Visible or invisible

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Fondazione G. Brodolini
Visible or invisible? The image of women
politicians in the media Mass media and the
(re)distribution of power
Francesca Molfino Fondazione Brodolini, Rome,
Italy
with the collaboration of Annamaria
Lorusso, Monica Luongo, Daniela Gambino, Laura
Clarke
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Fondazione G. Brodolini
The image of women politicians in the media

• Data few women in political institutions
• The role of the media do they help or hinder?
• Gender stereotypes
• Interviews with female politicians and
  journalists
• Analysis of TV programmes in the pre-electoral
  period (European elections 2004)
• Conclusions entering and exiting stereotypes

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Women/Men in the European Parliament
222
166
460
510
In 1999 women were at 31, in 2004 at 30,3
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• Female presence
• of italian deputies
• in the
• European Parliament

Italian Women European Members
of Parliament
Italy EU
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ITALY
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Fondazione G. Brodolini
The image of women politicians in the media

• Data few women in political institutions
• The role of the media do they help or hinder?
• Gender stereotypes
• Interviews with female politicians and
  journalists
• Analysis of TV programmes in the pre-electoral
  period (European elections 2004)
• Conclusions entering and exiting stereotypes

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Gender stereotypes
A child recognises itself as male or female in
the first eighteen months of life the core
of gender identity is created within three years
of age.

• Stereotype a clear, simplified representation
  of reality through categorical generalizations.
  The behavioural and psychological characteristics
  of men and women (or their sexual roles) are
  interpreted through a set of rigid and fixed
  statements and repeated emotional reactions.

• Over the centuries gender stereotypes have
  produced a kind of internal colonialization
  one of the most pervasive ideologies in all
  cultures. For both men and women, the ideal image
  for men and women has prevalently male
  connotations.

• Gender stereotypes are more or less the same
  around the world (in 25 countries)

A woman is sentimental, submissive,
affectionate, superstitious, dreamer, sensitive,
feminine, discursive, patient. A man is
strong, dominant, independent, masculine, robust,
aggressive, severe, audacious, enterprising,
ambitious.

• There are few variants or peculiarities
  among gender stereotypes, linked to emotional
  rather than economic and cultural variables
  for example in Italy (and in Catholic countries)
  more positive meaning associated to female
  stereotypes .

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Fondazione G. Brodolini
The image of women politicians in the media

• Data few women in political institutions
• The role of the media do they help or hinder?
• Gender stereotypes
• Interviews with female politicians and
  journalists
• Analysis of tv programmes in the pre-electoral
  period (European elections 2004)
• Conclusions entering and exiting stereotypes

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The interviews
The sample women politicians and journalists

• 14 women holding a political position
• 7 members of the national parliament
• 6 members of the European parliament
• 1 city councillor (Rome)
• (7 of these participated in the TV programmes
  that we analysed)

• 9 women working in the media
• 4 experts in the field of communication
• 5 journalists

Their age was always over 40.
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The interviews
The issues

• Politics the low representation of women, the
  potential conflict between different roles, the
  relationship with power, the political
  environment.

• Communication does television help or hinder
  the access of women to decision making positions?

• What are the differences in the representation
  of women politicians in television programmes
  with respect to men ?

• What awareness of gender issues is there in the
  field of communication?

• What are the proposals for rebalancing the
  representation ?

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The interviews some answers

• For most women politicians, the main dimension
  of politics is an overwhelming passion the
  emphasis is on ideals.

• For the low female presence, women politicians
  and journalists blame political organisations,
  above all political parties and their cooptation
  rules.

• Another determining factor is the difficulty in
  managing different areas of life work,
  family, political-social work.

• A profound, repeated misevaluation of political
  environment political parties. These are
  suffocating places self-preserving, excluding,
  ethically poor, where personality and management
  of pure power predominate.

