Catalyst Blog

Girls ages 8 to 18 are exposed to about eight hours of media per day. What are these girls reading and watching? As Catalyst’s Senior Associate Librarian Cheryl Yanek explains, when it comes to news coverage of women, superficiality reigns supreme. This devalues women and our accomplishments.

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Women are more than their dresses—but you wouldn’t know this by the way women are covered in mainstream press.

The second paragraph of a recent New Yorker profile of New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson dug straight into the superficial: “Abramson, who is fifty-seven, wore a white dress and a black cardigan with white flowers and red trim. Her usually pale complexion glowed from summer sun, but there were deep, dark lines under her eyes.”

You get the idea.

Time and time again, newspapers and magazines start with the details of a woman’s outfit, her hair, and her physical appearance. When women are valued only for their looks—not their contributions—it reinforces stereotypes.  And when stereotypes are reinforced, it’s harder for women to move past barriers in the workplace and across society.

Examples of superficial coverage of women cut across industries, professions and even continents.

A recent article focusing on the lack of women in America’s corporate suites announced, “Bad Hair Day for Girls at the Top.” A stock photo used in an article about new mandatory quotas for women in leadership in Germany featured only women’s legs and black high heels. Pakistan’s new foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, is a “definite fashionista” and “a rare combination of beauty and brains” according to the Hindustan Times. And don’t get me started on the skewed coverage of Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign—or current coverage of Michele Bachmann’s French manicures!

An emphasis on style over substance is nothing new. In the 1920s, Kentucky Democrat Katherine Langley was accused of interfering with House business by a Capitol Hill reporter—due to her flashy attire. In the 1960s, Illinois Republican Charlotte Reid made headlines not for her speech in support of the ERA, but for her black wool bell-bottoms. Even Nellie Davis Taylor Ross, the first woman governor, observed, “Writers describe my appearance from the cast of my features to the shape of my foot.”

Stated simply, men are described by their actions and potential, while women by their appearance. Our media should reflect the reality of smart, powerful women and in the process, give girls positive, inspiring role models. Fortunately, we have a voice that can help shift the coverage.

If you see something sexist, don’t simply change the channel or flip the page—do something about it:

- Fight back with your pen. Write a letter to the editor or to the director of a news station, carefully explaining why you won’t support them with your readership or viewership. The Girls, Women + Media Project offers great tips on how to write an effective letter.

- Educate yourself through workshops and resources by the Women in Media and News.

- Familiarize yourself with research from Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. For instance, did you know that women are almost four times as likely as men to be shown in sexy attire in family entertainment?

Take a stand against news coverage that devalues women and their accomplishments. Women are a lot more than what we wear.

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Cheryl Yanek, Senior Associate Librarian, leads the Catalyst Global Issue Specialty Team and the Twitter Team. She has an MLS in Library and Information Science from Queens College and an MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University. Cheryl is a sponsored athlete on Team Odwalla for her ultramarathon running.

You can’t be what you can’t see.

That’s the takeaway message of a new documentary, Miss Representation, which premiered on Saturday in New York City. Featuring interviews with an array of female leaders—including Condoleezza Rice, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, and Jane Fonda, among others—the film explores how one-dimensional, hypersexualized images of women in mainstream media reinforce negative gender stereotypes and deprive girls of inspiring role models.

Media is all-pervasive in the lives of young people. In the United States, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to entertainment media across a typical day. That’s more than 53 hours a week!

This stat got me thinking about how depictions of female business leaders in movies and television shows can impact young minds. The stereotypical female boss is manipulative and cold—a sexist caricature that doesn’t reflect reality. If women were portrayed as the smart, creative and visionary leaders they really are, I think more girls would aspire toward leadership and fewer men would fear women in their ranks.

So how do we get there?

Skip sexist content and support the films, television programs, magazines and websites that project positive images of women. See the change you want to see.

The number of women in Congress has gone down in 2010 for the first time in 30 years despite a record number of women who ran for the House and Senate. Gender stereotyping is behind the decline.

“It’s always been tougher for women to get elected in a tough economy because voters tend to think women aren’t as good on the economy,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. “They don’t want to take risks in a bad economy, and they perceive women as being riskier.”

Catalyst has found that gender stereotyping is rampant in corporate America, too, where women are deemed “too soft, too tough and never just right.” We call it the “double bind.”  As I discussed in Monday’s post, when women act in ways consistent with gender stereotypes, they are viewed as incompetent. When they behave in ways that aren’t consistent with stereotypes, they are considered unfeminine. It’s a lose-lose situation.

