Miss Representation Screening: London

Last night I attended a UK screening of Miss Representation Jennifer Siebel Newsom‘s documentary that looks at how the US media portrays women and young girls. This event was hosted by Women in Film and TV and Amnesty International UK.

Just watch the trailer and you’ll get a taste of the heart-lurching-lump-in-your-throat feeling that this film evokes. The opening still displays a quote from Alice Walker “The most common way that people give up their power is by thinking that they don’t have any”. This is followed by a montage of sexualised, violent and demeaning images of women cut between quotes from contributors about the media’s treatment and representation of women and the impact on society. From the start, you know that this is a campaigning film, designed to provoke its audience into action.

What’s in a name? ‘Women and Careers in the Media. Tackling the Gender Gap through the Next Generation’ presentation at the OCR Conference, London

Last Friday I presented at the OCR A level Media Conference for A Level Media Studies teachers. http://ocrmediaconference2012.weebly.com/index.html

My presentation was in collaboration with Dr Kim Allen a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Education (IPSE), London Metropolitan University. Kim’s research focuses on young people’s career aspirations and transitions, and the role of social class and gender in shaping these; and issues of exclusion, equality and diversity in the creative industries.  Together, we presented aspects from both our research agendas that linked to the gender gap amongst creative media professionals in the UK. I introduced the background to my PhD project including the Skillset statistics and reports on gendered employment patterns in the industry and some findings from my qualitative interviews with female creative workers on attitudes towards motherhood and employment within the industry. Kim presented her findings from a research project conducted in 2009- 2010 for the Equality Challenge Unit on equality issues in higher education work placements in the creative sector (with Jocey Quinn, Sumi Hollingworth and Anthea Rose). This project carried out a series of in-depth interviews with students in Higher Education who had undertaken work placements in the creative industries and Kim presented some of the findings from the interviews with female students aged 19-25 who had undertaken work experience placements in the TV, Film, Advertising, Design and Photography sectors. You can read up about the findings from this project here.

The purpose of our presentation was to show how the findings from our research suggest that there is a serious gender gap developing in the creative industries, one that it would appear is being felt by a younger generation, what Kim described as ‘creative workers in the making’ (term taken from Dr Daniel Ashton) which would suggest a continuing trend, and get feedback from A Level teachers on how this might affect their students. We talked about how this trend could have major repercussions, for a sector that has been identified as a growth industry, one that has been identified by politicians as potentially providing a central role in the UK recovery from the current recession. Yet if as our research suggests certain groups of workers continue to be alienated, excluded from career progression or forced to leave and if this becomes a growing trend, how does that impact on this forecast? And we asked what are the barriers or conditions of the industry that are causing this widening gap in the first place?

If I were to start writing the answers to those questions now, I’m be writing out my entire PhD (you don’t want me to do that). What both Kim and I hoped to gain from this session was the feedback and thoughts from Higher Education providers on how they felt this would impact on their students. We wanted to know what career advice they would give, particularly to their female students on jobs in the creative industries, given the findings from our research. We wanted to know what relationships currently existed between the industry and education providers, whether they felt they had the right resources to realistically advise and support their students and where they felt were the most important areas for improvement.

Unfortunately, we had very little in attendance. Those that did attend provided some excellent feedback on their own experiences of working within the industry and the areas of concern / questions posed to them by parents on opportunities for their children who were studying the media and many thanks to those that did attend for their feedback. But there was depressingly little input to go on. When I did my masters at the LSE, I co-organised a seminar on women and journalism with Charlie Beckett Director of media thinktank Polis, chaired by Samira Ahmed and featuring presentations by Professor Ros Gill and Dr Nadja Al-Ali. When planning that seminar, I was advised by a female MD of a very successful independent production company (who I shall not be naming) “If you stick the word ‘women’ in your title you’ll more than half your audience”. Why? Both Kim and I debated the title of our presentation, but we both felt that the issue was one that should be recognised as having an impact on everyone. We talked about the potential economic impact of this trend in a global industry and its affect on everyone, but it still seemed to be understood by some attendees as a ‘woman’s’ issue.

