5 25 Non-expert Sources (Ordinary People) 8 6 14 Anchors (News, Weather, Sports) 3 1 4 Reporters 7 7 14

CITY at Five Men Women Total Sources 27 12 39 Expert Sources 12 5 17 Non-expert Sources (Ordinary People) 15 7 22 Anchors (News, Weather, Sports) 5 2 7 Reporters 4 8 12

CBC Men Women Total Sources 21 22 43 Expert Sources 15 8 23 Non-expert Sources (Ordinary People) 6 14 20 Anchors (News, Weather) 1 1 2 Reporters 5 8 13

All Local Newscasts Combined Men Women Total Sources 68 45 113 Expert Sources 47 18 65 Non-expert Sources (Ordinary People) 21 27 48 Anchors (News, Weather, Sports) 9 4 13 Reporters 16 23 39

Table 2. Breakdown of sources (expert and non-expert), anchors and reporters into men and women for CTV, CITY and CBC local newscasts on April 2, 2008.

My Field Notes: CTV Evening News

While none of the national newscasts had a woman in the news anchor role, all of the local newscasts had women, usually as co-anchors with a male counterpart. The CTV Evening News has long had Christine Bentley in the role of news co-anchor with a male co-anchor (currently Ken Shaw, previously Tom

24 Gibney), she is one of a four person anchor team with the other three all male.

Christine Bentley also anchors the local newscast at 12:00 noon while it seems

Ken Shaw has no other duties. There appears to be an equal mix of men and women as reporters although the only bureau-chief role is held by a man and the stereo-typically feminine beats of health, lifestyle and entertainment are held by women. The number of men as expert sources outnumbers women four to one.

Sports is truly an all male affair including a male anchor, all male sources and only one topic: male, professional team sports. All this is especially interesting given that I know women are the target audience for supper hour television newscasts. In Toronto, CTV has long dominated the local television news market and is apparently successful with women viewers despite the stereo- typical portrayal of women.

My Field Notes: CITY at Five

CITY at Five features a typical local newscast pairing of a younger woman co- anchor with an older male counterpart. To their credit, CITY has always focused on diversity and both co-anchors are visible minorities. CITY does do a better job of gender equality in on-air talent and in sources than CTV. The main sports anchor is Kathryn Humphreys. Women reporters actually outnumbered men and were featured in the top three stories. While there were still more men as sources, the ratio was 2 to 1 in both expert and non-expert sources rather than the 4 or 5 to 1 seen in the CTV newscast and all the national newscasts.

25

My Field Notes: CBC News at Six

This program stood out from the rest in the portrayal of women in leadership roles. The main reason is that it is the only program that featured a woman as the main solo news anchor. Diana Swain has anchored the program alone for three years. The meteorologist is Nick Czernkovich; the business anchor is

Jeannie Lee. There is no sports anchor at all and there were only two sports stories in the newscast: one about male professional team sports (Toronto

Maple Leafs) but the other about a fitness program led by a woman.

A woman reporter handled the top story and women reporters outnumbered men

2 to 1. There were 8 women reporters to 4 men. This program was the only newscast that had more women sources than men (22 to 21) although most of the women were non-expert sources. Only 8 women were seen as expert sources compared to 15 men but the 14 non-expert women sources went a long way to create the impression that women were more equally represented in this newscast.

Public Broadcasting: As a public broadcaster, CBC might be expected to do better in the area of equal representation of women, but such is not the case in national news. CBC does not outperform its privately owned competitors in national news in the inclusion of women as expert sources nor in the portrayal of

26 women in leadership roles in the workplace; however CBC does have a higher number of women reporters. In the local newscasts, CBC does significantly better than its privately owned counterparts. As noted earlier, CBC has the only solo woman news anchor and outperforms CITY and CTV in using women as expert sources.

The Findings - Topics: The news stories were coded into 14 topic areas. In a combined table (Table 3) representing all six newscasts (national and local), sources for each topic were counted and identified as men and women. Men were by far the sources in stories about government and politics, accidents, foreign and international affairs, weather and environment, and sports. Women dominated as sources only in stories about health and lifestyle.

Topic Men Sources Women Sources Government politics 11 0 Crime 4 5 Accidents 20 3 Health 6 10 Entertainment/Celebrity 2 2 Foreign/International Affairs 13 1 Canadian Affairs 20 16 Consumer 5 1 Environment/Weather 14 5 Business 19 12 Science 3 3 Lifestyle 6 10 Sports 12 1 Education 1 2 TOTAL 128 73 Table 3. Men and women sources (expert and non-expert) by topic in all six national and local newscasts.

