WHY DON’T TV SHOWS AND NEWSPAPERS CATER TO HALF THEIR AUDIENCE – WOMEN?

There is a cartoon by the artist Grizelda Grizlingham that shows a group of men sitting around a boardroom table, with only one woman present. The caption reads: ‘Well, you’re the only one who thinks we’re a sexist organization.’ The woman’s face is fixed in a grimace. I can’t help but think the cartoon would be equally accurate if a third or even half of the people around the table were women. Because, as recent history has shown, often nothing short of a full-scale campaign is enough to get people to listen to the perspective of ‘just the women’.

Such was the case in the recent example of comedian Dapper Laughs, whose portfolio includes extreme misogyny, real-life harassment of women and rape jokes. Yet until a 60,000-strong petition was launched, ITV was apparently quite happy to defend his show as ‘firmly based on treating women with respect and speaking to them in the right way’ and ‘neither sexist nor degrading to women’, according to a letter one viewer received after making a complaint.

Although the broadcaster did finally decide to axe the show after a public outcry, it first attempted to defend it again, with a spokesperson saying: ‘Comedy is subjective and we appreciate the content of the show might not be to everyone’s taste. We regret that any of our viewers were offended. However, as with all of our shows, the series content was carefully considered, compiled and deemed suitable for broadcast.’ This only sends one message to the viewer: we seriously thought about this and went ahead anyway. If you’re likely to be upset by misogynistic content, you’re not the core audience ITV was planning for. You are not the default viewer.

The same uneasy feeling might also have been experienced by female students at the University of Liverpool, when the script of a sexist, rape joke-fuelled play intended to be performed as part of an annual concert emerged on social media: this wasn’t written with you in mind.

These aren’t the only recent incidents to send women the clear message that they just aren’t the target audience. How did The Independent think its female readers would feel when confronted by Frank Warren’s recent column, headlined: ‘Call me an old git, but I just can’t see that there’s a place for women’s boxing’? What about heterosexual Sun-reading female football fans coming across its offer of a date with a page 3 girl as a prize for participating in their fantasy league? (‘We might even let you pick which one, so feel free to start your research now.’) Its response to criticism (which included saying that the promotion was unlikely to offend the 93 per cent male target audience) was so transparent, it may as well have been phrased as ‘Calm down, love – this isn’t for you.’

It’s not just newspapers and television where women can find themselves crammed into repetitive, stereotypical roles or omitted altogether – it’s true across other media as well, from gaming to theatre. And the experience of feeling ‘this wasn’t created with me in mind’ is not exclusive to women – it is shared, in fact, by anybody outside the usually heterosexual, white, cisgendered, middle-class, non-disabled, ‘default’ target audience. Whether it’s the hyper-sexualization and exotification of black women (a classic case of the intersection of gender and race); the portrayal of disabled people as tragic or evil; the stereotyping of particular religions; or the appearance of gay or transgender characters only in storylines about sexuality or gender identity, as if these characteristics entirely define them. These stereotypes erase and invalidate people’s real and complex experiences, but those who object are often accused of being ungrateful – ‘You should be happy they included that character at all.’

Of course, the problem isn’t straightforward. Even in cases when writers try to push back against formulaic norms, as in the creation of the nuanced female character Skyler White in Breaking Bad, stereotypical expectations and judgements are so deeply embedded in audiences that the reaction can be a massive backlash against the character and even the actor involved. Actress Anna Gunn described her shock at discovering online forums with thousands of members dedicated to despising the character, where apparent hatred of the fictional Skyler’s strength and refusal to succumb to her husband’s wishes spilled over into death threats targeting Gunn herself.

These issues really affect the way we experience and consume media and entertainment. A stereotypical representation or a lack of diversity can act as a slap in the face that shakes a viewer out of the fictional world with the sharp realization: ‘Oh, this wasn’t meant for me.’ You’re left with the option of either tuning out, or guiltily continuing, with the uncomfortable feeling of squashing down your beliefs and personal experience, as The Onion perfectly captured with its headline: ‘Woman takes short half-hour break from being feminist to enjoy TV show’. And the lasting impact is likely to run even deeper – a 2012 US study published in the journal Communications Research found that watching more television generally lowered children’s self-esteem . . . with the notable exception of white boys.

Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that a lack of media diversity doesn’t even make good business sense. A recent study of diversity in Hollywood found that shows with diverse casts make more money and net bigger audiences. Yet the argument that such programmes are ‘niche’ or not ‘mainstream’ persists. Women make up more than half of TV audiences and the older we are, the more we watch, so why are women, and particularly older women, so under-represented on screen?

While the end product is a problem, it often originates from the lack of representation within media and entertainment industries themselves. But the excuse that there just aren’t enough capable candidates available wears pretty thin when you look at the stable of work showcased by blogs such as Media Diversified, the success of circus company Extraordinary Bodies (which features D/deaf, disabled and non-disabled artists working equally together) or the track record of Madani Younis, the artistic director of the Bush Theatre, who presided over a year in which half of all stage shows were written by black and minority ethnic playwrights and half the main stage directors were women. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Originally published 13 November 2014