• Women find it hard to enter in direct conflict
  with men they say they wish to avoid conflict,
  however they do admit rivalry between colleagues
  of both sexes, and difficulty in team working
  with other women.

• The desire for power, or the fight for it, is
  not felt as a central point satis-faction is
  obtained from governing leaders do not seem to
  be questioned.

• To rebalance representation, it is necessary to
  use all means available to the politicians
  from legislation to quotas, from changing the
  parties statutes, to positive actions (training
  and cultural) to support women.

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The interviews
Some more answers about the media

• There is general agreement on the fact that the
  media re-proposes traditional and stereotyped
  images of women. Traditional female
  characteristics are emphasized to present the
  woman politician as out of place or
  segregate her to social issues.

• There is noticeable concern regarding TV, whose
  paradoxical effect can falsify or distort ones
  image, or reveal uncontrolled truths. TV is
  considered important to make the politicians
  real, to make them exist.

• Women politicians who had participated in TV
  programmes

• Most of them considered the messages sent from
  their own image and their non-verbal behaviour
  of little importance.
• All concentrated on their knowledge (being
  the first in the class), their skills, their
  being good politicians, and their political
  activities.
• Not all of them were aware of possible
  horizontal segregation.

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Fondazione G. Brodolini
The image of women politicians in the media

• Data few women in political institutions
• The role of the media do they help or hinder?
• Gender stereotypes
• Interviews with female politicians and
  journalists
• Analysis of TV programmes in the pre-electoral
  period (European elections 2004)
• Conclusions entering and exiting stereotypes

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Analysis of TV programmes

• The programmes
• Five among the main talk shows in public and
  private Italian TV were choosed Porta a porta,
  Otto e mezzo, Ballarò, La zona rossa,
  Excalibur. 11 episodes with women politicians
  partecipating were monitored.

• The methodology
• Qualitative. Semiotic analysis of the text

• The hypothesis
• Apart from the real under representation of women
  politicians, is there a noticeable
  difference in their presentation style with
  respect to men?

• The results
• The long-standing extraneity of women to
  politics. Women presents themselves as subjects
  of passion and knowledge and not of
  action.With few exceptions, they are only
  sensitive spokeswomen.

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Fondazione G. Brodolini
The image of women politicians in the media

• Data few women in political institutions
• The role of the media do they help or hinder?
• Gender stereotypes
• Interviews with female politicians and
  journalists
• Analysis of TV programmes in the pre-electoral
  period (European elections 2004)
• Conclusions entering and exiting stereotypes

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Conclusions

• Because of their cognitive, emotional,
  identifying function and of their strong early
  impact on the human psyche, gender stereotypes
  persist, and are always instantly
  reactivated, even if unconsciously.

• There is a paradoxical overlapping between women
  and TV women politicians dont easily manage
  their images in TV. They present themselves on
  the side, outside (or above) the focus of the
  political action. Television present them as
  representatives or promoters of ideologies or
  politics, rather than as new subjects.

• Ambivalence and difficulty for women politicians
  to interact with their body, to give meaning to
  their presence, without fear of being drawn back
  into idealised or commercialised female roles.

• In general, what is seen on television is
  filtered by a male view an easy division of
  tasks and power hierarchy between men and women.
  However, when the male view does not find
  complicity from the female politician, new spaces
  can be created.

• Eccentric examples exist women who manage to
  detach themselves from stereotypes (by
  recognising them, exiting them and going back to
  them).

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Conclusions
Entering and exiting stereotypes how ?

• Mixing conflicting elements of the new and
  traditional female figure instinctive, maternal,
  seductive, aggressive, autonomous.

• Shifting the female body-presence outside the
  usual context.

• Avoiding gender generalisations that can become
  stereotypes.

The presence of some strong and authoritative
women in TV does not automatically mean that
gender stereotypes have disappeared. But new
realities have been created alongside old ones,
as the representation of women on Italian
television clearly demonstrates.
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ALBERTO HERAS (VOGUE)
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