WUNRN
http://www.womenactionmedia.org/why-wam/
Non- There are over 3.3 billion women living in the world today. Yet if you
judge solely by the mainstream media you might conclude those 3.3 billion
people are less intelligent, less articulate, less funny, have less to say
about issues (even those directly affecting them) or perhaps only make up 5 to
30% of the population. Of course, none of that is true. What is true is that
women have less opportunity to contribute to conversations, because they are
less likely to own media, be asked for their opinion regardless of their
qualifications, be published or be given the chance to tell their story.
At Women, Action and the Media (WAM!) we think that needs
to change and we know how to make it happen. We are an independent, non-profit
organization building a robust, effective, inclusive movement for gender
justice in the media. We are also a strong, growing community of people engaged
with media, learning and sharing capacity and skills needed to build a media
ecosystem that represents the diversity of our lives and stories.
Why do we WAM!? Because power and privilege is about who
gets to speak and who is listened to. Most of the time, it’s not women.
Why WAM!?
Power and privilege is about who gets to speak and who is
listened to. Most of the time, it is not women. In its most recent report, the
Global Media Monitoring Project concluded, “The world we see in the news is a
world in which women are virtually invisible.” Their study found that:
·
Only 21% of the news
subjects were women; women were more than twice as likely to be portrayed as
victims and three times as likely to be identified by family status (for
example, as wife or mother).
·
Men were 83% of the
cited experts and 86% of the spokespersons.
·
Only 14% of those
interviewed or portrayed in political or government news were female.
·
Women were only 20% of
those interviewed or portrayed in business and economic news.
Other research supports our concerns about the
underrepresentation of women in the media:
·
The Pew Research
Center found that only 30% of U.S. news coverage included even one female
source. (Cable news and PBS Newshour fared worse with only 19% of the news
stories citing a woman.) This year, fewer than 14% of the op-eds published by
the Washington Post were by women, and an equal percent by minorities.
·
·
Researchers at Rutgers
University found that almost all of the academic opinions came from men: 97% in
The Wall Street Journal and 82% in The New York Times.
·
·
The White House
Project, a woman’s organization committed to expanding representation of women
in elected office, found that only 14% of the guests on Sunday morning public
affair talk shows are female, and that women were less likely to be the lead
guest or be invited back for repeat appearances.
·
·
The U.S intellectual
and political magazines are dominated by male writers. The male-to-female ratio
of the Atlantic was 6 to 1; Foreign Affairs 6 to 1; the New Yorker, 3.5 to 1;
New York Times Magazine, 2.5to 1; and the New Republic, 8 to 1.
Alternative U.S. media such as Counterpunch, ZNet and Common Dreams heavily
favor male writersand the guest lists of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report
are 75% male.
Without strategies to highlight women’s voices on social
and political issues, women will continue to be on the sidelines of public
discourse, and policy-making.
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Our Core Values
WAM!’S VISION
Gender equity in media access, representation, employment
and ownership — and a world in which a just media is considered essential to a
just society.
WHAT WAM! DOES
WAM! connects, supports and organizes media makers,
activists, academics and funders working to advance women’s media
participation, ownership and representation. Our work is part of an advocacy
movement for gender justice in media. Click here
for details about how we do it!
OUR CORE VALUES
·
WAM! constantly seeks
to remove barriers to entry. All individuals aligned with our mission &
vision are welcome and encouraged to participate.
·
WAM! is
intergenerational, anti-racist, pro-economic-justice, anti-transmisogyny,
queer-friendly, pro-immigrant, anti-abelist, interfaith, and supports size
diversity.
·
WAM! belongs to the
communities we serve. All WAM! leaders are stewards in service to these
communities.
·
WAM! believes that
institutions can only be changed when pressure is applied from the inside and
from the outside.
·
WAM! believes that
social change can be fun, and encourages creative, positive, inclusive action.
·
WAM! welcomes the next
generation of leaders now, while integrating the lessons of previous generations.
·
WAM! is concerned with
all kinds of media, including news, opinion-making, social networks, film,
theater, television, music, video games, and more.
WAM!CAN
The WAM! Community Action Network (WAM!CAN) is a grassroots direct-action network dedicated to creating gender justice in media at all levels, including ownership, employment, representation and access. It’s a network of people who share your concern about the state of our media, coming together to take action to create the media ecosystem we deserve. Once a month, we put out the WAM! signal and we all take one single, targeted action together. The rest of the time, WAM!CAN helps you talk issues and strategy with others who share your concerns, and promote actions of your own and others that promote gender justice in media.