- Tuned in by the Women Resource and Career Planning Center, located in the dean of women's office, 220 Strong Hall. This resource center has been built to respond to the unique needs of women in today's society and includes a library on women of over 400 volumes, the second largest library on women in the country,, information on vocations and future professions, as well as counseling and vocational, academic and personal concerns and problem pregnancy and human sexuality counseling. So we hope that you will stop by the women's resource and group planning center, in Strong Hall and see what is available there for your use. This evening is the second of a three part series on the image of women in the mass media. And tonight we are going to talk about the image of women in broadcasting. As our guest this evening to discuss this topic with us, we have Dr. Elizabeth Esch, who has been active in commercial and non-commercial radio over a period of 20 years as station manager and producer, performer and writer, and this year she is an associate professor here at the University of Kansas. Also with us, we have Jan Sanders, an assistant Dean of women who is in speech and drama here at the university, pursuing her PhD. And another guest this evening is Mary Rowe. Mary is a graduate in broadcasting from the University of Kansas who is now working professionally in the field. We're using a pseudonym for her tonight, so that she can be freer to discuss some of the problems that she's encountered in broadcasting, while protecting her present situation in her present position. So we welcome the three of you this evening to discuss the image of women in broadcasting. I suppose since Orson Welles, famous War of the Worlds or the Nixon Kennedy debates, the power of the mass media has been well recognizing and much discussed. But now feminists are saying that this power of the media is used against women, or if not against them that the media portrays stereotypic images of women as housewives, mothers, sex objects or bow-brain comedians. One indictment by Mitch Obex, as reported in the New York times, "I believe that one of the serious battle grounds upon which the women's struggle will be fought is in the communications media. The stereotype images of women being met as hourly and daily by newspapers, women's magazines, radio, television, films and advertising are limiting and demeaning and keep us from experiencing our full possibilities. I think one of the most compelling indictments of mass media and the portrayal of women by mass media was compiled by four local chapters of NOW, the national organization for women in the Washington DC area a study of one of the local TV stations." Jan, would you like to talk a little bit about this study and some of the things that were resulted from it? - All right. Originally, the National Organization of women chapters in the DC area were concerned because they felt, first of all women were being portrayed inaccurately through the media. Secondly, that women's groups such as theirs had no access to the media to present their own side of the case. And third that, they couldn't get in through legitimate channels through being hired by the media. And so for these three reasons, they undertook a study of the hiring practices of WRC TV in Washington DC. That's the NBC affiliate and the most popular station in Washington. They went back through the records and found out who they hired, when they hired them, how many women they had, what they paid the women in comparison to the man. And they also did a study of the programming and had round the clock monitors that recorded what the editorials said, what kind of jokes the weatherman made, what the game shows said, who their contestants were, what the plots were and who the characters were for all of the series that were going on. And the document they came up with was very damning for the station. Out of over 4,000 minutes of programming they had monitored, they found only 12 and a half minutes were devoted to women's issues, to the women's movement, to the changing role of women. Most of the other programming that mentioned women did so in a stereotypic and demeaning manner. The employment statistics were just as indicting. The result was that the FCC found for the women's group. And at this point, I don't know if the license has been revoked from the current owners of WRC TV. The FCC found them guilty of discrimination and withheld judgment as far as what they were going to do. - Well, I think this is an indication that women are no longer going to allow themselves to be portrayed in this way. Dr. Esch, you've been active in this field for over 20 years. Do you feel that there's some changes need to be made in the way women are portrayed in your field? - I do, although of course speaking from a somewhat older viewpoint than yours. There have been changes, thank heavens, since when I first went in. Because when I first got into broadcasting, in the thought of a woman in a managerial role there, was simply unheard of. And although eventually I moved up into the managerial role I still was given a lower title and most of all, I still was earning less after eight years than an entering disc jokey. Who by the way started $40 a week in those days. And I was mainly in the beginning, expected to confine myself to children home kinds of topics. Fortunately, I had a very wonderful station manager who realized, I felt very hampered by these topics. And he said, "Betty, you go talk about anything "you want to." And so, although I was not trained in the broadcast news, so I didn't go into the journalistic aspects. I just went out and covered anything that I had found interesting in the city so that I was allowed more freedom. I think the most women, particularly that was back in the 1940s. - Well Mary, she feels that Betty feels like some things have changed over the few years. Now you've been seeking a job and have now found one in the past several years, what do you feel? Do feel changes have been made? - In my experience, very few. There have been no managerial positions for women, and there have been stereotyped jobs that have been given for women. I was told that I should seek one certain job because I was better than a secretary. And that really hurt me because it didn't take into account any of my own prior background. I was just better than a secretary but I think the change will come, but it's going to take quite an effort. - In your interviewing for a position, were you ever interviewed by a woman or were all of the positions, all the people that were interviewing and hiring and had that power to make those decisions, were they all men? - They were all men, yes. - I there