Feminist Media Studies

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“Challenging it softly”: a feminist inquiry into

gender in the news media context

Anabela Santos, Carla Cerqueira & Rosa Cabecinhas

To cite this article: Anabela Santos, Carla Cerqueira & Rosa Cabecinhas (2022) “Challenging it
softly”: a feminist inquiry into gender in the news media context, Feminist Media Studies, 22:1,
66-82, DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2018.1465445

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Published online: 25 May 2018.

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FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES
2022, VOL. 22, NO. 1, 66–82
https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1465445

“Challenging it softly”: a feminist inquiry into gender in the

news media context
Anabela Santos, Carla Cerqueira and Rosa Cabecinhas
Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Braga, Portugal

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

As they are a privileged site for the (re)construction of the dominant Received 16 May 2017
gender order, media often contribute to naturalizing inequalities. Revised 13 Jan 2018
This paper aims to critically discuss the way in which hegemonic Accepted 13 Feb 2018
meanings of gender have been accepted, resisted, and/or chal­ Keywords
lenged in the Portuguese media context, both by professionals Feminist media studies;
working in news magazines and by publics. This discussion revolves gender; media professionals;
around three different topics: access, distribution, and participation publics; journalism
in the media industries; reporting practices and media contents;
and gender equality policies. The research is based on 11 focus-
group discussions with 101 undergraduate students, as well as on
semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 15 media professionals.
The collected data were subsequently submitted to a thematic
analysis. The findings show that hegemonic meanings of gender
were mostly (re)produced: gender asymmetries in the media indus­
try were either taken as a non-issue, or attributed to individual-level
factors. Additionally, gendered media representations, and the
relationships between the male-biased news-making process and
the neoliberal trends in political economy of communication were
largely disregarded, as far as their impact is concerned; gender
equality policies were dismissed as actions required to achieve
equality, diversity, and social justice. Critical gender perspectives
have rarely been endorsed by media professionals and publics.

Introduction
Media production, contents, and consumption are important loci where gender is con­
stantly subject to struggle and negotiation (Liesbet Van Zoonen 1994). Over the last
decades, feminist media studies have examined gender representations (e.g., Cláudia
Álvares 2011; Juana Gallego 2009; Karen Ross 2010; Maria João Silveirinha 2004; Gaye
Tuchman 1978), gendered reception practices (e.g., Carolyn Byerly and Karen Ross 2006;
Isabel Ferin-Cunha 2007; Karen Ross 2012; Anabela Santos, Rosa Cabecinhas, and Carla
Cerqueira 2015b), as well as the role which professionals and media industries play in
maintaining and/or challenging gender asymmetries (e.g., Paula Lobo, Maria João
Silveirinha, Marisa Torres da Silva, and Filipa Subtil 2017; Louise North 2009; Zara Pinto-
Coelho and Silvana Mota-Ribeiro 2009; Karen Ross 2014; Sinikka Torkkola and Iiris Ruoho
2011).

CONTACT Anabela Santos amsantos86@gmail.com

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 67

However, the complex interactions of the triangle of media communication have rarely
been investigated; hence, there is a need to promote what Tonny Krijnen and Sofie van
Bauwel (2015, 172) called “yoking research,” so that production, contents, and consump­
tion are studied intersectionally with a view to fostering new insights into the process of
meaning-making and alternative political agendas in the field of gender and media. In
countries like Portugal, where only 3% of the news stories challenge gender stereotypes
and 5% highlight issues concerning gender (in)equality (Global Media Monitoring Project
[GMMP] 2015), “yoking research” into the news media may help explore how gender
meanings are embodied by those who play an important role in reporting on politics,
economics, and society, and by those who consume the so-called “hard news,” in addition
to encouraging political actions which may contribute to de-naturalizing the current
gender order within and beyond media contexts.
This article aims to critically discuss the way in which hegemonic meanings of gender
have been accepted, resisted, and/or challenged in the Portuguese media context, by both
publics and professionals working in news magazines, on three main topics: (a) access,
distribution, and participation in the media industries; (b) reporting practices and media
contents; and (c) gender equality policies. Eleven focus-group discussions with 101 under­
graduate students were conducted, in addition to semi-structured, in-depth interviews with
15 professionals from the most relevant national news magazines: Sábado and Visão. How
far do media professionals and publics identify with (counter-)hegemonic meanings of
gender? How are gender regimes perceived to operate in the media industries, reporting
practices, and media contents? To what extent do media professionals and publics envisage
a need for gender equality, diversity, and social change? These research questions will be
addressed in this paper by resorting to a thematic analysis (Virginia Braun and Victoria
Clarke 2006), since this qualitative method provides a better understanding of the mean­
ings associated with textual data (Greg Guest, Kathleen Macqueen, and Emily Namey 2012).
By making a commitment to the promotion of diversity and social justice, this paper
seeks to help understand the way in which the dominant gender order pervades the
media context and spans beyond it, to challenge the extent to which media professionals
and publics endorse critical gender perspectives while interacting with media contents.
Secondly, it seeks to identify current needs to further develop critical media literacy
projects aimed at providing publics with the tools required to interpret gender meanings
in news media, make informed choices, and get actively involved in society (Carla
Cerqueira, Sara I. Magalhães, Anabela Santos, Rosa Cabecinhas, and Conceição Nogueira
2014; Douglas Kellner and Jeff Share 2007).

