The Gender Report

When we started this project, one of our big goals was to bring more attention to not only the lack of women in the newsroom, but also to the lack of women in the news. One of the ways we did this was through our Week in Review, a post each weekend that rounded up coverage about one or two big trending stories that either featured female subjects or women’s issues both domestically and abroad. Here are some of our larger trends from our 34 posts in this category:

Top 5 Week in Review posts:

1. “Week in Review: Women Journalists in the News” (Dec. 3, 2011) – A look at prominent cases of harassment and violence against female journalists working abroad.
2. “Women breaking journalism’s glass ceiling: The ascent of Jill Abramson and others” (June 11, 2011) – Ms. Abramson took over as executive editor of the New York Times.
3. “Supreme Court decision in Wal-Mart case brings out discussions about sex discrimination, re-emergence of ERA” (June 25, 2011) – The Supreme Court ruled against the filing of a class action lawsuit against the retail giant.
4. “Concerns expressed over victim blaming in New York Times article on gang rape (Updated)” (March 12, 2011) – a story about a teenage girl in Texas found critics questioning the media’s coverage of the rape’s circumstances and the girl’s clothing and behavior.
5. “The Debate: Is News Coverage of Michele Bachmann sexist?” (Aug. 13, 2011) – The former candidate for the GOP primary faced many stories involving her gender and its relationship to her leadership style and capabilities.

Not surprisingly, the stories our readers explored the most had to do with women in the media itself, rather than media stories that happened to be about women. Other media coverage of the Arab Spring, the continued debates about Planned Parenthood, other healthcare issues, and the politics of gender issues internationally also found and held our attention.

As we move forward, we welcome your feedback about the focuses of these Week in Review posts. Check out daily stories on our News Feed on Twitter and on the right side of our home page. Find a story we missed? Tweet it @GRNewsFeed or post it to our Facebook page.

In the coming year, we also plan to add a weekly news poll to our site to get more feedback and your voices involved in the discussion. Look for our first poll this week.