27

Testing the Findings Against Assumptions Inherent in Post-Feminism

The first assumption inherent in post-feminism that the battle for gender equality is won and women are equals in our modern organizations is contradicted by the research. The findings in the content analysis of these six newscasts show that women are missing in many aspects of television news in Canada in 2008. The main national networks of CTV, Global and CBC are all subject to The Canadian

Human Rights Act and the Employment Equity Act that not only support gender equality but make discrimination against women against the law. These major broadcasting organizations all have progressive policies on diversity and reflection of minorities. Yet what is apparent by looking into the black box of television news is that something is keeping women out of leadership roles.

With one exception (CBC local news), women are not allowed to be the main news anchor.16 Without exception, there are no women to be found in bureau- chief positions. Without exception, women are scarce as expert sources outnumbered on average 3 to 1 by men. If these news organizations do not believe this is a problem, and there is no reason to think that they do, then there is no impetus for them to change the status quo. Obviously, no one is complaining, not even women. In my many years of experience in the media, I

16 It is interesting to note that last year Katie Couric became the first woman to anchor a network newscast in the United States. Now, as the ratings hit new lows for CBS News, her future is being cast into doubt and questions are being raised in the media about the competence of women as national news anchors.

28 cannot recall one complaint from a women audience member about lack of gender equality in television news.

This brings us to the second assumption: that any discrimination against women must be committed by men when in fact women in the post-feminism period are just as likely to discriminate against women especially in areas of leadership.

Patriarchal societies have dominated the world since ancient times (with the exception of a very few matriarchal tribes in remote locations). Evolutionary psychologists argue that nature has endowed men more than women with aggressive, competitive, controlling and status-striving qualities that facilitate leadership. Contemporary public policy thinkers like Francis Fukuyama still make the argument that biology is destiny: “Despite the rise of women, men will continue to play a major, if not dominant part, in the governance of post-industrial countries. The realms of war and international politics in particular will remain controlled by men.”17 This is certainly the case in television news.

In the television newscasts analyzed, men hold the important (and better paying) jobs of national anchors and reporting on international news. Women hold the less important jobs of local co-anchors or anchors and reporting on domestic issues, particularly health and lifestyle. Where women do have control over the portrayal of women in their news stories, the content analysis showed that women reporters were no more likely than their male counterparts to seek out

17 Eagly, A and Carly, L, Through the Labyrinth, The Truth About How Women Become Leaders, 2007, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass, p. 31

29 women as expert sources in news stories. Neither women employees nor women viewers appear to be contesting their own exclusion from television news.

The third assumption is now that gender equality has been achieved in the workplace, success is due to merit. Individual cases ought to be explained by individual ability, characteristics and traits. Yet, study after study shows hiring biases against women in most contexts. Eagly and Carly conclude in Through the Labyrinth, The Truth About How Women Become Leaders:

Men are advantaged over equivalent women for jobs traditionally

held by men as well as for more gender-integrated jobs. Similarly,

male leaders receive somewhat more-favorable evaluations than

equivalent female leaders, especially in leader roles usually occupied

by men. Because leadership is usually perceived as a masculine,

activity, women are also vulnerable to having their success ascribed to

their hard work rather than their ability and their failures to their being

overwhelmed by the difficulty of the work.18

The assumption that the workplace is now a meritocracy asks us to believe that the male dominance of all leadership positions in television news is entirely because the men earned those positions or conversely that women did not earn them because they do not have the abilities, characteristics or traits.

18 Ibid. p. 78

30

Poststructuralism and Television News

This paper is arguing that television news finds post-feminism a comfortable fit.

The assumptions inherent in post-feminism allow television news to perpetuate stereotypes and contribute to the subtle reintroduction and acceptance of discrimination against women both in the workplace and in popular culture. The content analysis shows that feminism has not attained its goals of equality in television news as a workplace or as popular culture, nor has gender discrimination been reduced by structural measures in society or in organizations.

What are viewers to make of the social world presented by television news?

Poststructuralist theory, with its roots in Freud, Marx and Foucault, provides a radical framework for understanding the relation between people and their social world and for conceptualizing social change.19 Czarniawska says it is different from structuralism in that it does not look for the structure hidden in the texts (as in the structural analysis of fairy tales), but knows that the structure is put there by the interpreter, that is, the reader or in the case of television news, the viewer.