Taking sides, disordering gender: feminist notes for social change in and
beyond media contexts
The media communication process is an important arena in which (hegemonic) meanings
of gender have continuously been negotiated, reinforced, and/or challenged. Although
each of its dimensions has a specific relationship with gender, they should be seen as
interrelated. “Separately, the elements of production, texts and reception of media make no
sense; they are intricately linked in the process of meaning production” (Van Zoonen 1994,
68 A. SANTOS ET AL.

41). Even if those fields are part of a variety of global media systems, production, contents,
and consumption depend on the place of origin, which may include nations or regions with
their history, ideologies, and traditions (Krijnen and van Bauwel 2015).
Production may be taken to be a process in which meanings (of gender) are “encoded”
in media texts and images (Van Zoonen 1994). It is embedded in tensions, divergences,
and contradictions which take place at the micro, meso, and macro levels of the media
industries, such as personal idiosyncrasies of the professionals, (male-biased) newsroom
culture, organizational and economic constraints, media ownership, media regulation,
etc. (Cynthia Carter and Linda Steiner 2004). Media production thus has a “deeply social
and collective nature” because, albeit journalists may influence gender “encoding” in both
textual and visual contents (Margaret Gallagher 2001), their choices are limited by the
social, political, and economic assumptions which govern the newsrooms and, more
generally, media industries (Van Zoonen 1994, 49).
Media contents often express the relations, dynamics, and complexities which underlie
the sites of meaning production (Van Zoonen 1994). As technologies of gender (Teresa de
Lauretis 1987), media texts and images have social, cultural, and political impact, exercis­
ing a crucial influence on how subjectivity and identity are (re)constructed, how (norma­
tive) masculinity and femininity are performed, and how gender intersects with ethnicity,
age, class, etc. (Krijnen and van Bauwel 2015). Whilst media may both (re)produce and
challenge power relations, a number of research works have shown that binary, opposed,
and hierarchical notions of gender and the embedding of sexism (and its intersections
with other axes of oppression) have been prevailing in Western media contents (e.g., Carla
Cerqueira and Rosa Cabecinhas 2016; Juana Gallego 2013; Ross 2010; Krijnen and van
Bauwel 2015).
Publics are no longer taken to be “positioned or interpellated by media texts, subjected
to the vicious intentions of patriarchal power and ideology” (Van Zoonen 1994, 149),
rather on the contrary; while dominant ideologies and discourses tend to be assumed as a
preferred reading, publics have agency and may get involved in the use of media contents
and the (re)construction of their meanings (Solomon E. Asch 1953; Van Zoonen 1994).
Media consumption is a gendered practice that is directly related to structural, socio­
cultural, and individual circumstances: they may be “enabling rather than contracting,
empowering rather than oppressive, and active rather than passive” (Craig Watkins and
Rana M. Emerson 2000, 158). The range of meanings inscribed in media contents are then
polysemic, that is, they can be accepted, rejected, and/or challenged by the publics in very
diverse ways (Van Zoonen 1994).
If we take into account the complex interactions between gender and the media
communication process, critical gender perspectives seem to be increasingly required
to challenge dominant readings of the social reality which have often been ideologically
conservative, monolithic, and economics-oriented. As they are located under the umbrel­
las of gender and feminist studies (e.g., Judith Butler 1990; Raewyn W. Connell 2009;
Patricia H. Collins 1990; Rosalind Gill 2007; Ross 2010; Van Zoonen 1994) and the theory of
intersectionality (e.g., Kimberlé Crenshaw 1991; Nina Lykke 2010), these perspectives
would imply a political stance which recognizes the role of the current gender order in
maintaining systemic inequalities, rejects binary thinking and essentialist notions of
gender, opposes neoliberalism and cultural imperialism, and provides a critical vocabulary
to reflect upon, interpret, and deconstruct the “matrix of domination.”
 FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 69

