Why the media distorts IWD
This year's International Women's Day (IWD) mobilised tens of thousands of women across Australia, mostly in rallies, and also in other public events. This success reinforces the fact that this a significant date for women to speak up about their demands for progressive change. It is virtually impossible for the establishment media to ignore these events. So instead, they report on them in a distorted fashion.
For instance, Sydney's Sun Herald which ran a picture of the lead banner being carried and followed by numbers of young women, gave much of the credit for the success of the march to the NSW Minister for Women, Faye Lo Po, by describing her as "a march leader". While Lo Po attended the march — which might have been where the Sun Herald reporter spotted her — she certainly never attended a meeting of the IWD organising collective, nor did she lead any of the chants for equal pay for equal work or free, safe abortion on demand.
The three Sydney newspapers that gave some space to the march — Sun Herald, Sydney Morning Herald and Sunday Telegraph — all quoted Lo Po but carried not a word from any of the nine march organisers who had been meeting for some months to decide on a theme, a list of demands and who had been distributing information about the event as far as possible.
IWD is a community event. It is organised and staged without much help from state or federal government departments or bureaucracies. And because it is such a grass-roots event, it seems that to make it newsworthy for the establishment media the story has to be hinged around an "important person".
So once Lo Po had been found to provide a quick grab, the Sun Herald obviously thought it was superfluous to mention the politics behind the theme, "Out of the House and onto the streets", or list any of the rally's demands which included an end to attacks on women. Instead, it preferred to focus on the "bemused males" who watched the rally on George Street, making out that it was a women's only march (which is wasn't) and that men would never (even if they tried) understand why women did these things.
The Sun Herald did interview three young women who were at the march for the first time. However, the author said that the three "admit they are feminists", as if this is some sort of abnormality and something to be embarrassed about. While article was only about 250 words long, it managed to fit an amazing amount of backlash ideology into a very short space.
The only coverage the Australian gave to IWD were events attended by "some of the nation's most prominent women, including Ms Eva Cox, Senator Cheryl Kernot, and Mrs Hazel Hawke". It reported on the celebration breakfasts organised by the United Nations Development Fund for Women that took place across Australia.
There is a pattern that emerges from this type of distorted coverage. It down plays the significance of "ordinary" women — of all ages — who take to the streets on IWD. It also ignores those "faceless" women who organise a free event in which everyone can participate and express their views. And rather than report on the views of "ordinary" women it promotes "prominent" women — politicians, politician's wives, authors and so on — as spokespeople for all women.
This type of media coverage is part of the backlash ideology that pushes the line that women have "made it" — hence the focus on politicians. It tries to convince us that "ordinary" people can't change things, and that we have to rely on politicians and famous people. And worse, it discourages the majority of women from playing an active role in the movement for change.
By Trish Corcoran