Status of Women 2004 Abstracts
Commission on the Status of Women
Medea in the Media: Maternal Myths in Print News Coverage of Women Who Kill Their Children • Barbara Barnett, University of Kansas • In reporting news stories about women who kill their children, journalists often employ myths of the “good mother/bad mother” to explain a crime that is both heinous and enigmatic. A qualitative narrative analysis of more than 200 news articles over a 15-year period found that journalists classify murderous mothers as either “perfect” women, who tried hard to be superior caregivers but were overcome by the pressures of mothering, or “imperfect” women, who shirked their maternal duties altogether.
Gender Portrayals in Sports Programming Commercials: A Content Analysis • Courtney F. Carpenter, University of Alabama • Research on gender portrayals in advertising has consistently demonstrated that even as social attitudes change, females are still stereotyped in advertisements throughout all media. This research investigates the portrayals of men and women in ads broadcast during sporting events. Males are more likely to be portrayed in stereotypical ways during male sports programs. Male narrators are used far more often than female narrators. Male programming is significantly more likely to feature a broader array of male stereotyped product categories.
Moving Beyond Job Satisfaction: A Qualitative Analysis of Women Journalists’ Turnover Decisions • Cindy Elmore, East Carolina University • Most studies addressing journalist turnover have surveyed current journalists, and few have focused on women. Here, 15 women former journalists were interviewed at length about their turnover decisions. An analysis yielded themes and a description of the turnover decision process that went beyond mere job satisfaction. The women’s experiences corresponded to Mobley’s turnover decision model and Valian’s findings about women’s slow rate of progress in the professions and the consequent alteration of their previous ambitions.
“Miss Marple with Barracuda Teeth”: Gendered Coverage of Governor Olene Walker in the Utah Press • Jenille Fairbanks and Holly Cox, Brigham Young University • With the August 2003 nomination of Governor Mike Leavitt to the EPA, Utah’s highest government office was filled—for the first time—by a woman. As Olene Walker was propelled to the forefront of the public agenda, journalists faced the novel task of introducing and covering a 72-year-old female governor. This paper explores gendered frames applied to Governor Walker by the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News during her transition to, and first months in, office.
Male And Female Sources In Newspaper Coverage Of Male And Female Candidates In Open Races For Governor In 2002 • Eric Freedman and Frederick Fico, Michigan State University • This study assessed how capital city newspapers used male and female experts and non-expert, uncommitted sources in covering 2002 races for open governorships. It examined four states with a female nominee and five states where both major candidates were male. Regardless of the candidates’ gender, the overwhelming majority of nonpartisan sources cited were male. Female non-expert sources appeared far less than their proportion in the population. The story proportion of women experts reflected the gender imbalance of experts recommended by university news bureaus. Female reporters, however, had a greater tendency than their male colleagues to cite female nonpartisan sources.
The Queen of Questions: Washington Correspondent Sarah McClendon Championed Citizens’ Right to Know • Cary Roberts Frith, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Sarah McClendon, the nation’s longest-serving Washington correspondent, covered twelve presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush. This paper addresses McClendon’s controversial reputation as an outspoken female journalist doggedly pursuing stories of interest to her readers. Specifically, it explores the most famous — or infamous — questions she asked at White House press conferences, her reasons for asking them, how presidents responded to them, and how her colleagues in the press corps covered them.
Mapping the Sea of Eating Disorders: A Structural Equation Model of How Peers, Family and Media Influence Body Image and Eating Disorders • J. Robyn Goodman, University of Florida • This paper used a structural model to investigate how family, peers and media influence body image and eating disorders. Because previous research indicates many potential influences as explanatory factors for negative body image and eating disorders (see Thompson et al., 1999), researchers have proposed several integrative models that include peer, family and media as casual factors. However, none have been fully tested. The model revealed that media pressure and peer’s dieting talk and behaviors were the greatest influences on thinness awareness, thinness internalization, social comparison, which in turn influenced body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and eating disordered behaviors.
Advertising Images of Females in Seventeen: Positions of Power or Powerless Positions? • Frances E. Gorman, University of Kansas • A semiotic analysis, informed by feminist theory, is used to determine how advertisements in Seventeen magazine depict myths of femininity, i.e. whether females as portrayed as delicate, as subordinate vs. independent and as possessing sexual power. The majority of ads in Seventeen displayed females as subordinate rather than independent. Powerful sexuality was also observed. Analyzing the meanings behind these images provides insight on the identities of teens and their need for widespread media literacy.
