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Gender Inequality In The Media

Decent Essays

Anderson Cooper. Don Lemon. Jake Tapper. Matt Lauer. These faces flash across our television screens, constantly crop up in our daily conversations, and dominate the news and media. But wait, there’s something missing from the list of names above- a group constituting nearly 51% of our population- women(“Women's Health USA 2012.”). Scarce are mentions of successful female journalists. Scarce are women confidently voicing their political opinions on reputable news channels. Scarce are truly powerful female journalists. In reality, this problem goes unnoticed by most- in fact, despite being a news and politics aficionado, it didn’t hit me until recently that women were so blatantly marginalized in this industry. It is perfectly valid to question the relevancy of such an obscure issue, but obscurity does not equate to unimportance. Portraying women unequally in the media defies not only our principles, but also the nation’s principles. How can we claim that we are a nation of equal opportunity if we don’t practice what we preach? We must encourage women to increase their political awareness and take on leadership roles in the media, especially in covering the most vital topics, because the underrepresentation of women in media encourages disparity between the sexes.
The problem of gender inequality in media has two main aspects- the shunning of women into petty, less important aspects of news and a clear lack of women in leadership in media. According to a report on the

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