The Pulitzer Prizes were announced earlier this week and women won quite a few awards. In the Journalism Prizes, Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman of the Philadelphia Daily News won in the Investigative Reporting category for their coverage of a police narcotics squad, and Sheri Fink of ProPublica won for a story on doctors cut off by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.
In the Local Reporting category, Raquel Rutledge of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel won for her reporting on fraud and abuse in a child-care program for low-wage working parents. Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post won in the Commentary category and Sarah Kaufman, also from The Washington Post, won in the Criticism category. Mary Chind of The Des Moines Register won the prize in the Photography category for her photo of a rescuer dangling above a dam attempting to save a trapped woman. And in the Editorial Writing category, Colleen McCain Nelson won the award along with Tod Robberson and William McKenzie of The Dallas Morning News.
In the Letters and Drama Prizes, Rae Armantrout won the Poetry category and Jennifer Higdon won in the Music category.
These wins are significant not only because the Pulitzer honors excellence, but because there are still too few women serving up the news and not enough recognition for women in the arts. According to the report “Benchmarking Women’s Leadership” from The White House Project, women account for just 22 percent of the leadership positions in journalism. And that’s not because women aren’t interested in the newsroom. Women have been the majority of college journalism majors since 1977. There are no women CEOS at the top 15 media corporations and only 17 percent of board members are women. On the Op-Ed pages specifically, approximately 80 percent of all the commentary is penned by men (according to The Op-Ed Project.) Even the Pulitzer board is comprised of 12 men and just six women.
As far as women in the arts, think of the poets you studied in school. Mostly men, weren’t they? Think of the hoopla around the first women to win an Oscar for Best Director – in 2010. Even the so-called “chick flicks” are created by men. That’s because (according to The White House Project report) women represent just 16 percent of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers in film (this number has decreased in the last 10 years) and only 25 percent of all creators, directors, executive producers and producers for situation comedies, dramas and reality shows.
The issue is not that men aren’t capable of producing excellent works of journalism and art. They certainly are. The issue is that women represent 52 percent of the U.S. population and yet they are so poorly represented among the influencers who shape our national discourse. Even those who rail against feminism because they think feminists don’t value the differences between men and women should be able to agree that we need to hear from more female voices. We are a diverse nation. Shouldn’t that diversity be reflected in the media?
I believe women are so used to reading, hearing and watching male perspective that they become conditioned to accepting those points of view as “popular culture.” But when you review the numbers you see that popular culture is overwhelmingly male culture. When I open most newspapers I see an editorial page written by mostly men (and more often than not mostly white men). When I turn on the television, I see an increase in incidences of violence against women on primetime. When I watch major events like the Super Bowl, I see an all male team cheered on by scantily clad women doing suggestive dance moves and paid for by sexist advertising. Or, I hear Jamie Foxx singing about rape on the Grammys.
It is time the U.S. media better reflected all Americans, not just one slice of the population. So, congratulations to the Pulitzer Prize winners. May all of them -male and female – help pave the way for a more diverse media.
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