Failed Theories: Explaining Gender Difference in Journalism

Linda Steiner

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Gender, Feminism, and Media Journalism and Media Studies Gender Diversity and Inequality

Abstract

This essay reviews major theories, concepts, and perspectives that have been used to ground and defend arguments about the difference that gender makes in media professions and workplaces, particularly journalism. After recalling claims about sex stereotyping, this essay summarizes two kinds of direct effects explanations based on presumed sex/gender differences, including the claim that women's skills and natural talents are complementary to or even superior to men's. After looking at discussions grounded in patriarchy, I discuss critical mass, i.e., the notion, borrowed from nuclear physics, that change occurs when an irreversible turning point is reached. Ironically, in journalism the notion of critical mass gave rise to fears about Pink Ghetto, i.e., that women's successful incursion into journalism would lower salaries and thereby drive out men. When critical mass failed, scholars used the Glass Ceiling to explain women's inability to break into media management. The “Topping-Out Factor” suggests that change comes only from the very top. Status politics and applying Bourdieu's “field” theory explain why these issues are so fraught in journalism. Finally, I suggest that feminist standpoint epistemology and intersectionality productively re-present gender as a notion that is not sexually deterministic or dichotomous but emerges at the intersection of complex historical, material and cultural/social conditions. Experiments in newsroom structures, content, policy- and decision-making emerging from feminist theorizing and critique are necessary if journalism is to serve the ongoing political and social needs of people who are embodied, and who may be particularly disadvantaged by class and race.

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References

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