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Women continue to be economically disadvantaged and under-represented in positions of power and leadership. A discursive disjunction between cultural and media representations of women and leadership has been implicated in these continuing inequalities. We address this issue through an analysis of the ways in which prominent women leaders were portrayed in a UK radio series, BBC Radio 4's "Profile" broadcast between July 2011 and July 2013. Verbatim transcripts of 12 broadcasts featuring women were analysed within a critical feminist framework, to explore the ways in which these women leaders were discursively constructed. Our analysis explicates three constructions of "women leaders": as "traditionally" feminine; as having to balance "masculine" and "feminine" attributes; and as exceptional women who may nevertheless fail. We conclude that the impact of equality legislation continues to be limited while androcentric norms prevail and that we therefore need more gynocentric ways of imagining women leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents results from one of the first global studies on the relationship between media sexism and the share of candidates for the lower chamber of national parliaments who are women. Data on media sexism come from the Global Media Monitoring Project, the most reliable worldwide source for media coverage from a gender perspective. The data on share of female political candidates come from the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The results show that that there is, even when controlling for the number of women in parliament, electoral system, gender quotas, level of human development, level of women's rights, freedom from corruption, and media access, a significant relationship between media sexism—measured as (i) the share of all news subjects that are women and (ii) the share of all news subjects portrayed in the function of experts who are women—and the share of women candidates for parliament: the higher the level of media sexism, the lower the share of women candidates. The theory discussed zooms in on a bystander effect: We hypothesize that sexist portrayals of women in the media stifle ambition among women who, in a less sexist media environment, would be willing to stand as political candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article, through a series of interviews conducted with women war correspondents in Great Britain, cautions against undue optimism since sexism in the field, both within the military and among journalists, continues to prevail. The authors of the essay do not subscribe to a feminization of war news theory but instead suggest that a "journalism of attachment," which favors more human stories of civilian victims is creating a productive arena for women reporters. It is suggested that the presence of women in the frontline may also be indicative of a change in war storylines. A female perspective is allowing for greater engagement with the lives of the victims of war rather than its technical and strategic aspects.

The article argues that audience perceptions about women have not kept pace with institutional changes in the field of journalism. Thus, the spaces available for women as agents in war journalism continue to be attenuated. Given that most news about Iraq was coming from the wire services or international media agencies, the South African Broadcasting Corp. adopted a different approach in an attempt to offer an alternative view of events in Iraq. For the first time, a decision was taken to send South African reporters and cameramen, as "unilaterals," to a combat zone. One of the reporters, who arrived in Baghdad the first day the U.S. invasion began and remained throughout the bombardment of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, was a young woman named, Renee Horne. South African audiences continued to feminize Horne, demanding that she look glamorous.