Pinkifying the Brand: Early Nike Women’s Advertising and the Evolution of Mediated Representations of Female Athletes • Jean M. Grow, Marquette University • This paper analyzes the first seven years of Nike women’s advertising. The study addresses how the creative process was influenced by the creative team’s everyday life experiences, both inside and outside of Nike, and how those experiences impacted the advertising they produced. The paper suggests that in spite of Nike’s early concern that women’s advertising might “pinkify” the brand, the advertising ultimately had a positive influence on Nike, as well as on current images of female athletes.
Taking Feminism’s Pulse: The Women’s Health Movement in the Ladies’ Home Journal Health Coverage Between 1969 and 1975 • Amanda Hinnant, Northwestern University • What kind of information did readers of the Ladies’ Home journal receive about women’s health during feminism’s second wave? This paper responds to that question by qualitatively examining how the Journal tackled issues that the Women’s Health Movement likewise deemed important. Though both the movement and the magazine shared the common liberal-feminist goal of educating women about health, the Journal did not often advocate a radical-feminist critique of the health care system.
Progress at a Snail’s Pace: An Exploration of Women Communication Faculty’s Sex-Specific Professional Concerns • Lisa Joy Lyon and Keisha Hoerrner, Kennesaw State University • A national survey building on earlier data of female AEJMC faculty members was conducted to explore gender-specific job stressors and the support mechanisms in place to help alleviate them. The top professional concerns were (1) lack of time to do research, (2) salary, and (3) organizational politics. The current top items reveal little differences over time from the past five years. Despite some incremental improvements, change in academy appears to be slow.
Jeanne Toomey, Homicide Reporter and Alcoholic, Still Laughing: From the First Post, the Bergen Street Shack, To “The Last Post,” A Cat House in Connecticut • Beverly G. Merrick, New Mexico State University • How does one measure the lessons learned by a journalistic odyssey? Homeric myth does not describe the odyssey of heroic women. No one is waiting to welcome the troubled hero home after she has weathered the storms, fought the battles. However, if one defines the odyssey by looking at the barriers Jeanne Toomey had to overcome to open doors for other women in the journalism profession, her life is quite remarkable. She dared to break the stereotypes, to literally crack the molds into which she was cast. She gained respect for herself in the process, while keeping a sense of humor.
Framing the Internet in Gendered Spaces: An Analysis of iVillage and Askmen.com • Cindy Royal, University of Texas at Austin • While access to the Internet in the U.S. is reaching parity between males and females, over time, gender differences in terms of usage, agency, and representation with technology are becoming evident. With many studies characterizing the gender divide as eliminated, attention is diverted from other types of divides. The purpose of this study is to identify trends in content on two sites, iVillage and AskMen.com, that can contribute to different attitudes about using Internet technology.
Virtual Girls: A Framing Analysis of Girlhood in Two Online Girls’ Magazines • Helena K. Särkiö, University of Florida • The purpose of research was to identify constructions of girlhood online through study of sites for teenage girls. Of interest also was whether online constructions of girlhood may differ according to sites’ tie-ins with offline print media and their owners. Informed by a cultural studies perspective, framing analysis was conducted on two online girls’ magazines; the hyper-commercial cosmogirl.com and the ultimate e-zine, purplepjs.com. Both hegemonic and counter-hegemonic constructions were found, but one can only speculate about the relationship to media ownership.
Wrapped Up in Pink Ribbon: The Mediated Construction of Breast-Cancer Reality • Janet Tate, University of Tennessee • This content analysis compared breast-cancer information from 1,085 medical-literature citations with that found in 118 women’s – magazine articles over the eleven-year period of 1992 through 2002. These comparisons were then analyzed to see if the medical literature’s findings were accurately represented in the women’s magazines, and to determine if a preexisting trend toward reporting on cause rather than on other breast-cancer issues continues.
Essence Essentials: African American Women and the Performance of Class • Jennifer Bailey Woodard, Middle Tennessee State University • The ethnographic focus group is used in this audience-centered study as the primary method to reveal the everyday use that Black women make of Essence as they negotiate class values within the pages of the magazine and within their own interpretative communities. This feminist cultural studies research formulates a theory of how Essence serves as both liberator and hegemonic oppressor in the social construction of meaning.
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