Asking the Right Questions

At the WFTV board meeting yesterday, Janet Fielding told us that Ros Gill, an academic at the LSE, is due to publish a book called "Gender And The Media" later this year (see synopsis here).

Apparently this is a wonderfully comprehensive review across Anglo-American media, looking at women's roles in front and behind the camera, and asking why the power balance remains firmly in favour of men, despite numerous campaigns, training initiatives etc aimed to help women succeed.

WFTV chair Sophie Balhetchet mentioned Steven Levitt's current bestseller, Freakonomics, which suggests that society can be seen completely differently if we start to ask different questions.

This made me wonder, are we asking the right questions when it comes to helping women succeed in the technical grades?

87% of women feel children put them at disadvantage

Things have been a bit quiet on the blogging front lately; partly because I've been concentrating on getting the Technical Change programme up and running, and partly because I found out at Christmas that I'm pregnant.

Of course this is *thrilling* news but while having a baby is a really fantastic way to fully realise the issues facing many women at mid-career level in the industry (call it 'method' project management), it's also a shock to the system, physically and mentally, and the lethargy and confusion that sets in can hold you back a bit.

I'm moved to write by the publication this week of Broadcast/WFTV's "Women in Broadcasting Survey" which found, among other rather depressing stuff, that a whopping 87% of women felt that having children or other dependents puts them at a disadvantage in the broadcast industry (see Feature Editor Emily Booth's summary) . This compared to just 13% of women who felt having dependents would hold MEN back. As Emily Booth and others have commented, evidence like this shows that true equality could still be a long way off.

Interestingly, only 22% of the survey's respondents (1000+ women) said they actually had children, with many saying they were worried/scared/too over-worked to even think about becoming mothers.

One figure I'd have issue with was the finding that only 35% of women claimed to have experienced difficulties when returning to work after taking a break to have children. This figure must surely be skewed because a good chunk of those who HAD experienced difficulties would no doubt have given up the ghost and opted for a complete change of career rather than fight to be re-accepted into an industry that is intrinsically skewed against them.

Sadly there was no breakdown showing how conditions for women working in the technical grades compare to others, but I suspect the childcare/dependants issue is probably even more acute for women working in these areas. What do others think?