.
| Hearsay: |
Maud points to an interesting article that highlights the cracks in the supposedly impartial treatment media gives to research. For instance, studies supporting anti-feminist positions receive far more attention than those that support independence and equity for women (which are quite often ignored).
Now what could possibly explain the difference in the media treatment these two studies got? As Caryl Rivers speculates in her new book, Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women, could it just be that studies that appear to support traditional roles for women tend to get picked for instant popularization?
This phenomenon doesn’t just apply to studies about daycare with the potential to guilt-trip working mothers. Rush Limbaugh, also in March, cheerfully reported the results of a Swedish study that seemed to show a correlation between poor health and a more gender-equal distribution of societal resources. That same study was picked up by the British Independent.
The popularized message was that feminism makes you sick.
Neither Mr. Limbaugh nor the Independent paid any attention to an earlier study by the same researchers showing the reverse. They also ignored other studies finding a positive correlation between greater gender equality and better overall health.
Sigh.
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June 26th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Indeed, Feminists have noticed this for a long, long time. Mostly because people we know are quick to come to us first with “HEY DID YOU READ THIS THING ABOUT HOW WOMEN REALLY ARE DUMB AND OVERLY EMOTIONAL IT’S TRUE THERE WAS A STUDY.” >_
June 26th, 2007 at 10:33 am
I’m sorry, but I how am I supposed to take any study seriously that is using RUSH LIMBAUGH (!!) as an example.
Rush Limbaugh is a extremely conservative talk radio numb-nut. He is not, in any way, a part of the mainstream media. He doesn’t even pretend to be objective.
Using him as proof of anti-female bias in the media would be like me claiming that the media is biased in favor of black people because BET talks about them more.
FWIW, I just got a copy of the new Newsweek and the first thing I noticed was how much of the issue dealt with women and women issues despite the fact the issue was supposed to be a global survey of what was going on around the world. The issue was divided into a section with a long essay on one thing under topics like “music” or “sports.” The book issue was all about Jane Austen and female authors. The health section was all about child birth and its affect on women. The arts section was about a picasso painting, but spent a lot of itme talking about the feminist “critique” of it. The film section was entirely about female lead actresses and their “struggles.” There was a section in the front, written by a women, arguing against the “myth” of “boyhood”
This kind of thing is much more part for course in the mainstream north american media.