I would still really appreciate feedback from A Level teachers on this research. Kim and I included a series of questions in our presentation which can be accessed here Allen&Dent 2012_Women and careers in the media presentation so if anyone who attended the conference but didn’t make the talk would like to get in touch with me please do so: Tamsyn@cemp.ac.uk.

I will be conducting further interviews later on this year and am planning to present some of my findings in early 2013. Also Kim and I are hoping to hold this presentation again so watch this space for more information.

Write up from ‘Media and Mothers’ Matters’ conference, Winchester Uni

Last Friday I attended a half day conference ‘Media and Mother’s matters’ hosted by Dr Oluyinka Esan at Winchester University. I have to admit, I was a bit grudging about this conference. The thought of scrabbling /begging to find an extra day’s childcare for Freddy to attend what I thought might turn into a group rant about how bad TV was for young minds did not seem like my number one priority (sorry Oluyinka). But I was completely wrong. The conference included fantastic presentations by among others the legendary Professor Dorothy Hobson whose keynote speech covered the entry of mothers into the workplace, the link between the economy and policy on mothers in the UK, the representation of mothers and mothering on UK soap operas including the audience reaction to the Kat / Ronnie cot death storyline in EastEnders were outrage from real mothers on the inappropriateness of the story caused production to rethink and rewrite. She also spoke about the criticism faced by working media mothers including foreign correspondent Alex Crawford who has been singled out as a war reporter with children when she makes the point that she is surrounded by men in war-torn areas who also have kids but do not receive the level of condemnation that she is subject to. Hobson spoke of the normative constructions of motherhood that have become embedded in our society today and the lack of realistic portrayals of mothering on our screens. She celebrated the Channel Four documentary ‘One Born Every Minute’ for it’s realistic portrayal of both the ordinary and miraculous reality of childbirth.

Here’s a link to another blog about women in radio

From a fellow blogger ‘Sound Women’: http://soundwomen.co.uk/2011/10/14/it%E2%80%99s-a-bit-strange-to-have-a-woman-talking-to-you%E2%80%A6/#comment-20

Link to Bournemouth University blog on the role of the university

http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2011/10/17/research-and-the-role-of-the-university/

US study shows fewer women working in TV

The US based Centre for the Study of Women in Television & Film has revealed it’s latest report on the number of women employed in TV both in front of and behind the camera. The latest ‘Boxed In’ report  shows that the figures of female employment in the US TV industries is down from previous years and that this has a direct impact on the numbers of women represented onscreen. The percentage of women writers on broadcast programmes dropped from 29% in 2009-2010 to 15% in 2010-2011. The number of women directors has also dropped from  16% in 2009-2010 to 11% in 2010-201. The report states that “programs with at least one woman creator or writer featured more female characters than programs with no women creators or writers.”

 

This study mirrors a similar picture here in the UK. Statistics produced by Skillset, the Sector Skills Council for the Creative Media Industries show that around 5000 women left the TV industry between 2006 – 2009. The research shows that women are significantly under-represented over the age of 35 across the industry and that of those that do work in the industry they are on average paid less, more qualified, and less likely to have children than their male counterparts. Click here to see the full report.

 

What’s going on? Is this a trend that’s specific to the TV industries or are we seeing a pattern that could potentially develop across all sectors? Are the creative industries leading the way in exposing the precarious position of female employers and what are the reasons behind them? I suspect that it has a lot to do with the time and context of the world that we are living in today. The recent financial crisis has exposed a lot of the imbalances that were covered up or silenced in the first 8 years of the 21st century. We do not yet have a system in place in the UK or the US that robustly supports female employees. What needs to be examined is what are the implications of this and what will be lost if one half of society are denied access to the working world?

How to make the “perfect” baby

I quite like the free ‘Stylist’ newspaper that comes out every Wednesday in cities across the UK. There’s a balance between fashion and celebrity with interesting contributors and articles that relate to contemporary women juggling their multi-faceted positions in society (mother, worker, object etc).

