This morning someone sent me a link to the trailer for Miss Representation, a documentary which intends to challenge the media's limiting protrayal of women and girls.". Now I've only seen a 9 minute sales pitch for it but, it raised a few thoughts in my mind. Allow me to share the clip:

There's some pretty good stuff in there, but one that struck me was Margaret Cho's little soundbite (at 2:55 in that clip), for those who didn't watch or have forgotten it, here goes:

The media treats women like shit, and it's horrible, and it's like, I don't know how we survive it, I don't know how we rise above it.

It came after a fairly powerful montage of political headlines and clips including someone making a bad joke about PMS blighting a female presidency in the US. However what really struck me about that comment was sitting in the sidebar of related videos was "Margaret Cho Disses Bristol and Sarah Palin". Well obviously this was some hype gathering headline to get views, so being a media zombie I succumbed to the temptation, and invite you to join me.

Apparently Margaret and Bristol Palin were on Dancing With The Stars at the same time, and Margaret merrily agrees she's only famous for being pregnant. Then Bristol looks like a girl not enjoying sex while dancing apparently. Then we gossip a little about how Sarah forced Bristol onto the show. Followed by ...you're not running for President bitch. (around 2:10).

Now I'm not exactly a fan of Sarah Palin, but I was taught not to call women bitches. She may not be my ideal candidate for Presidency but, much like with Bush Jr. I'm going to say that you don't get that high up without some merit, even if that merit is popularity and a willingness to be a puppet for people who actually do know what they're doing. All Presidents use advisors, so let's not pretend the elections are really about a single person running the country.

But yes, the question Margaret Cho asked is, how do women rise above the media making cheap shots about female politicians? After all, you wouldn't get many comedians go on talk shows and call male candidates bastards flippantly like that would you? This isn't some empowerment thing where feminists are taking back the word bitch, this was someone casually insulting a prominent female figure in US politics for entertainment. Surely Margaret Cho is a powerful enough figure these days to be able to refuse such a joke if someone else wrote it and handed it to her.

However, I am wandering a little from the title of this post. According to one of the fact cards shown The U.S. is 90th in the world in terms of women in national legislatures (6:03) - which, being a stats geek, required me to do some research to even find out what that stat meant, since it's unclear if it's a percentage or a total number. A quick search suggests it's percentage, although as we know there are lies, damned lies, and statistics - and this is definitely a statistic. As there is no source I'm assuming this came from the Inter-Parliamentary Union report on "Women in national parliaments" which was updated November 30^th 2011 so my figures will be slightly different, but the clip said the U.S. had 17% of seats taken by women and the report says 16.8% so I am feeling confident it's the right track. That report actually puts the U.S. in 71st place, although as it doesn't skip ranks for multiple placings there are actually 88 countries with a greater percentage of women in national parliament which makes the 90th statement seem fair (I can easily believe it climbed a space between production and November 30^th).

So now I'm happy I understand the stat, I have a simple problem with it - I don't see any actual evidence connecting the very broad source, the media, to that figure. If anything, I wonder if it proves we need to be looking elsewhere.

Taking the UK as a counterpoint, we have 22% of our seats filled by women according to the same report, which is about a 30% increase over the U.S so a pretty reasonable comparison. And then look at UK media. We get U.S. movies, television, music, magazines, websites, celebrities. Sure, we have our own stuff too, in fact the U.S. even get a whole bunch of it too - significant numbers of my American friends are big fans of Doctor Who and Downton Abbey for example, musically we may not be quite so current if we talk Beatles and Stones but more recently Coldplay have done well in the States, and many more. Just last night Ricky Gervais hosted the Golden Globes. There is a significant crossover in U.S. and UK media, and a 30% difference in the number of women elected into national government. That's not margin of error type stuff, that's a difference. Canada probably has an even greater media overlap with the U.S. and yet they manage 24.7% - that's a 47% improvement. Basically the same media exposure, and an almost 50% greater chance of a woman being elected to national government. Perhaps we're being a little rash in blaming The Media?

Especially these days we have the power to control our media intake. We can switch off, switch over, unsubscribe, we can even create our own. If you can't find anything acceptable in the numerous channels to watch perhaps a DVD boxset will help? If they are all unacceptable too then talk with your friends and make a YouTube channel that is acceptable, or read - it doesn't have to be a modern issue of Vogue, read something old. But honestly, is the U.S. not electing women to power because of The Media, or because of The People?