Female opinions count

Recently, Kirstin Ferguson and Donny Walford were appointed as non-executive directors of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). The board now has four women and five men.

A journalist at The Australian, Chris Kenny, mocked the Communications Minister, Senator Mitch Fifield, for boosting women's representation on the board of the ABC.

Although it was ridiculous for Senator Fifield's office to use such precise percentages in the media release (44.4% women and 55.6% men), the point itself remains important. The sexist imbalance on the ABC board is finally being redressed.

Chris argues that political or ideological diversity in the media is more important than gender equality. He believes the political right does not get sufficient airtime on the public broadcaster.

Chris bemoans journalists at the ABC who "all dress in black, park (and lock) their bicycles, lament the horrors of climate change, talk down the terror threat, mock Tony Abbott, barrack for gay marriage, laud Julia Gillard, pillory Rupert Murdoch, demand open borders, scoff at national debt and encourage tax rises".

It would perhaps be more productive if Chris focussed on his own backyard. The Australian is renowned for both ideological and political uniformity. It is also a national newspaper in which male voices often dominate the opinion pages.

Opinion sections in mainstream newspapers are an important measure of women's voices in society. After the Paris attacks, The Weekend Australian's Inquirer contained nine pages of commentary, with twenty-two different opinion writers, eighteen of whom were male: 81.8% men and 18.2% women.

The first five pages focussed on the massacre in Paris. Ten experts provided their perspectives on terrorism, ISIS, islamophobia and the future of western civilisation. The experts were all men.

Women with expertise on terrorism and counter terrorism were visibly absent. Their opinions did not count.

The following two pages contained a further 4 opinion pieces, again all men.

So far, 100% male commentary.

Finally, on Page 22, there were two opinion pieces written by women: Judith Sloan and Emma Meconni. The women appeared on the same page as Gerard Henderson and Peter Van Onselen. On a gender scale, this page was 50-50.

The next page was devoted to Letters to the Editor. Fourteen men and then Lisa.

The final page of Inquirer had opinion pieces written by Marcia Langton, Angela Shanahan and Tim Wilson. Women won 2 to 1. However, it was a hollow victory.

The opinion piece by Professor Marcia Langton was illustrated with a photo of two well-known blokes: Noel Pearson and Pat Dodson. Marcia did not mention either of these men in her article. Yet the photo of these two men laughing occupied about the same space, if not more, than Marcia's article.

A picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, the picture illustrated The Australian's embedded misogyny.

Misogyny in the opinion pages is not a new phenomenon nor is The Australian the only culprit. Earlier studies have quantified the number of opinion pieces written by women. In 2012, an analysis of UK papers and associated websites found that women had written 26% of the opinion pieces. Similar results were seen in the by-line survey in USA.

These studies found that women were practically absent in the debate of many "hard news" subjects. In the by-line study, female opinions accounted for 16% of commentaries on national security, 13% on international politics, 14% on social action and 11% on the economy. Most opinion pieces by women in mainstream newspapers focussed on family, food, furniture and fashion. Women were also more likely to discuss gender inequality than men.

Eleanor Townsley, co-author of The Space of Opinion: Media Intellectuals and the Public Sphere suggested the problem is "a straightforward question of access." She argued that women take up less opinion space because male gatekeepers kept us out.

With an increasing number of female opinion editors both in Australia and overseas, Eleanor's explanation no longer rings true. Instead, Sue Horton's hunch seems a more plausible explanation for why male experts dominated the opinion pages after the Paris attacks.

When Sue Horton was opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times, she noticed women were more likely to turn down requests for a solicited piece, often because they were too busy to do it well. Men, on the other hand, were more likely to accept the invitation without hesitation. This may explain why only many men contributed to The Weekend Australian's commentary on the recent Paris attacks. Perhaps the female experts were unable to drop everything to write a well-informed piece at such short notice.

Horton said submissions from women were more likely to be from writers who were very informed on the issue. In contrast, she described a number of submissions from men as "dinner party op-eds"-pieces written because the author had an opinion on the subject, not because of any particular standing or expertise.

Opinion sections can shape a society's opinions. We need both female and male perspectives, especially on such important issues as terrorism.