Wow. Newsnight tonight was dominated by women. Is this your DHs doing Justine?

[YoniMatopoeia]

Female presenter. Mostly female talking heads/opinion givers (only one man I saw but I missed a bit in the middle)

It reminded me how rare this is.

How sad is it that our media is so male dominated.

Sorry if I am not completely coherent. I may have had a v hard day at work and a little wine.

That happened also a few months ago. It was so rare that the fact that it was an all-woman discussion leapt out at me, which is shows that hen's teeth come to mind. Having said that Sky's Jeff Randall show at 7pm (mainly financial stuff) is terrific at generally having a normal representation of women experts i.e. recognition that we make up half the population. Good for you Jeff!

is

It is quite rare. I go on TV and a radio sometimes. Lots of women don't because it can mean a very early start, car to pick you up at crack of dawn from house, no fee or a late night. Same with public speaking which I do a lot. I am often the only woman. It is a kind of self promotion, I am great activity which is great for your personal brand. Many women don't blow their own trumpet enough by doing this kind of out of hours unpaid and pretty stressful stuff. I wish more did and I wish they were asked more too.

Channel 4 News does a great job at proving it's possible, too.

Dh definitely trying to get more women on, yes. It seems to be harder to convince women than men that they have something worth hearing though. There's a surprise .

Channel4 is doing an outstanding job on female representation at the moment - Jon Snow interviewed an all-female panel of three the other week, then a couple of nights later Cathy Newman led another panel of three women.

Hello Justine :)

(Norma Stanley Fletcher here under nc )

I have heard it reported that women of equal experience are less likely to put themselves forward for expert opinions/debate.

Then sometimes when they do, you get the Mary Beard reaction.

There is also the view that women are socialised to think they have to justify their opinions more (where a man might just state his).

Not that it works that way on here.

And Justine seems quite happy to appear on the box

This is very interesting. What's your area 78bunion if you don't mind me asking? I agree with your reasons for women sometimes turning down opportunities, but I have noticed an increase in female representation. Still a long way to go!

Justine - make sure your DH knows about thewomensroom.org.uk/findanexpert.

They have lots of expert women who are registered with them and this was set up to try to combat the problem of media saying the couldn't be bothered to find any women for their programme/article.

Newsnight is v good for this, I have been boringly commenting to DH most nights for months "oooh look it's loads of women again how unusual is that, isn't it great" etc etc.

To see a female solo anchor of a serious program interviewing female experts over the video and having groups of female experts in the studio is just so brilliantly refreshing.

I also think that the male presenters on Newsnight are v au fait with and sensitive to sex type issues, ditto channel 4 news.

We're all the guests interesting? #

Crumbs, is there no shame re the 'boring and female' Venn Diagram on NN of late?

Are you saying that the majority of the women on NN have been boring pan ?

Paij, sorry, better not say but related to business. I agree women are doing better.
I have usually seized chances offered but it's often a huge effort, an early taxi at 6am to go to some recording studio or a nominal or no fee and if it usually leads to no new work/money then it's difficult to make yourself do it just to increase your personal brand's exposure.

I agree with those above that having panels with more women than men matters. Also the law of threes is often quoted - on Boards of directors once you have 3 women "woman"stops being a strange rare thing and they become people which is not so easily the case with just one.

The other thing I look at is the obituaries in the Times. Sometimes now there will be 3 women which is lovely to see (and not just the wife of XYA). Most days it is 2 or 3 men only.

Agree that it's great, but the thread would never be titled "...dominated by men" if it was 80-90% men.

Ah, well, we'll get there one day

Yoni

I was being slightly playful about a recent NN event (for which apols were properly issued in a timely way), though obv that didn't come across so well.

Too little, too late, Pan. We have to kill you now.

You lot kill me most days.

:)

Yeah, lets kill him girls female adult humans!

Sorry pan. Not aware of the event you were referencing. I don't often catch NN as I leave for work before 6 and so am not often up that late.

Just echoing the praise for Channel 4 News, which does seem to do a good job of including a range women's voices. I have particularly enjoyed Maria Misra* in a couple of interviews recently (esp when she walked all over Max Hastings). How come Channel 4 News is so good when Channel 4 as a whole is pretty ropey? I have more or less adopted it as my sole TV news now.

*Even though she beat my DH in a job interview a decade or so ago.

oh no Yoni it was a minor storm which MrJustine sorted sharpish - just lent a degree of irony to the thread.