A CALL TO ACTION: Radio 4's Today has only 16% women guests. Time to write in.

[Bidisha]

This is a call to action, after Kira Cochrane's Guardian article aboucultural femicide pointed out that the Today programme has only 16% women guests, despite a 50% female listenership. On 5th July there was 1 woman and 27 men. The programme's editor said that the issue of female representation "almost never comes up as an issue from the audience... I suppose it might be two letters a year, or something of that nature."

Last month I received a letter from a dismayed radio listener, who has noticed the ignoring of women at all levels of the media and public life. She specifically mentions Radio 4's Today programme as one of the main perpetrators of cultural femicide. She mentions her many complaints to this and other shows and the way they have largely been ignored. At major speaking events at The Women's Library in London last year and at The Arnolfini in Bristol this year - at a sold out event called Where Are The Women? - countless women approached me and said that they had complained to major media shows including Today and were dismissed, patronisingly rebuffed or ignored.

This, then, is a call to action. On this morning's show on Tuesday 6th December, aside from the presenters (4 'cheps' and a lady), Today had 20 male voices and just 5 actual female lady-women. Yesterday it had 14 men and 7 women. On Friday 2nd December it had 18 men and 6 women. On Thursday 1st December it had 18 men and 3 women. On Wednesday 30th November it had 17 men and 6 women. On Tuesday 29th November it was 18 men and 6 women. Notice, ladies, we never get above 7, and the men never get below 14 - usually much higher actually - and that's not even counting the presenters.

Back on Friday 20th March 2011, Radio 4?s Today programme featured 28 men, including the 2 male presenters, and 1 woman. The previous day they had gone completely mad ...and gave us Ladies? Day: 7 whole women spoke, including presenter Sue Macgregor, alongside 21 men. The day before that it was a much more acceptable 4 women and 19 men. I have no idea what that spike on Thursday 19th was about. 7 women! Using up the space that men could have occupied! By Friday, thank Patriarchus, He That Knoweth, natural order had been restored.

I have been contacted by Sound Women, a coalition of amazing professional women in radio. They are exhorting women to write to BBC Trust Chairman Chris Patte, and have drafted a form letter, below. Send it to Chris Patten at [email protected] and cc in his assistant [email protected]

We can also keep a log of names and dates sent on this thread, if need be.

Please feel free to adapt and change the letter below, especially if you are a Today/Radio 4 listener, but do not work in the media, and have additional points you?d like to make:

Dear Lord Patten

The Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 has four male presenters and just one woman, Sarah Montague. In addition to this, today it?s been revealed that on average 84% of its guests and reporters are male, and just 16% female.

As [a woman working in the radio industry, and] an avid radio listener, I am deeply disappointed by these figures. If the Today audience is made up of 50-50 men and women, as Today Editor Ceri Thomas claims, then this means that the women in that audience are being under-represented and badly served.

Ceri Thomas also says he receives only two letters of complaint a year, and seems to think this means the audience don?t care about the issue. Well we do care. We don?t always write letters of complaint ? sometimes we change to another station or shout at our radio instead ? but if it will make a difference then please accept this as a letter of complaint, to which I would greatly appreciate a response.

I know the representation of women on air is an issue you feel strongly about, and have spoken about before. I hope you can encourage the BBC to bring about the change that is needed, and look forward to hearing a more balanced version of the Today programme, with many more female contributors, reporters and presenters very soon.

Thank you for reading this email.

___

...And thank you for reading that long post, which is a version of an even longer feature giving very damning statistics, here: www.bidisha-online.blogspot.com/2011/12/do-you-like-women-today-today.html


Etc.
Fingers crossed. Or radios off.

[edam]

That's arse about tit, Scottishmummy. There wouldn't be 84% of male guests and only one female presenter if talent, ability, charisma, ideas were the qualifications needed to get on. Unless you think men are cleverer and more interesting than women?

Fact is we know Today is a patriarchy - the editor, cheerfully admitted it when he said the reason there's only one female presenter is that women just aren't good enough for his show. AND had the cheek to defend his comments. If he'd said the same thing about race or sexuality, he'd have been sacked. But hey, it's only women, so apparently it's fine by the Beeb.

[scottishmummy]

Gender is guarantee of Intellect or ability
Male guest not necessarily good speaker
Female guest not necessarily good speaker
If you want to appease self that job done because a token women's on r4, well that's missing a trick and settling easily for superficiality

[edam]

here's the original row about Ceri Thomas claiming women weren't good enough to work on his show. His pathetic argument being that women are 'novices' - as if journalism was only opened to women five minutes ago, ffs!

