Join the #WhoTalks Six-Week Countdown to Change
Next Tuesday will mark exactly six weeks until the new President of the United States is elected.
These next six weeks will see highly anticipated debates between the two candidates and hours of analysis by cable news networks’ political commentators. Voters will turn to these networks to get commentary they feel they can trust, giving analysts enormous influence in directing the conversation and shaping voters’ decisions. This is why GenderAvenger is so invested in the question of who gets to contribute to that commentary and why you should be too. We’ll be demanding gender balance in political commentary daily from here on out.
If the last six months are any indication, women will continue to be underrepresented.
If the last six months are any indication, women will continue to be underrepresented if not shut out of these conversations entirely. Women’s voices, concerns, and opinions will barely get any airtime or engagement with viewers, even as they consider the very real possibility of a woman president for the first time.
The Who Talks? project, in partnership with Rutgers University Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) and the Women’s Media Center, monitors, collects data, and analyzes the gender balance of pundits who appear on the top-rated morning and evening cable shows, calling attention to poor gender ratios in political commentary on MSNBC, CNN, and FOX. The data from the past six months shows numbers as low as 15% for the percentage of women commentators invited to speak on a prime time news show. Commentary during the two major party conventions never even broke 40%, with most of the shows hovering between 26-32% women experts invited to speak.
If GenderAvengers come together over these next six weeks, we have the power, the numbers, and the voices to spark change. Let’s make it happen.
We have six weeks left to demand that the picture changes and women’s voices be heard.
In this final month-and-a-half leading up to the election, GenderAvenger will release daily infographics of the gender ratios of each of the Who Talks? shows. Every day you can demand change. Share the data on social media as often as possible, write emails to your news stations and op-eds for your local papers, and talk to someone who may not be familiar with this information to show them what we’re fighting for.
If GenderAvengers come together over these next six weeks, we have the power, the numbers, and the voices to spark change. Let’s make it happen.
Final 6 weeks of #WhoTalks #Election2016 coverage. Which cable news shows include women pundits? Follow & take action with @GenderAvenger.