Gendered News: Media Coverage and Electoral Politics in Canada.

• Author: Janigan, Mary
• Position: Book review

Gendered News: Media Coverage and Electoral Politics in Canada by Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, UBC Press, Vancouver, 2013, 246p.

In early February, Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland rose to ask her first question in the House of Commons. For most new MPs, that initiation is usually a proud, if intimidating, milestone. For Freeland, who had won a tough Toronto by-election in November, it was a test of fortitude. The former business journalist was asking about the prospects for Canada's economic recovery when the Conservative heckling commenced. The Speaker interceded twice but the mostly male voices jeered more loudly. On her third try, Freeland finished a truncated query. Shortly after a federal minister replied with a stock answer, Vancouver Observer journalist D. Matthew Millar offered his advice: "Put on your "big girl" voice for [for Question Period]," he tweeted, "the Hon. Members water glasses are shattering." [sic]

It has been almost a century since women won the right to vote in federal elections--but the quest for equality remains elusive. Barriers to women's participation in politics have toppled as party brass, fundraisers, riding association members and voters increasingly view them as desirable candidates. But, as Queen's University political scientist Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant explains, women's representation in federal and provincial governments remains "stubbornly short" of the 30 per cent of legislative seats generally required for women to make a difference in politics. What accounts for this continuing disparity? Through an analysis of television coverage of the party leaders in the 2000 federal election and print coverage of candidates in the 2006 election, Goodyear-Grant examines the media's "important role in shaping voters' perceptions of female leaders and candidates and of the political world generally, thus influencing voters' support for female politicians."

The result is an important look at a relatively unexplored topic: the complicated relationships among the media, the politicians and the voters. The media do not come out well. Goodyear-Grant argues that the mainstream media present women as different from their male colleagues in far more "insidious" ways than Freeland experienced. She maintains that men dominate the news media, journalists reflect that culture, and the resulting gendered news contributes to the idea that femaleness "is different, alien to politics, or even unwelcome in politics." In effect, the media...