for six years. I taught at a junior college for young women. So therefore young women were the only ones I was turning out. And mainly they had to get in through the secretarial route. Now we did place many eventually in the networks, but they still had to enter the networks through the secretarial type jobs, even though some would only stay in those jobs maybe four or five weeks, I had one who moved in with Huntley-Brinkley, and helped produce his show soon afterwards. But that was the only way and they wouldn't be looked at regardless of their radio and television training. Unless they could also type and take shorthand. CBS particularly had a very anti female attitude. They told me to my face in front of a group of students, "women are only good as secretaries." And from this viewpoint, I have seen them begin to grow you know, jobs with higher responsibility, but it still started with what Mary had mentioned, this clerical routine. - Well, it's not hard to understand how women are portrayed over the air. - Producing and directing the programs feeling that way. I would just like to add here that I think the country is becoming conscious of affirmative action. But even so, some of the statistics don't support this commitment to affirmative action. I discovered that 609 television stations surveyed, according to how many women they had employed. There was an actual decrease from 1971 to 1972. There was no increase in the percentage of women employed, and for a professional job categories in the stations. 106 of them actually decreased their number and their percentage of women. So that's, the statistics are less than a year old, and I don't think it shows too much progress. - Well, I think that, as many fields become more and more competitive and the crunch comes down, the commitment to affirmative action somehow falls by the wayside during that period of crash. Do you feel like there is a sort of crunch in employment in poor people seeking positions in radio and TV at this time? - Well, there always has been some extent it's always been a field where more people apply than the industry can accommodate that's one reason they can be a little choosy. I will say the field is more open in the educational broadcasting aspect. There I know a number of women who have been heads of departments. In fact, I was head of two departments, of radio and television film. There aren't many though. I know if I go to national conventions of the commercial broadcasters, I feel surrounded by men. Whereas if you go to the national convention of educational broadcaster you will find women in many managerial positions. Maybe it's because of the woman's stereotype role as a teacher helps the entry a little easier there. - Mary, when you were doing your undergraduate training at the University of Kansas, were there many women in the program? And what percentage might be looking for jobs in this area? - I don't really know anything about percentages, but more and more women are going in especially, I think the greatest increase is in the broadcast journalism, where they can see more women on air and have more of a brighter outlook about it. But one thing about going from University to job, this university has been more free in letting women do things and training women than the business world that I'm going into, and that's one reason why it's such a shock to me. - I know that most broadcast programs are in journalism. This is correct. And 44% of the graduates of journalism schools are women. And yet in a way do we have 44% represented at the broadcast media. And these are women who graduate in journalism. - Well, partly, I too like to think, that's a low pay scale. Which I think in some ways is reflected in this because I know some of the most brilliant young women that have graduated, finally gave up trying to get jobs in the profession because the only entry jobs were such a low entry scale and they were college graduates. And they thought well, there is no point in accepting a job, - Are there low entry position just for women or do men have to enter at that low point also? - Well again, this was a stereotype traditional kinds of jobs. Although these women, they were both capable as technicians, console operators, cameraman and performers. Usually the opening jobs when in traffic continuity which is more or less secretarial, and I don't know what the current pay scale would be, but in those days it was again lower than the average young man on the council, maybe $10 difference even then. And I think that that inequity has more or less continuity in the commercial field. I don't think it continues as much in the educational field from what I've been able to observe. - Dr. Esch in the past few years, as you've been going to conventions have you seen an increase in the number of women in broadcasting radio and TV? - Not in the commercials field. I did see several very brilliant young women who impressed me. Recently I went to a convention in Washington it's now called the BEA, used to be the APBE who are now the Broadcast Educators Association. And there were some, let me see, they were probably young is a matter of perspective, probably not more than 25. And they were going for their PhDs. Now this was something unheard of years ago to think of to encourage a young woman to get a PhD in radio and television film. So the thrust is there and I see a number of them in the graduate schools moving up that kind of ladder. But I still don't see it in the commercial field. I would like to relate a movement here. So I think as a form of culture shock lifestyle orientation, I was raised to feel that the man was king in the house. For instance, when you heard daddy's car coming, quickly everybody shaped up and straighten up the living room and daddy got to the table first for supper and we accepted it as a role. And I know I myself found it hard for me to mature in relationship with men because I always put men up on a pedestal and I always thought of myself as a servant. Until I was about 30. And I finally began to sit back and think, well here I'm doing things that many men can't do. And I finally came to some kind of an awareness and unlocked that. And I still believe a woman should be feminine. I mean, I wouldn't want to be thought of any other way, but to me being feminine means you don't have to be a sex object. I think there's a difference. And I think a woman can bring to broadcasting something a man cannot, just as a man brings what a woman cannot. Perhaps in some attitudes in ways of thinking, after men would stop perhaps feeling threatened. I really think they feel threatened in a way it can be a role reversal. They are used to this adulation the older men in