The viewer watches the news and sees, among other things, the structure of societal gender roles as presented by the anchors, reporters, sources and topics.

19 Czarniawska, p. 247.

31 Czarniawska suggests that there is another possible meaning of the term

‘poststructuralism’.

Structural measures against work discrimination have indeed been

enforced by most western countries. However, structural measures

are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for institutional change.

What remains is the change in practices, requiring more nuanced

representations of reality and subtler measures in practice. Thus the

need for research texts that depict what I call coercive gendering (as

different from ‘discriminatory practices’, that is, procedures and routines

that are easily identifiable and thus more easily targeted by legal action)

and the need for methods that allow such description – including the

poststructuralist reading of texts.20

In the case of television news, structural measures such as laws and corporate policies have not created gender equality. There is an opportunity here for the poststructuralist viewing of television news to uncover coercive gendering hidden in normative positions. The common normative positions perpetuated by all the television newscasts examined in the content analysis as interpreted by this researcher are as follows:

20 Ibid. p. 248

32

Normative Position Coercive Gendering There just happens to be three long- Only men are credible as national news serving national news anchors who are anchors. men. The men who are bureau chiefs or Women are not bureau chiefs or expert expert sources have earned their sources because of their lack of positions through merit. necessary abilities and characteristics.

The news just happens; it is gender It is not important to portray gender neutral. equality in the news.

Women are already very successful as Women can be successful in television anchors and reporters in news. news but it is in the less important, lower status and lower paid arena of local news.

These not so subtle messages of coercive gendering serve as a mechanism for maintaining the social, political and economic inequality of women in Canada.

Earlier, the circular nature of popular culture was identified. If what we see is what we live, then television news is actively contributing to the lack of women as leaders in all fields.

33

No One to Blame Except Ourselves

There is one more culprit to blame for the failure of women to achieve equality in leadership roles in our modern institutions. The post-feminism assumption that the workplace is now a meritocracy suggests that individual women are to blame for their own lack of success. But it appears women’s ways of leading may also be to blame.

In the 2005 documentary, Her Brilliant Career21, women who display characteristics typically associated with successful leadership, such as being tough, getting results and showing ambition, are packed off to a training course called Bully Broads Boot Camp to learn how to downplay those very characteristics in order to be successful in their organizations. Some of the women in the documentary have been sent to the training course against their will, as a last chance before being demoted or fired by their companies. The

Bully Broads Boot Camp is run by Jean Holland, the author of Same Game,

Different Rules (2002). Here is Holland’s theory:

Men are different! No surprise there, but when we (women) copy their

behaviors, we do advance to a certain level. But the higher we get, those

behaviors that got us there suddenly are the reasons we don't go any

higher in the company, and often, get us thrown out!22

21 Her Brilliant Career, 2005, documentary film produced by The National Film Board. 22 Quote from Jean Holland’s website, www.breaking-the-glass-ceiling.com

34 In other words, the behaviours that get men rewarded and promoted are behaviours that get women punished, demoted and smacked with the demeaning label “Bully Broad”. One Canadian woman attending the course was Donna

Nebenzahl from the Montreal Gazette. She is an ambitious, bright journalist who kept getting passed over for promotion. She was told by her male boss that she needed to “fix her personality”. Despite confessing that she felt humiliated by the whole Bully Broads experience, she said she was willing to make the sacrifice for her career.

A number of commentators on women and leadership in the documentary including former Prime Minister Kim Campbell, author Robin Gerber23 and consultant Laura Liswood24 expressed shock and revulsion at the “it’s all your fault” idea behind the Bully Broads Boot Camp. They all agreed that the notion that leadership behaviours that are acceptable in men are unacceptable in women is about “as retro as you can get”. This double bind means that women can’t win when it comes to leadership.

