It's Still a Man's World, Especially at the Top

IPS
By Andrea Lunt
NEW YORK, Mar 23, 2011 (IPS) - Long known as a "boy's club", the worldwide media industry continues to struggle with gender equality, with new research showing women are still underrepresented in the majority of newsrooms across the globe.
The study, conducted over a two-year period for the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), covered 170,000 people in the news media and involved interviews with 500 companies in 59 countries.
On average women are underrepresented in all media positions, in sectors ranging from news media ownership, publishing, governance, reporting, editing, photojournalism, and broadcast production.
Among the ranks of reporters, men hold nearly two-thirds of the jobs, compared with 36 percent held by women. However, in senior professional positions, women are nearing parity with 41 percent of the news-gathering, editing and writing roles.
And despite increasing numbers of women in top jobs in journalism over the past two decades, men still dominate executive level positions.
Researchers found 73 percent of the top media jobs were occupied by men and that women faced invisible barriers, or "glass ceilings" to management in 20 of the nations studied, including the UK.