When applied to the news media communication process (particularly to the relations
between production and contents, consumption and contents, production and consump­
tion), critical gender perspectives can contribute to fostering social justice and disman­
tling oppressive “-isms,” such as sexisms, racisms, classisms, heterosexisms, and ageisms,
in all aspects of sociocultural, political, and economic life (e.g., Cerqueira et al. 2014;
Gallagher 2001; Gallego 2013; North 2009).
At the production level, these perspectives push for a feminist-informed political
economy of communication which objects to market-led neoliberal tendencies; call for
the need to eradicate the gendering of vertical and horizontal structures in the media
industries and instead ensure pluralism and diversity in executive roles, administration
and decision-making positions, in different types of editorial content (e.g., reporting,
editing, features, etc.), and across the spectrum of subject-areas (e.g., politics, economics,
science, culture, etc.); and argue for a diverse, collaborative, and horizontally aligned
newsroom (culture) which functions as an empowering site for media workers.
At the content level, critical gender perspectives put forward a proposal for rethinking
standards of newsworthiness in a way that gender (and other categories of social identity)
achieves relevance in media coverage; point out the importance of ensuring equal
visibility in contents of women, men, and people who do not conform to, and may
actively challenge, conventional gender norms; encourage media professionals to re-
imagine gender while creating emancipatory texts and images; stand for the inclusion
of the excluded and alternative voices as news sources, commentators, and opinion-
makers in different categories of news stories (e.g., expert, spokesperson, “ordinary”
people, etc.) and in news subjects (e.g., politics, economy, science, etc.); and promote
the use of non-sexist and diversity-oriented language.
At the consumption level, these perspectives have the potential to stimulate critical
thinking and enable publics to deconstruct hegemonic meanings of gender; to uphold
creative, disruptive, and subversive uses of the media with regard to gender; to set up a
plural and open dialogue forum in which publics, especially those belonging to oppressed
social groups (e.g., women, genderqueer, and transgender people), can interact with media
professionals, make their voices heard within the production context, and ask for their needs
and interests to be met; to mobilize publics to politically intervene in society and take action
in/over/through the media in opposition to any kind of violence, oppression, and domination.
While cultivating feminist resistance and creativity within the media context at the levels
of production, contents, and consumption, critical gender perspectives reassert, therefore,
the need for “taking sides” (opposing objectivity and ideological neutrality) and “disorder­
ing gender” (challenging hegemonic notions of femininity and masculinity), through a
strong commitment to gender diversity, intersectional politics, and social change.

Methods
This paper aims to critically analyse the way in which hegemonic meanings of gender
have been accepted, resisted, and/or challenged in the Portuguese media context by both
publics and professionals who work in high-quality national weekly news magazines.
A twofold research process took place during 2012. Firstly, we conducted 11 focus-
group discussions with 101 undergraduate students, 77 of whom were female (76.2%)
and 24 were male (23.8%), with average age 20. Participants were undergraduates of
70 A. SANTOS ET AL.

communication sciences and sociology, who volunteered for a research project about
media and society. The focus groups were scheduled to suit the students’ availability and
were conducted in the university.
Secondly, we conducted semi-structured and in-depth interviews with 15 media profes­
sionals (five women and 10 men) having varying degrees of experience, function, and
seniority, who work for the most relevant Portuguese news magazines in terms of circula­
tion and prestige: Sábado and Visão (Marktest 2012). The interviewees agreed to answer
questions about workplace routines of news production. The interviews were scheduled
according to professionals’ availability and were conducted mainly in newsrooms.
Participants1 were particularly asked to consider how the meanings of gender have been
articulated in texts and images in the Portuguese news magazines. In particular, two stories
(recently published then, one from each news magazine) covering national political issues
were distributed as a stimulus material, namely: “As rebeldias da protegida de Portas” (The
unruliness of Portas’ protégée), published in Sábado (no. 372, June 16 2011), and “Agora é
que são elas” (Now it’s for real), published in Visão (no. 957, July 16 2011). This research was
not based on a representative sample of both publics and media professionals.
The data were analysed using the NVivo 8.0 software and subjected to a thematic
analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006), which allows one to identify, analyse, and report
patterns (themes). This method for qualitative research is a six-phase step process,
which includes familiarizing with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes
among codes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the final
report. Three major themes emerged from the data in our study: (a) access, distribution,
and participation in the media industries; (b) reporting practices and media contents; and
(c) gender equality policies. Since thematic analysis enhances the understanding of
explicit and implicit meanings associated with textual data (Guest, Macqueen, and
Namey 2012), it will help us to grasp the way in which hegemonic meanings of gender
have been interpreted in the Portuguese media context.

Findings and discussion

(a). Access, distribution, and participation in the media industries
In Portugal, media organizations have undergone deep economic, political, and socio­
cultural transformations over the last decades. In the 1960s, only a small number of
women worked in the media industries (Fernando Correia and Carla Baptista 2007), but
after the fall of the dictatorship, in 1974, women’s access to education, politics, and the
labour market increased, especially in the field of journalism (Isabel Ventura 2012). In a
context marked by a financial crisis, precarious work, and a significant unemployment rate
(women being one of the most affected social groups) (Juliana Souza 2016), the percen­
tage of female journalists is rising (40.7%), even though media industries continue to be
dominated by men (59.3%) (José Rebelo 2011).
While women have outnumbered men at university (Sofia M. Silva 2010) and are
increasingly employed in journalism (Pinto-Coelho and Mota-Ribeiro 2009), vertical seg­
regation remains ingrained in the Portuguese media sector (Cláudia Álvares and Iolanda
 FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 71