Survey after survey asking people to identify leadership traits produces lists with words that include tough, assertive, autocratic, competitive, and proactive.25 But the catch is only a man is allowed to display them. Eagly and Carly say in

23 Robin Gerber is the author of Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way, and a Senior Scholar at the Academy of Leadership, University of Maryland. 24 Laura Liswood is a consultant with Goldman Sachs and president of The Council of World Women Leaders. 25 Eagly, Alice and Carli, Linda, Through the Labyrinth, The Truth About How Women Become Leaders, 2007, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, p. 91 - 95

35 Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders that people (men and women) accept these traits in male leaders but dislike and resist women leaders who demonstrate them. 26 Yet, if a woman demonstrates stereotypically feminine traits such as being affectionate, friendly, helpful, kind, sensitive and soft-spoken, these are obviously not the traits of a leader.27 It is a lose-lose situation for women who aspire to leadership. It is no one’s fault but our own that we are largely unsuccessful as leaders: we are women.

Conclusion

Once I completed the content analysis, I saw evidence of male domination of leadership everywhere I looked. Nothing has changed for women when it comes to the Catholic Church nor NHL hockey, the nemeses of my teenage years. The conceptual baggage I brought to this research project that even today, even after the feminist movement, women are not allowed to do the important stuff, has been confirmed in the case of the television newscasts. Still,

I was surprised by the results of the content analysis and how poorly women fared. On the morning of April 21st, 2008, after I had completed my preliminary analysis of the television newscasts, I was feeling very sensitized to the portrayal of women in the news when my two daily newspapers arrived on my doorstep.

Here’s what was on the front page:

• The Globe and Mail: photos of 5 men including an NBA basketball coach,

film director Ang Lee, a Chinese auto salesman, a male photographer in

26 Ibid. p. 87 27 Ibid, p. 86

36 Vancouver’s east end and Afghan governor Asadullah Khalid. There

were no photos of women as newsmakers.

• The Toronto Star: photos of 7 men including the Pope, Toronto Transit

Commission Union Leader Bob Kinnear, Mayor David Miller, Toronto

Transit Chair Adam Giambrone, a Raptors basketball player, Blue Jay

player Frank Thomas, and a hockey player from the Annaheim Ducks.

There were no photos of women of newsmakers.

It is obvious that the post-feminism problem of the portrayal of women as leaders is not just a television news issue; newspapers and other media are just as male dominated. This is a problem that has been identified by Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that works globally with businesses and the professions to expand opportunities for women and business. In their 2006 annual report, Catalyst

Canada identified the impact of the media.

The images in the media of leaders in the private and public sector are

predominantly male, reinforcing stereotypes and contributing to the glass

ceiling that excludes women from the key jobs that signal corporate power

and influence. (Catalyst Canada 2006).

One of the things we know about the advancement of minorities is the importance of portrayal and role models. If people don’t see women portrayed as leaders, it has a negative impact on attitudes and behaviours around hiring and promoting women leaders and even voting for a female candidate. (The

37 Goldberg paradigm, named for a 1968 experiment by Philip Goldberg, has been repeated many times with the same results. Participants are asked to evaluate a job application where the only variable is a male or female name. The participants are unaware that other participants received the identical application ascribed to the other sex. Repeatedly, male applicants fare better than female applicants especially for positions that were described as more demanding.28)

People – men and women - in our society still have deeply engrained prejudices against women as leaders. Television news is subtly and powerfully reinforcing those prejudices daily.

Modern journalistic broadcast organizations in Canada like CBC, CTV, Global, and CITY pride themselves on being agents of social change. Stories exposing social injustice and advocating for change are part of the daily fare of television newscasts. It is well known that structural efforts are being made in many newsrooms to better reflect diversity and minorities, however it seems that somewhere along the way women have been forgotten. Post-feminism has been very successful in silencing the discussion about gender equality in television news and the impact of that is widespread, influential and pernicious.

The evidence has been presented; now it must be accepted and habits of conduct must change if women are ever to be successful in leadership.

28 Ibid. pg. 76-77.

38

References

Books and Articles:

Braithwaite, Ann, Politics of/and Backlash, Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol 5 #5 June 2004

Craft, Christine, Too Old, Too Ugly and Not Deferential to Men, 1988, Prima Publishing, California, 1988.

Czarniawska, Barbara, Doing Gender unto the Other: Fiction as a Mode of Studying Gender Discrimination in Organizations, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 13, No. 3, May 2006, Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Oxford, UK and Malden MA USA

Eagly, Alice and Carli, Linda, Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders, 2007, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass.,

Kirby, Sandra and McKenna, Kate, Experience, Research, Social Change: Methods From the Margins, Garamond Press, Toronto, 1989.

