Media

Politics

Parliament Member Attacks BBC For Sexism, Says It’s Worse Than In The 80s

One British member of Parliament, Tessa Munt, decided to check out how many women were working for BBC’s radio stations. She was less than pleased with what she found. Are women slighted in the radio industry? Sure — but we’re not sure Munt’s looking at the right problem.

Munt found that on one of BBC’s top radio stations, there were no women with children who ranked higher than assistant producer, The Daily Telegraph reports. And on another top station, the DJs were 15-percent female, a drop from 16 percent in 1987. Of course, we’d like to see that percentage going up, but a 1 percentage point drop isn’t exactly a statistic worth going ballistic over.

Why’s it her problem? Because taypayer money supports the BBC — so Munt, as an elected official, feels it her place to step in. She’s right — but of all things, we can’t quite get why she’s going after radio.

Here’s her explanation:

“Radio presenters are very serious figures. They are in one of the most influential media because a lot of young people do not necessarily read the papers.”

“Young people do not necessarily read the papers” — true — but this doesn’t mean they’re exactly tuning into the radio. How about looking into how many women have top jobs at TV stations, online publications, and so on. You know, where “young people” actually get their news.

TAGS: bbc sexism | sexism at bbc | sexism in radio | tessa munt

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