Veríssimo 2016; Isabel Salim 2008); women have made up nearly half the workforce in this
field, but the proportion of women involved in decision-making positions and in boards is
low (26%) (European Institute for Gender Equality [EIGE] 2013).
Although most participants acknowledged the gender gap existing in decision-making
roles in the media context, they had great difficulty in critically addressing the possible
causes of such asymmetry. Many of the professionals and focus-group discussants cast
the possibility that women are less likely than men to have leadership skills, thus produ­
cing discourses that were consistent with binary and essentialist thinking, according to
which gender is a predictable property of the subjects in all social contexts, including the
labour market and the media industry (Carolyn M. Byerly 2013; Van Zoonen 1994).
I think it’s a cross-cutting problem in the Portuguese society, I don’t know if the same
happens in most other societies ... I don’t know whether this is due to a limited ability that
women have for management positions. . ..
(Ângelo Mota, decision-making position, Visão)
. . . genders differ between themselves. So, maybe, it [the ability to hold leadership positions]
is a feature that is most commonly found in men than in women . . ..
(António Pereira, 25 years old)

In the media industries, work, private, and family life has been made difficult to
coordinate due to a deep-seated masculine culture (Ross 2010; Lobo et al. 2017) and a
lack of provisions in the workplace (e.g., flexible working arrangements, quality childcare
and support facilities, access to paid maternity and paternity leave, etc.) (Byerly 2013; Van
Zoonen 1994). Indeed, a number of media professionals stated (even if with a certain
degree of uncertainty) that the lack of women in decision-making positions, such as
managerial posts, may be related to the fact that they are required to combine career with
home and parental responsibilities, which decrease women’s chances of performing jobs
which demand round-the-clock availability.
Women are indeed less available to take leadership positions . . .. Maybe there are many
women who do not occupy those positions because they don’t have the possibility to go
home when it comes to 5 p.m., so this is very limiting in several ways.
(Miguel Couto, journalist, Visão)
Most participants did not consider, however, the smaller pipeline of women available
to progress in the corporate hierarchy as a corollary of macro-level gender inequalities,
such as the glass-ceiling effect and the unequal share of domestic and family responsi­
bilities between women and men; instead, they placed that discussion in the realm of
individual-level variables (e.g., women’s intrinsic need, choice, and expression of will). One
exception among the professionals surveyed is noteworthy: one of the journalists men­
tioned, with dissatisfaction and apparent resignation, the hectic and long working hours
and the round-the-clock availability required in the context of capitalist media production
as institutional obstacles hindering women’s access to leadership roles.
The employer who pays the wages wants someone [an employee] who is always there. Who
will he choose: a guy who is there 14 hours a day, or a woman who is there three months a
year? . . . I have no problem in recognising that my female colleagues have skills, that they
would be suitable board members. For me, they would; for the boss, they wouldn’t.

(Ricardo Oliveira, photographer, Sábado)

72 A. SANTOS ET AL.

Besides vertical segregation, gender disparities have prevailed at the horizontal level of
the media industries, including sections/segments, commentary and opinion-making
positions, and types of coverage. Feminist scholars have particularly criticized the gen­
dered nature of the definitions of what constitutes “news” and the dichotomy between
“hard news” and “soft news.” While men have mostly been reporting on hard news
(considered the most prestigious type of journalism), women remain confined to soft
news, which tend to be equated with less-important stories and with traits typically seen
as “feminine” (e.g., human-interest stories and connection with emotions) (Louise North
2016; Pinto-Coelho and Mota-Ribeiro 2009). For instance, 70% of stories in “Politics and
Government” are reported by men, whereas 44% of reporters of the category “Science
and Health” are women (GMMP Europe 2015).
Although they recognized that there is a better balance between women and men
when it comes to editorial sections/segments, many of the professionals and focus-group
discussants were particularly acute in realizing the existence of a gender gap in the
commentator and opinion-maker assignments (e.g., Carla Baptista 2011; Rita Figueiras
2011), especially in the areas of greater newsworthiness (e.g., politics, economy, and
sports). When they were asked to explain the leading causes for this gender disparity,
most participants quoted the lack of women in relevant public domains (e.g., politics) and
the women’s individual-level factors (e.g., educational qualifications, professional experi­
ence, and availability). Based on a reassuring reasoning2 (Paula Lobo and Rosa Cabecinhas
2010), they tended to ignore the way in which micro and macro structural gender
inequalities prevailing in the Portuguese society may be reverberated in the media sector,
particularly in the commentator and opinion-maker assignments:

. . . the number of educated women, having experience, . . . skills to be assigned as commen­

tators is very small when compared to men’s.
(Rui Teixeira, 19 years old)
. . . when we look for someone to make a difference here or there, . . . it is difficult to find a
woman matching those requirements; it is incomparably more difficult than to find a man,
maybe because 99% of those in the areas in which we look for commentators are men.
(Ângelo Mota, decision-making position, Visão)

