Published: 05 November 2012
Country: US
The 2012 US Presidential Campaign has highlighted many of the problems the American society has been facing, but as some media columnists and bloggers are reporting, the opportunity to have more women’s representatives has been missed.
Despite that there is a “war on women,” the topic of women was absent in the presidential debate. To some extent this is surprising considering their stance on women is one of the biggest differences between the two candidates. But it’s also not so surprising. When it comes to women in the U.S. government and media, the numbers are pretty pitiful and, as in the case of the debates, sometimes women are simply invisible, reports The Huffington Post.
This scenario puts women in a position to have their interests exclusively represented by men where men decide whether or not women’s issues make the cut. But even when women’s issues are the topic of conversation will men really be able to accurately represent them? Will the media ever truly be a good vehicle for women and their stories, asks The Huffington Post?
The author of The Huffington Post, Alexandra MacArthur, concludes that the answer to this is ‘No unless women have the option to run the show, ask the questions, and answer them in their own voices’.
For when women are invisible, their voices are not just lost, their victories are as well.
Despite that journalist Candy Crowley was selected for the role of the presidental debate moderator, she was not given the option to actually ask the candidates any questions. She has been selected to moderate the “Town Hall” debate, where the audience will ask the questions. Some argue, her role in the debates is more akin to Vanna White than that of a moderator.
This scenario is, as the Huffington Post blogger writes, just one example in which women’s voices and their perspectives are put on the back burner. In fact, even popular liberal news shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report barely touched on the fact that women’s issues were not discussed in their October 4th coverage of the event. The fact that this is an issue even in liberal media attests to how serious this problem is.
