Sexism and the BBC
Posted on Monday, July 13, 2009 at 12:30am
3 responses
I can’t say that I enjoy the show Strictly Come Dancing, but its in the press today because the show has decided to axe judge Arlene Phillips, 66, in favour of a younger Alesha Dixon. The Guardian today has termed it, rather originally- ‘Strictly Come Sexism‘, as its believed that the BBC are keen to get viewing ratings up with the introduction of a younger woman on the judging panel. This is an issue that I believe broadcasters such as the BBC must address in terms of the accusations of ageism and sexism that dominate the headlines. Women such as Anna Ford, Moira Stuart and Selina Scott have been axed from key positions in the BBC, with Selina Scott stating that she was ‘deeply saddened’ by the lack of older women on the tv, and a row erupted last December, when older female presenters were axed from the show Countryfile.
Mark Lawson in the Guardian states that ‘…it is unarguable that, historically, two different rules seem to have applied to male and female broadcasters once the expense accounts of their managers have been charged for a certain number of birthday cards.’
In a totally unscientific piece of quick fire research, I googled ‘gender balance in the BBC’, and the first article that appeared was this rather ironically- an article on how female AMs have transformed Welsh politics. Yet I couldn’t find information on statistics of how many women the BBC employ, and the positions they hold. I am sure that I can find the information at a later date, but it would be interesting to find out how they go about changing the make-up of some of their more successful shows, and how they base decisions to axe certain individuals over others. It is a rather annoying trend of BBC News, at least, to always have an older man sitting next to a young woman. This must be intentional. Surely they have carried out market research that indicates that this is a successful mix?
Still, it comes down to the sad fact that women still have to fight for recognition and approval even in the 21st century, and that we are far from being equal. We need only to quote that the pay gap between men and women has intensfied last year to 17.1% to realise that there is still much more to be done to realise equality of esteem and rights between men and women in the workplace.
Perhaps the BBC should follow the lead of the National Assembly and celebrate the role of women in the BBC much more so, and put key policies in place ensure that sexism and ageism is eliminated.
Yet of course, the National Assembly is far from perfect, and I am sure the results of the next Assembly election will result in a very different gender make-up- one balanced towards more men being elected as AMs as a result of the changes to the rules in the way some political parties decide on their candidates.
A discussion for another day, perhaps, but another example of the way that gender equality is still a long way away.
You’re fighting our age though. We expect intelligent, ambitious, driven women in politics, for example. or in science. Or academia.
But TV, music and such isn’t about your brain, and never has been. Its the polar opposite to politics and academia: it doesn’t matter what talent or intelligence you have, as long as you look “good”. (and of course, the definition of “good” varies from week to week) To be fair, that goes for men on TV/media too.
Not excusing it, or saying its right, but the Assembly is an easier nut to crack than “entertainment”, which would take a sweeping social switch in expectation and presentation. How you achieve that: wait for fashion to change? public pressure? education? legislation? No idea
I don’t think I’m fighting ‘our age’ as you put it, but I am asking that if the BBC makes changes to its programmes, with many people suspecting that this is to do with age and sex, then work needs to be carried out to either rid of this stigma, or to put mechanisms in place to ensure that questions such as this need not arise in the future.
There is nothing in the post I necessarily disagree with, particularly if there is proof of discrimination. The difficulty comes with how and what we measure.
Of course it seems almost silly to say that the only way we will tell if things are improving are if we see more women in top jobs, but I am not sure it always is as simple as that. In yesterday’s The Observer, they charted the rise of a new breed of female tories, looking closely at some of the moves by Cameron to increase diversity. It is odd though, for years the tories have been lambasted about women in the party, but they were the party who brought us a Woman Prime Minister. Now, I know people often say Thatcher had to act ‘like a man’ to get the job, but that to me seems a limited view on the matter.
I just think if we begin being transfixed by blunt numbers, we begin to wedge that into all our thinking. Personally, I am for an element of positive discrimination, but if that becomes too blunt or too ‘positive’, I think the view becomes one of it not being about ‘the best candidate for the job’, however misguided.
I don’t know, I just want more equality, I just worry that well meaning things can often cause a more adverse reaction. There are all manner of ‘minorities’ that suffer from this, and I am not sure how I would solve this.