While analysing the overall presence of women in the Portuguese media industries,
particularly in the practice of journalism, many participants considered that the number of
women has been increasing over the last decade. Some have even expressed concern
about the fact that women are numerically becoming over-represented.
Today the opposite has become a concern, that is, there is a need to increase the number of
male journalists in order to compensate women’s overrepresentation.
(Ângelo Mota, decision-making position, Visão)
I think that in the 21st Century, we are reversing paths, the woman is emancipating herself
more than the man. She’s becoming superior. . .
(Rui Teixeira, 19 years old)
However, feminist media studies have shown that the feminization of media industries
(and, in particular, of newsrooms) have not, overall, led to the eradication of gender-based
discrimination and to the promotion of women’s empowerment in the workplace (e.g.,
Byerly 2013; Gallagher 2001; Lobo et al. 2017; Pinto-Coelho and Mota-Ribeiro 2009;
 FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 73

Torkkola and Ruoho 2011). “The opportunities offered by democracy to Portuguese

women in education and employment have led to only ‘conditioned liberties’” (Lígia
Amâncio and João Manuel Oliveira 2006, 38). As Gill put it (2007, 124), the increasing
number of women in media organizations has not been enough to make disappear the
“pervasive double standards” that shape the practice of journalism. Aside from being
subject to vertical and horizontal segregation, women still have to show competence and
professionalism, while facing sociocultural expectations about normative femininity (Gill
2007; Van Zoonen 1994).

(b). Reporting practices and media contents

Gender representations
Following the Beijing Platform for Action (1995), the V National Plan for Equality, Gender,
Citizenship and Non-Discrimination from the Portuguese Commission for Citizenship and
Gender Equality (2014) calls for the need to raise awareness among media professionals
and students about the importance of producing contents on gender equality and non-
discrimination, in addition to providing a set of political strategies to ensure a non-
stereotyped portrayal of women in the media. However, essentialist representations of
gender have endured in the Portuguese news media (e.g., Cerqueira and Cabecinhas
2016; Pinto-Coelho and Mota-Ribeiro 2009; Silveirinha 2004; Souza 2016).
When asked to reflect upon gender representations, participants in this study often
endorsed divergent and sometimes ambiguous positions, especially regarding the way in
which female politicians appear in the Portuguese news magazines (even though this may be
partially due to the stimulus material). In contrast to most professionals who were interviewed,
focus-group discussants did not presume that media coverage is undifferentiated, regardless
of the sex of news subjects; rather, they stated that news media tend to represent female
politicians based on their private life and domesticity, as well as physicality, body, and
appearance (see, for example, Anabela Santos, Carla Cerqueira, and Rosa Cabecinhas 2015a).
Many of the focus-group discussants argued that female politicians are frequently
asked about work-family accommodation, which is seen by some feminist scholars as
evidence of the gendered mediation of politics, since women’s male counterparts are not
subject to that type of media coverage (e.g., Ross 2010; Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi
and Karen Ross 1996). Conversely, most professionals built on the existence of an equal
treatment between women and men in the media, established a causal relation between
(gendered) coverage and the professional occupation of news subjects, and considered
gender-discriminatory contents as a problem of the past—and one that has already been
overcome in the current Portuguese context.
We have never seen them [the media] talking about the private life of a male politician, saying
that he asked to bring forward the meetings to lunchtime because he needed to have dinner
with his family. . ..
(Catarina Lemos, 20 years old)
I’ve never felt that there was a disparity between interview questions asked one or the other,
nor do I think that questions on [family-work] accommodation are asked to a female scientist.
I don’t know . . . I think this is a bit outdated.

(Catarina Fonseca, journalist, Visão)

74 A. SANTOS ET AL.

Furthermore, as stated in many studies (e.g., Gallagher 2001; Elisabeth Gidengil and
Joanna Everitt 2003; Ross 2010), which have demonstrated that news media often under­
estimate what women “think” and “say” and inform them as gendered bodies, several
focus-group discussants stated that female politicians have been represented in the news
magazines in accordance with their looks, clothing, sense of fashion, etc. This stance was
not, however, shared by most of the media professionals interviewed, who believed that
in the Portuguese context the focus on women’s physicality is not an issue, especially in
the types of media that meet high standards of journalism.

. . . I remember when the Minister of Agriculture went going to give a talk wearing a short
dress made room for a lot of discussion.
(Carolina Torres, 18 years old)
I don’t remember finding any news pieces containing references to female MPs’ physical
attractiveness in a high-quality newspaper in Portugal. I don’t have the idea that physical
attractiveness . . . the physical attractiveness of a minister, a member of Parliament or who­
ever, was an issue or even a side comment.
(Ângelo Mota, decision-making position, Visão)

On the other hand, most focus-group discussants noted that male politicians have been
mentioned in the news media for their opinions, actions, and behaviour, even if those may be
socially questionable and trigger controversy. In particular, they stressed the fact that men are
not usually required to match normative beauty standards, echoing numerous (inter)national
studies that show that women have been eminently associated with their physicality, regard­
less of their individual roles and spheres of activity, while men are associated with intellectual
skills (e.g., Lígia Amâncio 1994; Gallego 2009; Byerly and Ross 2006).