It shouldn’t be. The first female Congresswoman served in 1922—it’s hard to believe that nearly 90 years later we are still maligned based on gender when seeking, or serving in, public office.

But when you combine the “double-bind” with media that is hostile to female candidates, it’s no surprise that in America men are nearly twice as likely as women to seriously consider running for state-level office and 65 percent more likely than women to assess themselves as “very qualified” to run. Sexist attacks reinforce negative stereotypes and can contribute to a climate that keeps women from entering politics.

A Catalyzing reader asked me how we can change the toxic conversation into something more productive. A recent study found that gender-based attacks damage women candidates in the polls, but the damage could be lessened by addressing sexism head-on.  The same is true at work. To escape the “double bind,” Catalyst advises women to talk openly about the issue—whether it is an inappropriate comment or a statement that unfairly generalizes about women’s abilities.

What helps is to bring stereotyping out in the open—expose it when you see it.

I’m a mother, but being a mom doesn’t mean I have some magical skills non-mothers lack. Yet the “motherhood debate” rages on—especially during the election cycle.

“I think my experience is one of the things that sets me apart as a candidate for Governor. First of all, being a mother, having children, raising a family,” Mary Fallin said recently, who is running against Jari Askins for Oklahoma governor. Askins, who does not have children, responded: “You know, in Oklahoma, all of our governors have been men. So none of them have been mothers. I think most of them have done a pretty good job—so I don’t think that’s a criteria.”

Are male candidates discussing their fatherhood status? Nope. For men, it’s a non-issue. Yet women are held to a different standard in both politics and business. As this cartoon illustrates, we just can’t win.

Our research shows that when women act in ways that are consistent with gender stereotypes, they are viewed as less competent leaders. And when women act in ways that are inconsistent with such stereotypes, they are considered unfeminine. I call this the Goldilocks syndrome: “Too tough, too soft, but never just right.”

The reality is, no one experience or characteristic defines us or gives us the edge. And no gender has a corner on anything. Women aspire to success just as much as men do, and define it similarly.

Following a report on the so-called “motherhood debate” in Oklahoma, Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts asked viewers: “Where do you stand on this debate—should it even be a debate?”

It shouldn’t. Don’t fall into the motherhood debate trap.

Here we go again. Sometimes news—even good news—gets blown out of proportion. That’s what’s happening now with the gender wage gap.

Recent headlines like “What gender pay gap? Young single women making MORE money than their male peers in America’s cities,” and “Workplace Salaries: At Last, Women on Top,” imply the gender pay gap has closed for all women. But it hasn’t. The gap is alive and well.

These stories were pegged on recent market research that found that single, childless women aged 22 to 30 earn, on average, 8% more than their male counterparts in select U.S. cities. This important finding—largely reflective of increased rates of higher education among young childless women who work in cities with a knowledge-based economy—is good news. But the catchy headlines do not reflect the whole story.

The market study compared young women and men with different educational backgrounds. But what happens when you compare the salaries of women and men side-by-side with the same degree?

In Catalyst’s Pipeline’s Broken Promise, we found that women with M.B.A.s start behind, and stay behind, men with the same degree. In fact, women earn $4,600 less than equally skilled men in their first job out of business school—and this pay gap increases over time. And according to the latest U.S. Census figures, the median salary for women with Master’s degrees is actually lower than the median for men with only a Bachelor’s.

Does this seem fair to you?

I welcome research indicating that some young women in some cities are more than holding their own with wages. But for most women, it’s not yet time to break out the champagne.

Like the “mancession” stories that proclaimed new opportunities for women to advance in the absence of men, a lot of the recent pay gap coverage overstates the facts and does not take into account all the nuances of the data.

Context is king. Don’t lose sight of the larger picture and what still needs to be fixed.

Look at the money in your wallet. Consider the name of the street you live on. Think about the great monuments in Washington, D.C., or your favorite Hollywood director.

Chances are you’re thinking about men.

Women make up 47% of the non-farm U.S. workforce and 50.7% of the U.S. population, but we are absent from the symbols, icons, images and voices that fill our world. I call it The Invisible Woman phenomenon. And it’s pervasive.

Only one of the 45 major monuments in Washington D.C. honors women, and women make up only nine out of the 100 statues in National Statuary Hall. About 7% of traffic circles in D.C. are named after women, a trend representative of street names nationwide. Only 21% of U.S. postage stamps produced from 2000 to 2009 feature an image of a woman. And all U.S. paper money features men.