McRobbie, Angela, Post-Feminism and Popular Culture, Feminist Media Studies Vol. 4, No. 3, 2004, Taylor & Francis Ltd

Ungerleider, Charles, Media, Minorities, and Misconceptions: The Portrayal by and Representation of Minorities in Canadian News Media, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Vol. XXIII, No. 3, 1991

39 Reports:

Women in Canada, Fifth Edition, A Gender-Based Statistical Report, Statistics Canada, Ministry of Industry, March 2006

The Gender Gap: Women Are Still Missing as Sources for Journalists Project for Excellence in Journalism, May 2005, Washington, D.C.

Video: Her Brilliant Career, directed by 2005, National Film Board

40 Sample Coded Research Form/Raw Data

Program: CTV News (National – 11 pm) Date: Wed Apr 2/08

Anchors Men Type

Lloyd Robertson Main News Anchor since 1983

Women Type 0

Reporters Men Beat Tom Kennedy London Bureau Chief Jed Kahane General Domestic (Martimes?) Graham Richardson Parliamentary Reporter – traveling with Harper John Bennevalle Brown General Domestic (Toronto) (no stand up, voice only) Tom Walters LA Bureau Chief Rob Brown General Domestic Vancouver

Women Beat Avis Favaro Health Reporter

Reporters with leadership roles, eg., bureau chief – Kennedy and Walters as bureau chiefs, Graham Richardson is traveling with the PM Only women reporter is on the health beat

Sources/Experts

1. Story/Topic - Foreign/Int’l Affairs – London Terrorists to bomb planes to Canada/US - Reporter Tom Kennedy Men 2 – security analysts Women 0 Total/Story 2 men, 0 women, male reporter ( 2 experts)

2.Story/Topic - Accident – Seal Boat Capsizes and Survivors Speak Out – Reporter Jed Kahane

41 Men 3 – two survivors, one seal boat captain Women 0 Total/Story 3 men, 0 women, male reporter (1 expert, 2 OP’s (OP = ordinary person or non-expert)

3.Story/Topic – Government – NATO Meeting in Romania on Afghanistan support for Cdn troops – reporter Graham Richardson Men - 3 – Bush, Harper, Karzai – govt leaders – Harper and Karzai twice Women 0 Total/Story 3 men, 0 women, male reporter (3 experts)

4. Story/Topic - Domestic Affairs - New Census shows increase in visible minorities – Reporter John Vennevally-Rao Men 4 – (3 ordinary people, 1 politician) Women 2 (1 ordinary, 1 stats can) Total/Story 4 men, 2 women, total 6 - male reporter (3 men as OP’s, 1 women as OP, 1 man as exp, 1 woman as exp)

5.Story/Topic – Health Avis Favaro – Premature Babies at risk of autism Men 1 – father of child Women 2 – researcher and doctor (researcher seen twice) Total/Story 1 man, 2 women, female reporter (1 man as OP, 2 women exps)

6. Story/Topic - Crime – LA 9 year olds plot to kill teacher - reporter Tom Walters LA Bureau Chief Men 1 police (seen twice) Women 3 –two parents, one school board Total/Story 1 man, 3 women, male reporter (1 man as exp, 1 women as exp, 2 women as ops)

7. Story/Topic – Health – No need to drink 8 glasses of water – Vancouver reporter Rob Brown Men 3 (one seen twice, 2 ordinary people, 1 doctor) Women 3 (one attractive dietician seen 3 times) Total/Story 3 men, 3 women, male reporter (1man as expt, 1 womn as exp, 2 men as op, 2 women as op’s

TOTALS- Anchors – 1 man, 0 women Reporters – 6 men, 1 women (Bureau Chiefs 2 men, 0 women) Women Sources - 10 Men – 17 Women as leaders, experts, spokespeople, positions of authority –5 Women as ordinary people, streeter vox pop, victims, etc – 5 Men as leaders - 9 Men as ordinary people - 8

42 Topics on stories with women – domestic affairs (new census), health (preemies and water), crime (school plot) Topics on stories with no women – foreign/international(terrorist plot), accident (seal boat capsizes), government/foreign (Canada seeks NATO help in Afghanistan)

Other notes – top 3 stories, 12 men (including reporters and anchor) 0 women

Topic Men Women Government politics 3 Crime 1 3 Accidents 3 Health 4 5 Entertainment/Celebrity Foreign/International 2 Affairs Domestic Affairs 4 2 Consumer Environment/Weather Business Science Lifestyle Other Total 17 10 EXPs 9 5 OPs 8 5

43