. . . women are asked to conform to beauty standards much more than men. Lula [da Silva]
was portrayed as a “cachaça” lover. In the case of Dilma [Rousseff], it’s because she is ugly . . .
this ugly element, I think women are much more affected by it.
(Paula Barbosa, 21 years old)

In an attempt to assign the causes that may underlie representations of female

politicians in the Portuguese news magazines, as we have shown in previous works (e.
g., Santos, Cerqueira, and Cabecinhas 2015a), most focus-group discussants and some
media professionals mentioned the sex of the journalist. In line with traditional gender
stereotypes (Amâncio 1994), female journalists were mainly ascribed to sensitivity, emo­
tionality, and motherliness, while males were associated with rationality and objectivity in
the journalistic practice.
Maybe women have slightly more emotional than rational perspectives. . .
(Sérgio Lourenço, 19 years old)
I mean, there are very specific issues where being a woman makes a difference. . ..
(Otávio Gonçalves, editor, Visão)

Consistent with a number of studies (e.g., Cerqueira and Cabecinhas 2016; Pinto-
Coelho and Mota-Ribeiro 2009; Ross 2010; Silveirinha 2004; Van Zoonen 1994), profes­
sionals mostly refused any causal relationship between the sex of the journalist, profes­
sional performance, and media coverage. Different writing styles and frames in media
 FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 75

coverage were rather taken to be a result of the idiosyncrasies of the journalists, of

sociocultural and organizational factors, economic constraints, type of media, news
topics, and so on.

People have different writing styles, regardless of whether they are male or female. Each
journalist has his own experience, life and culture which influence what he writes. It cannot
be said that all women write in a certain way and all men write in another.
(Rodrigo Mendonça, decision-making position, Sábado)

The belief among most discussants and some professionals that there is a correlation
between the sex of the journalist, professional performance, and media coverage may
indicate a major underlying assumption, that is, the gendering of journalism. Rather than
considering gender as fluid and dynamic (Connell 2009), they tended to consider women
as a homogenous group that share identical perspectives, have similar professional styles,
and are distinguished from their male counterparts by feminine traits. Moreover, most
focus-group discussants supported the idea that media professionals have enough
autonomy to implement their own strategies and work methods, seeming to ignore, for
example, that journalists can express their social concerns as long as they respect news­
room culture and organizational interests (Gallego 2009).

Diversity-oriented and non-sexist language

Research has shown that language used in news media to refer to women and men often
contributes to reinforcing androcentric worldviews and to maintaining unequal gender
relations (e.g., Gallego 2013). Nevertheless, for the professionals, language is a neutral
system of communication, so that doing accurate journalism was equated with ade­
quately using formal linguistic aspects. Although gender-based discrimination was pre­
sumed to be incompatible with the core principles of journalism, the use of gender-
neutral and/or diversity-oriented language was understood as either a non-issue or an
irrelevant topic. Androcentric language norms,3 namely the use of masculine forms as a
generic form to refer to both men and women, remained, for the most part, unchallenged
and were ignored, not being even taken as a possible expression of (symbolic) discrimina­
tion against women.

It’s the “reader” [written in masculine form in Portuguese], but it refers to readers in general,
including men and women. . . . As it is, people do not feel excluded.
(Susana Esteves, journalist, Sábado)

During the focus groups, when asked to share their views on media contents from the
Portuguese news magazines, many discussants identified and examined a number of
examples in which the language used conveys sexist imagery of women and enacts
traditional gender stereotypes, such as weakness, incompetence, and inexperience in
the political realm (see Santos, Cerqueira, and Cabecinhas 2015a, on this topic). A
particular case was highlighted by the discussants: that when Assunção Cristas (then
Minister of Agriculture, Sea, Environment and Territorial Planning) was reported to have
brought a small carton of milk (“pacotinho de leite”4) with her to Parliament (“Visão,”
no. 957, July 16 2011) in a way that provocatively depicts her as someone who needs to
76 A. SANTOS ET AL.

get revitalized (suggesting that she has no “endurance” for political matters) and ironically
emphasizes her lack of knowledge about the Regiment of the Assembly of the Portuguese
Republic (giving an idea that her behaviour is childlike).

“The small carton of milk to make it through the whole session” [passage taken from a news
piece]. This wouldn’t be said about a man. . . . I mean, this is really giving an idea of weakness,
a weakness that only women would have, not men, because they have been there [in politics]
for many, many years. . ..
(Cecília Sarmento, 18 years old)
When a professional was asked by the researcher to specifically address this news
piece, he considered that the gendered (and even sexist) language used to describe
female news subjects was an insignificant and occasional situation (instead of a systemic
and systematic phenomenon); he focused on the individual responsibility (ignoring the
ideological assumptions and socioeconomic constraints embedded in the media indus­
tries), and presumed the existence of a gender-neutral journalism (rather than recogniz­
ing the gender-biased practices widely performed in the media sector).

It might have been an unfortunate choice of the editor, but I don’t think it’s a serious thing.
(Manuel Lopes, photographer, Sábado)
Research has shown, however, that female politicians are aware that the language used
by the media to portray them differs from that used to portray their male counterparts (e.
g., Ross 2010). Especially when covering politics, news media use a language that
privileges androcentric values, promotes hegemonic discourses, and reifies hierarchical
gender relations, which may have a negative impact on women’s participation in politics,
threaten the maintenance of representative democracy, and perpetuate gender/social
asymmetries (Gallego 2009; Ross 2010; Santos, Cabecinhas, and Cerqueira 2015b).

