GENDER AND THE MEDIATED POLITICAL SPHERE FROM A FEMINIST…
185
women’s issues such as family and childcare, or focusing on their appearance and wardrobe rather than their platforms (e.g., Bachmann and Correa 2013; Byerly and Ross 2006; Harp et al. 2010, 2016; Ritchie 2013; O’Neill et al. 2016; Ross and Comrie 2012; Trimble 2014). Researchers have consistently found that media coverage of women in politics is regularly stereotypical, sexualized, and sexist, with discourses that even cast gender as a burden for those females trying to climb up the political ladder rather than as an asset or a neutral trait (Ross 2009; see also Harp et al. 2010, 2016). These women often contravene hegemonic conventions of a woman’s place and behavior, which subject them to intense media scrutiny, and are often deemed either too masculine—aggressive, ambitious, hard-spoken—or too feminine—passive, emotional, and dependent—to engage in the tough realm of politics (see Harp et al. 2010, 2016). They are often accused of playing the gender card, that is, that their main merit is being a woman (e.g., Falk 2013; Trimble 2014). The pervasiveness of such media treatment is such that these kinds of findings continue to be reported today in different countries and regions, such as the United States (Harp et al. 2010, 2017; Perks and Johnson 2014), Canada (Trimble et al. 2013, 2015), UK (O’Neill et al. 2016; Ross et al. 2013); New Zealand and Australia (Trimble 2014), Germany (Lünenborg and Maier 2015); Chile (Bachmann and Correa 2013), Nigeria (Ette 2017), Egypt (Hafez 2014), Israel (Lachover 2017), Europe (Garcia-Blanco and Wahl-Jorgensen 2012), and the Pacific Islands (Corbett and Liki 2015). While there have been improvements in media coverage over the last decade, research of traditional mainstream media still points to sexism. Especially important: the situation is even worse when paying attention to minority women (Sanbonmatsu 2015; Ward 2017) though fewer studies have investigated the intersectionality of female politicians who occupy a minority status. Despite inroads, matters of gender equality and intersectionality in politics are still an important issue, and media discourses of women in politics serve as a reflection of the broader phenomenon of sexism and gender biases. Evidence from European countries, for example, suggests that media coverage of female politicians increases in countries where gender equality is progressing in other parts of society (Humprecht and Esser 2017). Feminist media researchers rely of feminist theorizing when approaching media analysis and building theoretical frameworks from which to analyzing the ways female politicians are portrayed in media. Much of the research approaches the topic from within a framework that acknowledges
