Media, arts and sport

Men’s over-representation across the media and creative industries is reflected in widespread stereotyping of women and lack of gender balance in print, on the airwaves and on screen. The portrayal of women across media, popular culture and the arts is damagingly limited, especially for disabled women, minority ethnic women, older women, lesbian, bisexual and trans women.

Both the media and creative industries have immense power to shape the way society views women’s worth and both play a part in perpetuating damaging gender stereotypes which undermine women’s equality. Creativity is not dependent on gender and yet there is marked underrepresentation of women both in production and visible roles.

In terms of sport, women’s sport is overwhelmingly undervalued and underfunded when compared with men’s, and the support girls receive to participate in sport and exercise is shaped by gendered norms. Women are not able to freely and equally participate in sporting activities as participants, observers or commentators.

Action can be taken both to remove the barriers to women’s full participation in these sectors and enable the production of culture and media that offers meaningful representation to all of Scotland’s population.

SEXISM IN THE MEDIA

By 2030 the media actively seeks to offer equal representation to women and girls in Scotland.

Scottish Government, Creative Scotland and other bodies should work together to:

Change the story

• Create and resource a Scottish ‘Women in Media Body’.
• Use data to create benchmarks of portrayals of women and women’s participation.
• Public funding programmes and media regulation should enable gender balance in employment and diversity in representation.

The negative impact of the media on women and on gender equality is profound. In 2017, men are editors of 100 percent of Scotland’s main newspapers, and 100 percent of national broadcaster chief executives. This trend is reflected in ubiquitous stereotyping of women and an overwhelming lack of gender balance across all media platforms.

In 2015, analysis of print and broadcast news sources showed that:

• 85 percent of academics (including teachers),
• 87 percent of businesspeople,
• 88 percent of media and creative industry professionals
• 97 percent of those related to sport

appearing in these media were men.

Women are more likely to be described in terms of their family status, and over three times as likely to be described as victims than men. Women standing for political office are routinely subjected to sexism in the mainstream media, and the absence of quality reporting on gender issues contributes to low awareness of women’s inequality and thus to sustaining it.

Meanwhile, sexualised imagery of women and girls across media platforms is so commonplace and widely accepted that it generally fails to resonate as an equality issue. This objectification of women’s bodies is extraordinarily damaging and shapes how women are valued, reinforces sexist attitudes and has negative impacts on body image, self-worth and health. The media’s reporting of gendered violence also perpetuates harmful myths, as highlighted by Scotland’s annual Write to End Violence Against Women Awards. As set out in Chapter Eight, the explosion of new media and social media means that online safety, particularly for young people, is an emerging issue that requires investment and development.

EMPLOYMENT AND WORK

By 2030 women are enabled to undertake paid creative roles on an equal basis with men.

Scottish Government and Creative Scotland should work together to:

Gather evidence

• Undertake a gendered audit of cultural production in Scotland.
• Use data to inform policymaking and the design of funding programmes.

Encourage new practices

• Create an equality and diversity fund to help meet additional costs faced by diverse groups of women.
• Develop and pilot alternative working practices and funding arrangements within the industry.
• Mainstream alternative working practices that reduce barriers to women’s participation.

Promote sustainable employment

• Map industry employment pathways that identify crisis and pinch points for women.
• Fund a mentoring programme for women in culture and media.
• Use findings from the mentoring programme to develop career self-management information for women.

Women are systematically underrepresented in cultural production across media and creative industries. For example:

• In 2015, men held 80 percent of all key production roles on UK films, as directors, writers, producers, executive-producers, cinematographers and editors
• 15 percent of screenwriters for UK film are women
• 12 percent of television entertainment and comedy programmes are directed by women
• 80 percent of newsreaders over 50 are men
• There are twice as many roles for men as for women in publicly funded theatre productions
• Work by women playwrights is typically shown in smaller spaces.

Within this, sub-sectoral occupational segregation also occurs. In film, TV and performing arts, women are the majority of the creative workforce only in casting, make-up and costume, and are clustered in ‘feminine’ genres, such as romance, lifestyle and homes. However, this does not correlate with how women consume culture. In the print media, women consistently hold editorial positions such as fashion or features, as opposed to politics or business.

SPORT

By 2030 women and staff in the sports sector perceive equality between women’s sport and men’s sport.

Scottish Government and SportScotland should work together to:

Tackle sports inequality

• Develop a national strategy to increase the proportion of women in sport at all levels, including coaching
• Require all sporting bodies receiving public money to have ambitious women’s equality plans as a condition of grant.
• Legislate or regulate to require equal public spend on men’s and boys’ sport and women’s and girls’ sport.

Women’s sport is marginalised in Scotland. Although sport dominates many of our national conversations, 99 percent of sponsorship investment and 95 percent of media coverage is dedicated to men’s sport, representing a comprehensive exclusion of women from a key area of Scottish public and cultural life. The invisibility of women in sport has an impact on women and girls’ activity in schools and beyond.

The enormous gender gap in sport is underpinned by a number of differences in men’s and women’s lives. Women experience greater time poverty and have less access to resources for expensive fees, clothing and equipment than men. Male-dominated sporting cultures, sexual harassment and abuse in sports venues, a lack of appropriate facilities, negative or limited experiences of PE, and related self-esteem and body issues result in girls and women dropping out of sport. Systemic transphobia and racism in sport also have particular implications for trans and minority ethnic women, and lack of opportunities limits participation for disabled women and girls. Girls withdraw from sport at a faster rate than boys, and teenage girls and women are significantly less likely to participate in recreational sport, which in turn has a negative impact on women’s health and wellbeing.

Professional opportunities for women within all levels of sport are extremely restricted. Only 14 percent of CEO positions across Scotland’s national governing bodies are held by women, and there is a large gender pay gap within elite sports. Men are 82 percent of qualified sports coaches across the UK, and even at community level investment in girls’ sport is hugely unequal. This represents a cycle of inequality that disincentivizes women’s participation and employment in sports sectors.

Recent industry-led initiatives to tackle the barriers to women participating and working in sport are to be welcomed. However, workers within sporting sectors believe that this action is not sufficiently substantive to make change happen, and certain national sports bodies in Scotland think the focus on equality is unnecessary. With voluntary approaches only enabling marginal gains for women, there is now a need for political will to be applied to tackle systemic and persistent gender inequality in sport.

Further reading

• Gender Matters Holyrood 2016: Women in Media Watchdog (Engender)
• Who makes the news? UK report 2015 (Global Media Monitoring Project)
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion report 2016 (Creative Scotland)
• Equality and Sport Research (commissioned by SportScotland and EHRC Scotland)

See also

• Health
• Public space
• Violence against women
• Women’s rights and fair economy