The invisible woman phenomenon is not just about statues and coins. The phenomenon includes disparities across politics, media and arts. Women hold 16.8% of seats in the U.S. Congress, while less than 20 female world leaders are in power. Women hold only 3% of positions of clout in mainstream media. Less than 10% of TV sports coverage in the United States is devoted to female athletes. And of the 250 top-grossing movies produced last year, 7% were directed by women. And that’s just a small sampling.

So what’s the deal?

We have inherited a legacy of male-dominated monuments and street names, a by-product of thinking women had less to contribute to society than men. And ingrained biases persist. These shadows of the past still permeate our lives. They need to be replaced.

We tell our children that they can be anything they want to be, but The Invisible Woman phenomenon narrows their vision. Our sons need to see women out there if they are to embrace a culture where everyone is valued when they grow up. And if all our daughters see and hear is men, what does this tell them about themselves and their position in the world?

Women must be visible. Everywhere.

Read the research—the numbers tell the whole story.

A lot of ink has been spilled over a recent New York Times article which argued that childless women had careers that tracked men’s. “Women do almost as well as men today, as long as they don’t have children,” a Columbia University professor told the Times.

The article hinged on a recent study of M.B.A. grads from the University of Chicago that probed “women’s underperformance in the corporate and financial sectors.” But what did this report really show?

The authors found a vast wage gap exists between women and men. According to the report, women earn $115,000 on average at graduation and $250,000 nine years out, while men earn $130,000 and $400,000, respectively. “Mean earnings by sex are comparable directly following M.B.A. receipt,” they wrote, “but they soon diverge.”

How’s that for an understatement? Their “comparable” earnings are a $15,000 difference. I’m not sure about you, but I’d be pretty ticked at making $15k less just because I’m a woman.

Was this dramatic finding headline news? Nope.

Instead, media coverage fixated on a detail buried deep into the report. On page 243, the authors’ state:

“Limiting the sample further to women without children, and with no career interruptions by 10 years out, makes the career paths of the women in the sample similar to those of men. For that comparison, the gender earning gap starts out slightly larger than for all women, but grows less rapidly.”

This suggests that for women without children, there’s still a gap at the start of their career after business school, and the gap still grows over time—albeit less quickly than it does for women with kids or who have taken time off.

Not really breaking news, is it? Catalyst actually reached a similar conclusion in Pipeline’s Broken Promise, which found that even among women and men without children, women still started behind men and the gap still grew over time.

The original New York Times article is accurate in saying there’s a bigger penalty for women who have kids and/or take time off (which isn’t surprising), but was misleading in suggesting to the reader that women without kids will face a level playing field with equal pay. The numbers are clear: Women are paid less than their male colleagues. They don’t call it a gender wage gap for nothing.

In the early 1970s, I was among a handful of women in Harvard’s M.B.A. program. One day in class, we were assigned a case study on marketing floor wax. I’ll never forget it: all of my male classmates looked to me for advice!

The assumption was that because I was a woman, I would know something about waxing a floor. They were surprised when I said I didn’t. Was this a harmless case of stereotyping? Maybe. But I was offended.

More than 30 years later, I am still upset by blatant stereotyping—especially in the media. While men perform more housework today than ever before, some newspapers and magazines continue to portray women as mere risk-averse cleaner-uppers.

Last month, for instance, Jullia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister, replacing Kevin Rudd as head of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Sexist headlines followed. “Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Messy ALP Clean Up,” charged the Daily Telegraph.  “Gillard Must Mop Up Swan’s Mess,” wrote the Business Spectator, referring to Treasurer Wayne Swan.

In 2008, Iceland’s appointment of two women to rebuild the country’s shattered banking system garnered similar headlines. “Iceland Appoints Women to Clean Up ‘Male Mess,’” said the Financial Times. The Guardian proffered: “Women Clean Up the Bankers’ Mess.”

American media also stereotype. In May, Time magazine featured on its cover three stern-faced women in business suits with the text: “The New Sheriffs of Wall Street: The women charged with cleaning up the mess.”  While the article is well-written, the cover seems to imply that FDIC chair Sheila Bair, SEC chair Mary Schapiro and TARP chair Elizabeth Warren are humorless cleaners. And last year ForbesWoman ran an article about financial oversight headlined, “Cleaning Crew: The Women Who are Fixing the Financial Mess.” It featured a picture of a woman in business attire and rubber gloves cleaning up a chalkboard with a watery sponge.

These images reminded me of sexist advertisements from the 1960s. But it’s 2010, people—let’s act like it!

It’s easy to fall back on old stereotypes, but if you take a minute to engage your brain, you’ll find that less offensive and more accurate terms for female leaders exist. To do otherwise is just plain sexist. Is “cleaning up” a leadership trait? I don’t think so.

