The Ongoing Battle Of Sexism In Journalism

Sexism is a prejudice or discrimination, in this case, directed towards women. It has been linked to gender roles and stereotypes and includes the belief that one gender is superior to the other. sexism usually refers to people who see a gender having a certain role in society.

It is undeniable that women face sexism in journalism all over the world. In 40 countries its identified "dangerous or "very dangerous" for woman journalists to go to that country on the basis they will encounter some sort of sexism. It is not just outside discrimination they are facing, many women experience more sexism online rather than on the field. 73% of women said sexism occurs in places such as social media or emails. Whats worse is that 58% of women feel personally attacked in the workplace. A place where people are meant to feel safe. The sexism has basically become a part of the job and something women have to put up with from their male counterparts.

There has been hard evidence of females being treated unfairly in the journalism industry. A report in 2012 highlighted that there was a 78/22 split on bylines, from male to female, in the top 5 newspapers. Upon further inspection, the women were writing less serious and political reports as the more gritty work was done by the men. This did lead to many female Guardian writers leaving their jobs. The report showed little difference from previous studies the year prior. The graph was calculated over over seven days during two separate weeks, two months apart:


Even now in 2023 studies from the Reuters Institute find from a sample of 10 top news outlets, in all twelve markets, most top editor roles are taken by men, even in countries where women outnumber men in working journalists. 22% of 180 top editors across the 240 brands covered are women editors, despite an average 40% in the 12 markets are women. This shows the huge difference in how men are treated better and given higher roles than women in the workplace.

In contrast, the good news is people are now seeing this problem and trying to combat it. More and more women are getting into the journalist industry thanks to women journalist groups, aimed at building up women in journalism and the media giving women the chance to be as equal to men by creating new policies to benefit them. Sports journalism for example has seen a massive boost in female journalists. Hopefully this is the start of a trend that will see less discrimination for journalists and include everyone who deserves to be there.





Open Democracy - (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/women-in-journalism-face-twice-the-level-of-danger-as-male-colleagues/) 
Reuters Institute - (https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/women-and-leadership-news-media-2023-evidence-12-markets)

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