In the recent wake of the first UN International Day of the Girl, the media is still struggling to truly reflect female diversity. The Telegraph highlighted this uncomfortable reality when it chose to picture eight white women to launch its new daily online section Wonder Women.
Joy Francis asks why being white, female and middle class is the litmus test for all women, while Julie Tomlin declares her white working class credentials and wonders why it is so difficult for white female journalists to share the Wonder Women label.
Instead my eyes are glued to the eight square boxes, each featuring a beaming woman, proud to be part of this new media guard to reboot brand womanhood. Each and every face on display is white.
That, in itself, isn’t a problem. What is difficult to reconcile with this image is the term ‘women’ hovering uncomfortably above it, and the fact that no one remotely thought this was odd. Shouldn’t it be Wonder White Women, or is race just a (politically) black issue?
I would imagine that there are many women who aren’t white who must wonder, even fleetingly: Is this a club I can join as the sign says women but everyone pictured is white?
For far too long mainstream media (particularly print) has been allowed to get away with the tacit acceptance that being white, middle class and female (just as being white, middle class and male) represents us all.
Over the years I have seen specialist image-heavy sections in magazines and newspapers devoted to chefs, new interior designers and parenting experts, among others. Nine and a half times out of 10 they too have all been white, but like the elephant in the room few question the monochrome image being presented under a universal theme.
No editor appears to bat an eyelid at the implication that racial identification only appears to apply to people of colour. Can you imagine The Telegraph’s new Wonder Women section featuring images of eight African-Caribbean women without the word “Black” wedged between “Wonder” and “Women”?
We need to blink rapidly at this unequal relic of an approach that isn’t helping young women, whatever their racial origin, understand what being a woman means. That we are different – and that’s more than okay.
This largely unchallenged visual representation of white middle class women speaking for all females is outdated. It also suggests that the battle to make the media industry more inclusive and reflective of wider society post Stephen Lawrence has lost its way.
The Wonder Women “package” doesn’t reflect the women and world that I and scores of others know. It is like buying a packet of Smarties (for those over 20) and discovering, after opening the tube, that all of the sweets are blue. It is false advertising, and it is no longer acceptable.
Joy Francis is a journalist and executive director of Words of Colour Productions.
More than 60 years after the publication of The Second Sex, women are still a “niche” in media terms. Up to nine times more men appeared on the BBC’s main news programme than women – and those women who do make it onto TV or radio news are more likely to speak as victims or case studies.
Of course, this niching goes on all the time in the news. It was good to see Colourful Radio’s Henry Bonsu on Sky News’ Press Preview recently, but are his opinions only of interest when it comes to discussing the most recent race row in football?
One look at The Telegraph’s newly launched Wonder Women section should tell you that something deeply troubling is going on when it comes to “women”.
I’m a journalist and a white woman, which is something I don’t have to declare often. I could also add “working class background” with a nod to the decent education that gave me a pass into the middle classes work-wise, but also means I don’t quite fit the media norm.
I grew up in a part of London where diversity was a fact of life, not a concept. Yet the dominance of the white media class reflects little of the Britain we were celebrating so enthusiastically during the Olympic Games this summer.
Yes women are more visible in the media now, but there appears to be a worrying assumption that as long as they are female – job done. Time and time again I’ve read articles about “women” that really only mean white middle class women but position themselves as being representative of all women.
What about all the other women who have to tag themselves “Asian woman” or ‘black woman”? Where do they fit in? Guardian journalist Lexy Topping was pulled up on this point after she wrote about an “explosion” in grassroots feminism in the UK but failed to deviate from the “white, middle-class heterosexual stronghold which has come to typify the feminist movement”.
Topping did respond to the criticisms, suggesting the piece was “merely a snapshot of some, not all, of the “new faces” within feminism”.
The problem is that these “snapshots” all too frequently focus on white women, even if some women think that the struggle for inclusivity has gone too far and has been reduced to meaningless tokenism.
It is true that media shorthand can’t always do complex identity issues justice, but surely white women who want equality should be prepared to find ways to share the “Wonder Women” label?
Julie Tomlin is a journalist and creative programmes manager (social media and online journalism) for Words of Colour Productions.