Over the last few weeks, more often than ever before, politicians have been discussing gender issues. One of them said gender had been summarily killed off. Of all the things politicians have said, this is the sentence we most hope will turn out to be true. For gender to be killed off. For women in leadership positions, women in parliament and women on TV programmes to be commonplace. And for programmes to more frequently invite representatives of various minorities.
We would like female guests in TV programmes to be so common that we could stop carrying out analyses such as the one we undertook a year ago with our sponsor and partner Kliping.
Just a few more days and that’s it, right? Well, for almost one year (May 2014 – March 2015), we have been analysing how much time is given to female experts in the most popular current affairs programmes. We understand the numbers cannot convey the whole story, but they do at least partly help explain prevailing patterns. We have undertaken this analysis because we grew tired of the flood of empty words and articles on gender equality accompanying every International Women’s Day – 2015 is no exception – and miss real action and change.
The May 2014–March 2015 ten-month average shows that Planet TV’s Danes programme was the one on which women were most frequently asked for their opinion. It is followed by POP TV’s Epilog and Kanal A’s Svet.
The programme with the lowest percentage of female guests in the last ten months was TV klub on POP TV. TV klub was also the only programme that in two calendar months (May 2014, February 2015) failed to host a single woman. As for the cross-programme average: in the past ten months: one in four studio guests was a woman.
Note: The programme Na tretjem was analysed from May to August 2014, and was thereafter excluded from our analysis. The current affairs programme Danes has been included since September 2014.
The graphs below show data over time for all programmes included in our analysis. They show the monthly gender ratio of experts invited by producers to these TV programmes.
Data over time – number – men
Data over time – number – women
You can read more on the monthly analyses by following the links below:
Analysis for February 2015 (78% men, 22% women)
Analysis for January 2015 (78% men, 22% women)
Analysis for December 2014 (70% men, 30% women)
Analysis for November 2014 (75% men, 25% women)
Analysis for October 2014 (72% men, 28% women)
Analysis for September 2014 (78% men, 22% women)
Analysis for July/August 2014 (78% men, 22% women)
Analysis for June 2014 (80% men, 20% women)
Analysis for May 2014 (79% men, 21% women)
About the Meta Girls project and Kliping, d.o.o.
When we created Meta Girls – the section of Meta’s List founded in the belief that women are made for politics and politics is made for all – we envisaged conducting several analyses that would help us understand predominant patterns and social trends, especially when it comes to the presence of women in the traditional media. We are fed up with the empty debates on gender equality and equal rights held for petty International Women’s Day events. We want to see real change. This is why we decided to examine how the media help sustain or break stereotypes, i.e. how much air-time is given to men and to women.
We have joined forces with Kliping, Society for Media Monitoring and Analysis , which is a sponsor and partner of the Meta Girls project. Every month we monitor seven (7) of the most watched current affairs programmes on Slovene television (Odmevi , Studio City , Tarča , Na tretjem , Danes na Planet TV , TV klub, Epilog , and Svet (Kanal A) and note the amount of air-time that is given to male and female experts. We also analyse the questions they are most frequently asked.
Title photo: via Wikipedia.
Translated by: Peter Mesarič.