Sexist journalism makes for a sexist reality
If an alien landed on Earth and read news coverage from the last few weeks, he would think the world was at least 90% men. Overwhelming coverage of the FIFA Men’s World Cup on the front page of every newspaper, endless analysis of how man A outmaneuvers man B, and let’s not forget the corrupt male head of FIFA, cozying up to the male president of the United States, who organized himself an outsized celebration to mark 250 years of the United States. What, lament journalists, would the Founding Fathers say?
Meanwhile, Iran celebrated several grandiose, extravagant days of mourning for the killing of its male Ayatollah, visited by delegations of men from across the Middle East, including Turkey, which hosted a NATO conference attended almost exclusively by male leaders. In an embarrassing effort to counterbalance the male-dominated conference, a “First Ladies Summit” convened by Emine Erdogan was held in parallel, where the spouses of actual leaders convened to discuss child safety online, perhaps following the example of Melania Trump’s “First Ladies Conference” in March, which focused on future generations and AI. While the men make decisions about war, politics and the economy, their wives discuss children and education. Seriously?
The calendar says 2026, everyone in power is a man, and all you read about are grandiose events by, for and about men. What this means for women is clear. Three players in the FIFA World Cup are facing charges of rape or sexual assault, but this is a footnote. The Iranian regime continues to crack down on the rights and civic freedoms of its population, especially and always women, but this is a footnote. (What’s more important is, of course, who controls the Strait of Hormuz.) The Taliban kill women in the streets of Afghanistan, after stripping them of nearly all of their rights, legalizing domestic violence, and formally reintroducing child marriage, but this is a footnote.
When women do make the news, they are often criticized to a much higher degree for doing what men do casually. On Tuesday, Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right Front National party, announced she would run for President next year while serving a sentence for embezzlement, which she said she would appeal. News reports questioned the ethics of such a move – a criminal, running for office with an electronic tag? And yet, several sitting male leaders are criminals: Brazil’s President Lula da Silva launched his presidential campaign from prison, where he was serving a sentence for corruption, and went on to win Brazil’s 2022 presidential election in what was seen as a “spectacular comeback”. U.S. President Donald Trump was convicted in New York for sexual assault, and reelected by a clear majority. A minister close to Spain’s President Pedro Sanchez was convicted of corruption in June in an ongoing criminal investigation which may implicate Sanchez himself. Even France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy was jailed last year on corruption charges during his term in office. The list goes on.
Otherwise, women – even leading politicians – are mostly reported on due to their relationship to an important man. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, head of the neo-fascist Brothers of Italy party and the country’s first female President, has mostly made international headlines for her tumultuous relationship to the U.S. President. Volumes have been written about their exchanges, his comments about her, what he thinks of her. Why is this so important?
This week, Jenny Racicot told U.S. media outlets that Maine Democratic frontrunner Graham Platner – running under the DSA banner and endorsed by progressive leaders like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren – raped her a few years ago, leading to his withdrawal from the race. Racicot’s name doesn’t usually make the headlines of reports or analyses on her alleged assault, nor is there prolonged scrutiny on what such a political environment – with candidates who have a history of “unsettling” behavior towards women, or those like the sitting U.S. President who are convicted offenders – means for aspiring women politicians, or constituents.
Sexist journalism, where men are always the focus, women are judged more harshly for the same behavior and otherwise only valued according to their relationship to men, perpetuates a broken status quo. It prioritizes a male-dominated, “neutral” analysis of war or politics over more nuanced reports and fails to ask critical questions and provide context. At a time when there is active warfare on multiple fronts, why are there almost no visible women at NATO conferences, not this year, nor in the years beforehand? What does this mean for international security?
After Platner’s problematic candidacy, why are there so many sexist men in politics, on the right and left? Why is this excusable?
Current mainstream journalism behaves like a tabloid, angling for clicks and failing to challenge patriarchal modes of interpretation. News reports don’t just reflect reality – they influence it. Reporting that tacitly accepts abusive, corrupt male politicians normalizes their candidacy and election. Reporting that fails to question the absence of women in a room full of ministers normalizes that absence. Reporting that fails to highlight violence against women in the Middle East normalizes that violence.
If there is any hope of improving a reality where women are routinely subjected to sexual harassment and violence and broadly excluded from high-level politics, mainstream journalism needs to routinely ask: how does this – this policy, this election, this conflict – affect women? And, always: where are they?
