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Every year society and media devote a few days to gender and women issues, mostly around women’s day in August. The role of women is highlighted, praised and recognised. Government members speak, companies spend millions on advertising about their female staff and executives and for a few days the perception is created that women really have an equal place in society. Outside of these celebrations, research published now and then indicates that women have neither achieved equality in terms of representation on board levels, nor in terms of salaries. Parliament and government strive towards a gender equitable representation, and in terms of numbers the South African parliament has one of the highest shares of women on the benches. But how many of them actually remain on the benches, how many actually contribute towards a dialogue? What space do media attribute to women? Media Tenor, as part of its ongoing research into media content, analyses all sources that have been quoted/referred to in the news, opinion and business sections of leading print and electronic media. The results indicate that female representation as expressed by the media is far from satisfactory. The average ‘on year’ share of female versus male representation in news articles grew from 14.57% in 2002 to 17.71% in 2007 (2008 first half: 17.26%). In reporting on government, media gave women a ‘space’ of 19% on average and generally increased the share from 16% to 21% (2002 – 2007). In reporting on political parties, the share grew from 11.4% to 16.4% (average: 14%). On the business/economic front, women now have approximately 13% of the discussion space, up from 10% in 2002. When reporting on public/society, women have the greatest proportion of coverage: 23.5% on average. So although the proportional reporting on women has significantly increased over the last seven years, it can hardly be considered satisfactory as it is obviously still too low. Previous research has resulted in considerable criticism towards Media Tenor’s findings, claiming that it was less media’s fault that there was inadequate voice, but rather that of women, who either rarely ‘make news’ (whatever that means) or are (being made?) less available for interviews. Whatever the real reasons, Media Tenor is happy to report that there have been changes in coverage, but attributes this also to increased coverage during women’s month. Come September, the focus will be shifting somewhere else yet again.

(This text has been first published in the August edition of The Media magazine )