 

The latest article (20.7.11) however included this article as it’s headline story, ‘How to Make the Perfect Baby’: http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/how-to-make-the-perfect-baby . The report looks at the rise in gene therapy and the possible potential for future parents to screen their babies’ genetic code and play around with it, essentially eliminating the undesirable gene’s inherited from each partner and controlling those that they do inherit. A process called Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), whereby embryo’s are screened for genetic malfunctions is already available on demand in clinic in the US, Cyprus or Russia albeit at a price. Soon the article predicts, parents will be able to undergo the “ultimate shopping experience: designing your baby”.

“Cine Sisters” Conference. The history of women working in film and TV

A very quick update but yesterday (Mon 18th June) I attended the ‘Cine Sisters’ conference at the Women’s Library in East London. The conference was all about highlighting the stories about and contribution that women film and tv practitioners have made to the industries.

It was a fascinating introduction to a section of film and television history that has until now been totally ignored. Melanie Williams (UEA) gave a paper on the impact, both professional, personal and creatively of the Continuity “Girl’s” Maggie Unsworth and Barbara Cole on filmmaker David Lean’s (A Passage to India, Dr. Shivago, Lawrence of Arabia) career. Bryony Dixon and Lisa Kerrigan from the BFI talked about their work in uncovering archive footage of work by women filmmakers and a new project that will focus on women film and tv documentary filmmakers that will be launched in 2014. There were talks on the impact of female professionals in contemporary production design, 1920′s scriptwriters, women musician’s in silent cinema, women working in the UK regional news coverage and screenings of archive interviews with UK film and tv professionals working throughout the 50′s, 60′s and 70′s. The breadth of these papers shows the diverse contribution that women have made the creative industries which has until recently been written out of history.

The conference was hosted by a number of different institutions: The Cinema and Television History (CATH) Research Centre at De Montfort University, the School of Film and Television Studies at University of East Anglia the BECTU Oral History Project and the Women’s Film History Network UK/Ireland. All these organisation’s are working on project’s to address these hidden stories and all are worth following. In order to make sense of the issues that face women working in these industries today, it is important to have an understanding of the past. A vast amount of archive footage of women’s work, interviews and life stories is out there… it just needs to be accessed and publicised.

Murdoch and NOTW

I haven’t written anything on this blog in shocklingly ages – a result of frantic reading / writing combined with sudden loss of childcare (nb nothing tragic). But the ‘News Of The World’ has just been axed! The British tabloid will cease to exist as of Sunday (10th July) following the revelations of the phone hacking scandal which revealed that it was not only celebrities, royals and politicians having their phones hacked into but also what’s considered ‘ordinary’ citizens who were victims of crime. The response to this news on social media platforms is electrifying. There are those that are berating the moral failure of the NOTW and celebrating its demised whereas others lamenting the effect of the Newspapers closure on its impact to broadcast journalism. Clearly, it’s complicated. I have a hunch that a lot will (more slowly) be drawn out from this situation relating to print journalism culture and the future of the press. For now though, it’s one of those moments when you feel like something profound is happening …. right now, the implications of which will probably go unnoticed by the vast majority and yet will affect all.

The World UNPLUGGED study results and information

Click this link to go to The World UNPLUGGED research blog. This research was carried out with just under 1,000 university students from 10 different countries including Chile, China, the UK, Lebanon, the US and Uganda. The project asked students to abstain from using all media for one day. After their 24 hour media abstinence, participants were then asked to report their response to the project including successes and failures. Their responses were aggregated to produce a document of half a million words which described their feelings to the task.

The results reveal how young people now access, use, and define media. It opens up a new understanding of what we define as ‘news’ and provides detailed recommendations for the Students themselves, Universities, Entrepreneurs and Journalist. It is a reminder of how the media plays such a pervasive role in our lives. Alas their was no gender analysis, although demographics of those that took part show that 66.3% of respondents were women and 0.2% transgender. However this is a useful and insightful piece of research.