[edam]

We are saying the same thing but reaching opposite conclusions, Scottishmummy. Agreed, gender doesn't predict whether someone has something interesting to say. That's exactly why such an extreme gender imbalance is wrong.

[edam]

Dunno whether you've read all the thread, but see the comments near the start about the discussion on abortion which featured an entirely male guest & presenter combo - fgs, how much clearer can the editor make his disdain for women? If the show was normally OK then you could excuse it by saying 'maybe they were just a bit pushed for guests' but it's clearly part of a very nasty pattern.

[scottishmummy]

I dislike superficial appeasing by quota
Fucking hate speak your weight female tv presenters,yet some would infer I should be glad/grateful fir female presence on tv

I want capable,clever,smart women in media.not a token nod to appease me.oh look there's a lassie.battle won

[scottishmummy]

Why is there so many speak your weight female tv presenters
Less prominent presence of eye candy males
Def more female eye candy on tv.that's not progress imo

[Giyadas]

Having such a small number of women gives the impression of them being token women. Having an equal number of women to men helps put a stop to tokenism.
It's very easy to find one 'speak your weight' woman who can be used as tokenism, while not changing the dynamic of male dominance. Much harder to make up 50% women, all prepared to play handmaidens.

[AlwaysWild]

A treat this morning. Some neurosexism idiot was on telling us how women are bad at maths because they like pink or berries or have wombs or something. He'd done some work to 'prove' those silly other researchers 'wrong'. (he must be so proud)

It was wonderful when they speculated why on earth less women could possibly be winning the maths equivalent of the Nobel prize. Cos after all this is so unique to maths now isn't it

Anyway, strangely they managed on this occasion to find a woman to speak. I think she was a policy maker who did stuff to try and tackle the problem. And she dutifully said how we must listen to the clever clever man, although at the end saying she hoped this wouldn't stop us tackling the problem.

If only there was some kind of widely known female debunking neurosexism academic expert they could have used. Imagine. One that writes books and stuff. One that had even been on mumsnet webchat. I can dream eh cordelia fine

[AlwaysWild]

So this morning, first thing, Jim mentioned that Ed Vaizey had yesterday highlighted the lack of women on Today. His tone was disparaging and said something along the lines of 'well we'll have to tell ministers they're not allowed on unless they're women', met with the chuckle of Evan. Funny how he managed to miss the point and trot out the standard derail.

He then proudly said here's the first of our women, passed over to a women reporter for one feature, and then we had the usual trail of men (not all ministers, of course.)

An interesting insight to what the people who make the programme are actually thinking, rather than the claims that they are 'aware' and 'try'.

[vesuvia]

AlwaysWild wrote - "His tone was disparaging and said something along the lines of 'well we'll have to tell ministers they're not allowed on unless they're women', met with the chuckle of Evan."

For an (alleged) news programme, there is a too much personal opinion and judgement by the presenters. Such behaviour does not exactly enhance BBC News' claims to impartiality and professionalism.

[AlwaysWild]

I listen usually to the whole programme, and I find first thing in the morning their personal disdain is far more overt. It's like they let the professionalism slide when they think people aren't listening, or something.

[messyisthenewtidy]

"The culture minister, Ed Vaizey, has said he will seek a meeting with the BBC after telling the House of Commons that 84% of the guests and presenters on Radio 4's Today programme are men. A lack of women was a cause for concern, he told the Telegraph."

This is from the following article on the Levenson inquiry into the sexualization of women in the media. So a bit of hope then.

[QuickLookBusy]

I heard some of Women's Hour yesterday when they were discussing the Levenson inquiry into the sexualization of women in the media.

Jenny Murry read out some examples of this

A gang raping of two 12 year old girls in a park at midnight, was portrayed in the media as being the girls fault for being out in the middle of the night.

Another example was of a woman who was murdered by her violent H, the papers headlines were that he did it because she changed her FB status to "single". So it was the womans behaviour that had caused the mans' violence.

A professor of Journalism, Roy Greenslade tried to argue that men had always used violence against women, they had been doing it for 100s of years, so the media couldn't be blamed


Let's hope the people at the Levinson inquiry are a bit less stupid.

[messyisthenewtidy]

To me, it's not solely about whether media sexualization causes violence against women (although obviously that's incredibly important). It's also about the realization that dawns upon young women that what they are most valued for, and most visible for in the public domain, is their looks. It's kinda depressing to say the least.

[masuki]

i have just whizzed off an email and a Today comment across... outrageous!