FORMER newsreader Jo Pearson knows very well just how sexist the media industry can be. Working in television news broadcasting during the somewhat less politically-correct period of the 1980s, Pearson was a witness to (and victim of) the “boys’ club” attitude that pervaded the business of journalism.
This was an industry run by men who did not attempt to hide their blatantly sexist attitudes in the workplace and, in fact, revelled in them. On the contrary, Pearson claims that in a room full of senior staff members a particularly well-known television executive responded to criticism of the industry by a prominent Australian woman with the ‘witty’ quip: “Who cares? Who’d want to **** her anyway?”
Jo Pearson was a senior newsreader with Channel Ten throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, during which time she experienced first-hand the type of misogyny that continues to fester under the glossy surface of the Australian television industry.
This chauvinistic sexism has claimed a number of illustrious scalps in the years since Pearson worked in the Australian media, with a roll call of the alleged victims of misogyny in the workplace reading like a list of the nation’s finest media talent: Jessica Rowe. Christine Spiteri, Tracey Spicer.
Each of these women have spoken out about the treatment that they received throughout their career in television media, describing in detail the culture of chauvinism they say exists when the camera’s stop rolling.
Spicer made waves last month with a speech to Women of Letters entitled “Dear Mr Misogynist” that was syndicated in a number of Australian newspapers after her presentation.
In this speech Spicer attacks the chauvinist patriarchy of the television industry as having “archaic beliefs, intellect of a pygmy” and a small… well, read the letter in full to finish that sentence.
Suffice to say, Tracey Spicer does not hold back in her withering criticism of the men that told her regularly to lose two inches off her hair and two inches off her buttocks.
Jo Pearson, now a Hertfordshire-based operator of production house and communications consultancy Media Strategies, was recently in Australia when she read the “Dear Mr Misogynist” letter and was driven to publically affirm Spicer’s portrayal of the Australian television industry.
She claims that there were significant differences in the attitudes towards male and female newsreaders during the fifteen years that she worked in broadcast journalism.
Pearson told Australian Times: “Television newsrooms have been notoriously ‘politically incorrect’ workplaces, which was a part of their culture. Women were supposed to be attractive and young, and men could be unattractive and older.
“Some senior television executives – male, of course – would openly talk about a woman needing ‘sex appeal’ to work on television, whilst the men were ‘credible.’
“Their excuse was always that ‘television is a visual medium,’ and ‘the viewers don’t want to watch unattractive older women – they don’t rate.’”
Pearson recalls the struggle for female journalists in the 1980s to break traditional cultural barriers by covering stories that were usually considered the domain of their male colleagues, including crime and sport. Management of network news departments, and the television networks themselves, were almost exclusively male and their decisions reflected the widely-held view that the Australian public preferred to receive their information from distinguished older men and attractive young women.
“We were told that viewers didn’t like to watch older or less attractive women. Like fashion models, women in television were not supposed to be representative of most women, but to merely represent a visual ideal,” Pearson says.
“Female reporters, newsreaders and occasional female producers were touted as being evidence of true female representation, but in many cases it was little more than window-dressing, or a concession to appease.”
Pearson hopes that an increase in the amount of women in senior management positions at Australian television networks will aid in the rehabilitation of the misogynistic culture of broadcast media in the nation, although she points out that in the past women had “tended to reach management positions only if they subscribed to the dominant male culture”.
Permanently based in the United Kingdom, Pearson points to the BBC as a model for Australian television networks to emulate in order to achieve greater gender-balance in their news broadcasts.
She says: “It is great to see more senior women presenting news on the BBC, with their maturity adding to their credibility as newsreaders and presenters. News-reading is an area where experience really counts. This is an area where public broadcasters can and must set a standard, with proactive hiring policies, like the BBC’s.
“There do seem to be more mature women in front of the camera in the UK, thanks to the BBC’s policies – although SBS in Australia has also been proactive area, giving excellent broadcasters like Jenny Brockie prime time responsibilities.”
[ Source: Australian Times ]