(c). Gender equality policies

Gender equality policies have been increasingly considered (inter)nationally as key tools
to eradicate gender-based discrimination in the workplace, in journalistic practice, and in
media contents. Yet, as shown by the EIGE’s report for the 27 EU Member States (2013),
which included four Portuguese media organizations, only 36% of organizations have
codes of conduct, policies, and monitoring mechanisms, while 33% have practical mea­
sures to protect staff from gender-based discrimination in this industry. This may suggest
“indifference and even hostility” towards specifying gender as an element worth being
paid special attention (Ross 2014, 328).
Most professionals interviewed for this study did not appear to be worried about the
gender gap existing in both vertical and horizontal structures of the media industries (e.g.,
Álvares and Veríssimo 2016; Lobo et al. 2017). Much to the contrary, they stated that
gender equality policies aimed, for example, to promote equal participation and diversity
in leadership roles and in commentator and opinion-maker assignments are not a priority.
Like many of the professionals, focus-group discussants tended to consider policy imple­
mentation as an imposition or coercion, arguing instead that gender equality should be
achieved “naturally.” Positive action measures were mostly seen as compromising or even
violating meritocratic principles because they were said to favour a selection based on
 FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 77

sociodemographics (and not on personal and professional skills), which may denote the
lack of a deep knowledge about what these measures consist of, the undervaluing of
gender-based discrimination, the influence of traditional gender ideology, as well as the
assumption that merit is neutral (M. Helena Santos and Lígia Amâncio 2016).
There is no concern to fill women’s quota as opinion makers, as there is no concern to fill
men’s quota in news pieces as reporters, whilst the overwhelming majority of newsmagazine
articles have been written by women.
(Rodrigo Mendonça, decision-making position, Sábado)
. . . in certain cases, these gender policies are creating gender differences, by benefiting one
gender because of a policy and not because of personal merit.
(Vasco Ribeiro, 21 years old)
Albeit the importance of equality awareness training to challenge traditional standards
of newsworthiness, to eradicate gender-based stereotypes in both textual and visual
contents, to promote an equal proportion of female and male sources, and to foster the
use of diversity-oriented and non-sexist language (Cerqueira et al. 2014; Gallagher 2001),
only 8% of media organizations in the EU-27 have implemented this type of practical
measures. Capacity building training for staff in the four Portuguese media organizations
included in the study as a strategy to ensure gender equality is inexistent or, at least, has
not been reported (EIGE 2013).
In fact, professionals stated that their organizations have not promoted or facilitated any
training for staff to help them include (critical) gender perspectives in media practice. Yet,
most of them did not show any interest in attending this kind of training course; instead,
they considered that those measures do not bring value or important contributions to the
practice of journalism, especially when comparing to technical training such as multimedia
production courses. This may indicate a lack of knowledge about the relevance of training
courses to provide them with the necessary tools to advance equality, gender diversity, and
social change in their day-to-day work (Cerqueira et al. 2014).
Here we have never been given the possibility to attend training courses [on gender equality
and citizenship], but if we had, I believe they wouldn’t be a very privileged area.
(Ângelo Mota, decision-making position, Visão)
Although equality and diversity principles were given importance by the participants, most
of them considered that gender inequalities have been either mitigated or eradicated in the
Portuguese media industry. For many of the professionals, a high incidence of gender-based
discrimination would be primarily expressed through the absence of women from decision-
making roles in newsrooms and in media contents which explicitly promote sexist discourses
and images. Like a number of focus-group discussants, most of the professionals considered
that the (taken-for-granted) neutrality and objectivity of journalism would be enough to
prevent gender-based discrimination in the media context (see Byerly and Ross 2006).
The media industries are a place where there is no [gender-based] discrimination and where it
ceased to exist very quickly. . . . I think that sexist statements do not appear in VISÃO
Newsmagazine, nor can they appear. . . . In Portugal, this is not a problem and it doesn’t
show in the most serious media.
(Ângelo Mota, decision-making position, Visão)
I think that, although there is some discrimination against women in Portugal, this is not due
to the role of the media.
78 A. SANTOS ET AL.

(Patrícia Castro, 18 years old)

It seems, therefore, that an “equality illusion” (Kat Banyard 2010) has generally prevailed
among the professionals and the focus-group discussants involved in this study. A number of
participants even believe that gender-based discrimination is less serious than, for example,
racial or ethnic discrimination. This hierarchy of different forms of discrimination apparently
reveals a lack of critical awareness about the dimension, forms of expression, and negative
impact of (symbolic) asymmetries still existing in the Portuguese society (Santos and Amâncio
2016; WEF 2017), particularly in the media industries (Álvares and Veríssimo 2016).