“It is grievous to read the papers in most respects,” wrote Mary Ritter Beard, the renowned early 20^th century author and historian. “More and more I skim the headlines only, for one can be sure what is carried beneath them quite automatically, if one has long been a reader of the press journalism.”

While just skimming print headlines might have been fine in Beard’s day, you can’t always trust them today. I’ve seen bad headlines over the years. But this one from the Harvard Business Review made me gasp: “Adding Female Directors Hurts Norwegian Firms’ Value.”

In the age of Twitter and RSS feeds, headlines that misrepresent a story can inflict more damage than ever. In a matter of seconds, an inaccuracy can spread quickly across the globe. Along the way, it can reinforce negative stereotypes or lay foundations for doubt where none previously existed.

The Harvard Business Review headline above referred to a recent University of Michigan study into the short-term impact of a Norwegian law mandating that 40% of the seats on corporate boards be allotted to women. The headline was featured on HBR’s Daily Stat— a website, Twitter feed, and iPhone app dedicated to delivering “facts and figures to stimulate thought— and action.” Within hours, it was re-tweeted 34 times.

But the sensational headline didn’t tell the whole story.

In 2003, the Norwegian Parliament mandated the 40% quota. At the time, women held roughly 9% of board seats. After voluntary compliance failed, the quota became mandatory on January 1, 2006, and companies had two years to comply. Companies that failed to meet the quota would be forced to dissolve.

The Michigan report first looked at how the initial announcement of the law impacted stock price. Firms with fewer women on board suffered a greater shock. Why? Because they were required to rotate several board members in short order, thereby producing significant uncertainty. Three days after the announcement, the stock price for firms with no women on their boards dropped 5%, while those with women on board did not suffer a statistically significant loss.

The report also looked at market valuation during the first year after the law went into effect. The researchers found that companies with initially fewer women board members suffered more than those with a greater number. According to the researchers, companies were forced to bring on more new women board members very quickly, and in doing so, they selected women who had less management experience than the men they replaced.

The Michigan study focused on the short term, not long-term impact.  Catalyst research shows that over the long term, on average, companies with a higher percentage of women on their corporate board outperform those with fewer. Just as a successful product release can affect share price negatively for a brief moment (think Nintendo’s Wii), so, too, can a controversial new law shortly after its implementation.

But it’s the long-term effect that matters.

That’s why the Harvard Business Review headline was particularly regrettable. In today’s info-soaked society, many people just read a headline, absorb it, and move on. Had I done that, I would have gotten the impression that women make poor board members. Fortunately, I read beyond the headline.

Clicking through the news last night on my laptop I was struck again by the obvious. Despite the gains women have made over the past 50 years, I realized it still looks very much like a man’s world.

One need look no further than images of captains of finance testifying on Capitol Hill, senators sparring over the health care bill, world leaders at G20, front page photos from our nation’s (remaining) daily papers and the many company spokespeople and “talking heads” that fill our airwaves.

What’s wrong with these pictures? They’re mostly guys!

These powerful images reinforce the perception that men rule the world— that it’s the natural state of things. Here’s a quick test: close your eyes and picture the image of a leader? Who do you see: a male or female? For Alan Murray of The Wall Street Journal, only men come to mind. Have countless images of men in power created a self-fulfilling prophecy by making it seem normal— to both women and men— that only men should lead?

In 2010, of course, that’s no longer true. Today, women comprise close to 50% of the US labor force and control or influence over 70% of the consumer purchasing decisions in America. That includes choices about spending on cars, financial services, health care and so on. Clearly, women rule in the marketplace. So why shouldn’t they rule in companies that produce the goods and services they buy?

Frankly, pictures with no (or very few) women should strike us as just as out of step with the times as the linebacker shoulder pads worn by Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver in the 80′s classic, Working Girl. Or floppy bow ties. Or floppy disks.

One time I spoke at a technology conference in Beijing where I was the only woman of 13 speakers. The majority of the audience—several hundred—were male.  I opened my speech with a famous quote from Mao’s Little Red Book, “Women hold up half the sky!” Then I asked, “What’s wrong with this picture?”

The audience laughed. But they got it. And I guess that’s the point. There are men who get it— in part, because we show them— but real progress is when they see it unprompted.

Only 15% of board seats and 3% of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies are women. And women make up only 17% of the House and Senate. Perhaps more diverse imagery online, on TV and in our nation’s newspapers could lead to more diverse workplaces, boardrooms, and even governments. After all, if you don’t see diversity— if you don’t see women included and leading, too— what do you really see?