Log in
Free trial

This Is a Man's World: Shock Quiz Results Show How Women Are Left Disengaged

Article excerpt


Women know less about politics than men, according to a controversial study out today.

A group of researchers from universities in 10 countries said they were shocked to discover an "unmistakable" gender gap in what men and women knew about current affairs. Sociologists said that the results reflected how marginalised women still feel from public life, where the majority of leading figures are men.

"The fact that throughout the whole world women know less about politics than men and that this is as true for people in Norway as it is in Colombia is really very surprising," said James Curran, a media professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, one of the project's 15 researchers.





Overall, women were only interviewed or cited in 30 per cent of TV news stories in the nations surveyed. They are also more likely to be quoted in features or "soft" news stories, such as family, lifestyle and culture.

The University of Tokyo's Professor Kaori Hayashi, one of five female academics involved in the project, said: "Such under- representation and topical bias of women in news media may curb women's motivation to acquire political knowledge actively, and discourage them from political participation, and even prevent women from engaging as citizens in a democratic society."


Caroline Criado-Perez, founder of the Women's Room, a group trying to redress gender imbalance in the media, said: "I'm not surprised [by the findings] because there's a lot of research into the fact that women need to see themselves represented in order to feel part of the debate. Girls aren't born not interested in politics - any more than boys are born engaged with it. Boys are shaped to be interested in it and feel they have a stake in it and people are listening to them."


Having less leisure time was also found to be a factor - with older people of both sexes more engaged with the news. Older men in advanced industrial nations were the most likely to be knowledgeable about it. Professor Curran said: "One issue is women may have less time. Women who are mothers with children are very busy and often go out to work as well as doing more in the home, which often means they have less time than men [to take in news]. …