Conclusion
News media have always been at the centre of feminist critique for their key role in (re)
producing dominant versions of the social reality, maintaining the current gender order,
and crystallizing structural inequalities (e.g., Margaret Gallagher 2014; Ross 2010; Van
Zoonen 1994). Despite occasional moments of negotiation and resistance, interviewees
and focus-group discussants tended to produce discourses aligned with a binary opposi­
tion of male and female, and essentialist conceptualizations, whereby gender is under­
stood to be fixed and immutable. Hegemonic meanings of gender have not been
challenged often, thus emerging in the media context as the “natural order of things”:
gender asymmetries in the media industries were not rendered as an object of special
interest, concern, or critical reflection; gendered media representations, male-biased
news-making process, and neoliberal trends in political economy of communication
were generally not considered in terms of their impact in the sociocultural, political,
and economic arenas; following the rhetoric of meritocracy, gender equality policies
were dismissed as needed actions to achieve equality, diversity, and social justice.
Critical gender perspectives which promote feminist-informed inquiries into oppression,
privilege, and power have rarely been endorsed by the professionals and discussants,
sometimes even being considered to equate with “women’s perspective,” and not as a
broader socio-political commitment. This may suggest that participants tend to assume that
critical gender perspectives are not compatible with the journalistic practice, which is said
to require the suppression of any traces of subjectivity, and the impossibility to be politically
committed to social change—as Silveirinha (2004, 22) pointed out, “the professional
experiences of the journalist, especially the personal ones, are irrelevant: his personal stories
do not go into the work, his identities do not matter.” There are ideologies that seem to
function as invisible systems, some are considered to be “legitimate, acceptable and
defensible,” and others are rejected because they are considered “unacceptable and
distorting” (Juana Gallego 2002, 13). Feminism falls into this last category, that is, it is
understood as an ideological orientation which compromises journalism and is not con­
sonant with its (taken-for-granted) “objectivity” and neutrality. So, even though being a
woman may be challenging enough in news media industries, taking up a “feminist subject
position in journalism is even more contentious” (North 2009, 747).
Although this research paper was not based on a representative sample—and, hence,
its findings should not be generalized—it provides important insights into the way in
which the dominant gender order has been maintained in the Portuguese media context,
by instigating a reflexive dialogue between two important dimensions of the media
 FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 79

communication triangle: production and consumption. This paper ultimately calls for a
semiotic and political empowerment of both media professionals and publics with a view
to promoting a practice of journalism and social uses of media that—based on critical,
intersectional, and feminist-informed approaches—may make them able to “take sides,”
“disorder gender,” and step forward towards the denaturalization of gender asymmetries.

Notes
1. Focus-group discussants are identified with fake names to ensure anonymity. Media profes­
sionals are identified with fake names and by their function in each news magazine (Sábado
or Visão).
2. Reassuring reasoning refers to the idea that there is nothing to worry about since the gender
discrimination is already eradicated (or it will be eradicated very soon). Examples of this are
the historical exoneration and the particularization.
3. Like the other Romance languages, Portuguese foregrounds the use of masculine forms as a
generic linguistic formulation to refer to both men and women, including forms of address,
(plural) nouns, pronouns, and adjectives.
4. Diminutives in Portuguese may refer to small size, express irony, and sarcasm, etc.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the focus-group discussants and the media professionals who accepted to
participate in our research project. The project also benefited from the support and knowledge of
Mariana Bernardo (one of its research assistants), Sara I. Magalhães (project researcher), and Rui
Vieira Cruz.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by the European Fund for Regional Development (FEDER) through the
Operational Competitiveness Programme (COMPETE), and by national funds through the
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the project PTDC/CCI-COM/
114182/2009.

Notes on contributors
Anabela Santos is a PhD candidate with a doctoral scholarship (PD/BD/105928/2014) from the
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) at the Communication and Society
Research Centre, University of Minho, Portugal. She worked as a FCT Junior Research Fellow in
the project “Gender in focus: social representations in Portuguese generalist newsmagazines”
(PTDC/CCI-COM/114182/2009). E-mail: amsantos86@gmail.com
Carla Cerqueira holds a PhD in Communication Sciences. She is a Postdoctoral Grantee (SFRH/BPD/
86,198/2012) in Communication Sciences at the Communication and Society Research Centre,
University of Minho, Portugal, and an Assistant Professor at Lusophone University of Porto,
80 A. SANTOS ET AL.

Portugal. She was vice-chair of the Gender and Communication Section of ECREA and Gender and
Communication YECREA representative. She has participated as a researcher and consultant in
several funded projects in the area of Gender Equality and Media. E-mail: carlaprec3@gmail.com
Rosa Cabecinhas holds a PhD in Communication Sciences. She is Professor at the Social Sciences
Institute of University of Minho and Researcher at the Communication and Society Research Centre.
She was former Deputy-Director of the Communication and Society Research Centre, Head of the
Master’s degree programme in Communication Sciences and Head of the Communication Sciences
Department. Currently, she is Head of the Cultural Studies Doctoral Programme at University of
Minho. E-mail: cabecinhas@ics.uminho.pt

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