the business, and they don't understand. I mean, we can't just demand, "Hey, look at me now, treat me like an equal." If there's been this ingrained attitude and roll response. I don't think your generation is going to have that problem. - Well, just in the media, I remember when I was growing up Nancy Dickerson was one of my idols and Pauline Frederick also from the United Nations. And those were the only two women that I remember ever seeing, in a respectful responsible position on television and over the radio. And for a while, I wanted very much to go into broadcast journalism and be another Nancy Dickerson. I think at this point, a young girl growing up can see a lot more women than I saw on television. But what about now? That might help things 10 years from now when these women go into broadcast journalism in college, and don't have to deal too much with their own feelings of inferiority because they've been exposed to some of this, but the statistics we still can't argue with them. - I wonder, is there any breakdown on those statistics indicating quality versus quantity? I mean, I wonder, they don't say how many perhaps stayed or left managerial roles compared perhaps to the lower level positions which has a high turnover anyway, in the field. I mean, this might be one important thing to do some study on. - Well I think in terms of the women that are portrayed on TV and maybe some changes have taken place. But I think the local stations, who are studying to hire women during the news time, are using women to do the features. They're still not doing the hard news but that they do the happy news or segments on their programs in the evening, or do the weather and I think - [Mary] In mini-skirts and boots, as I saw in Indianapolis when I was home for a visit in the Indianapolis, weather woman is there with her mini-skirt and boots and she kind of leans over to draw on the weather map. And of course all the sportscaster jokes with her, and it's very different from being an anchor person, on the news with that. - Do you think, what are the accusations made against women or that they cannot assume this role is that their voices are not authoritarian now, how would you respond to that? - I think it's a role expectation. I've already said so many times, in fact, I've lowered my voice and often as a result of that. And when I first was on the air my normal voice is lyric soprano and one day somebody called and said, "Get that chicken off the air." And my feelings were hurt, but I heard the tape. I realized in that case they were correct. It was irritating. And I think the lower voice automatically implies authority. But I do think that we have to recognize more as we're setting communication theory too, that we must know the externals always affect the internals but I think the men feel more comfortable with a masculine sounding voice and perhaps that's maybe the word rather than authoritative. - Yes, I would say that, it's cultural expectations. I was just reading some very disturbing research, that says as early as preschool this kind of role identification happens. On a Saturday morning commercials on television, you will usually find a boy talking about his favorite cereal or about a toy because they have found that preschool children respond more favorably to a product when a boy talks about it than when a girl does. And I think this is indicative of American sexist society and the roles being imposed and learned even that early by children. In some of my reading, I have discovered that in European countries they named France and Sweden specifically, women are seen and heard on the broadcasting media, very commonly. They also are able to do news in some main airs and there is no great expectation around this. - It may be partly a frequency problem. I'm thinking the fact, I'm talking electronic frequency. That a high pitch could be disturbing to a voice. They have done some studies pointing out that young male students in high school and college age prefer a male teacher. They seem to learn better because the feminine voice, the high pitch feminine voice, turns them off. Now it might be, they a tied in with emotionalism. Maybe it's a subconscious kind of thing. But to someone I may sound as if, "It does get unpleasant to hear somebody up here." I mean the quote aesthetics is involved in other words. - I would tend to question which does come first, the emotional attitude or the idea that a high pitched voice is associated with a woman and a woman is associated with all the negative feminine characteristics of not being strong and not being brave and not being someone who knows. - Well you know too that image can be reversed if the person's famous. Look at Truman Capote. - Oh yes. - I'm sure walked into any station and asked for a job, they wouldn't consider it but because of his status in another field that's accepted. So perhaps that would be one way achieving a little more equality in that area. - Well referring back to the NOW study that Jan talked about earlier, they broke their study down into monitoring commercials, soap operas, children's programming, news, quiz shows, entertainment talk shows and sports. I think commercials is one area where women feel particularly demeaned. The study indicated that over 50% of the products sold are sold for or to women. Usually their household cleaning items or drugs or cosmetics or things that are commonly bought at the drug store and that probably these products are mostly bought by the women in the household. Yet 80% of the voiceovers, were by men. I can take back to the Mr. Clean commercial, you know, where the woman is saved by man and the man from glad again, the woman is saved by a man. And I think that the image of women who spend their whole day thinking about how white their wash is or about their carefully waxed floors is one that everyone finds limiting. Yet they continue to air these because they must feel they're effective. And I think they're was sort of preying on the idea that the male voice is authoritative and then use that and then it becomes more authoritative in the sense that you always hear it in a knowing kind of role. How would you think that women could go about changing the way they are portrayed for instance, in commercials? - Oh, that would be a little hard right off. I'm thinking of the attitudes that you say of the people themselves. I was privileged to watch one of the testing sessions of the Schwerin Institutes in New York City. When people are asked to come in to this beautiful theater and watched two things on two different screens, but they have to push buttons to indicate which monitor they're watching in order to hear it. And that's how they find out which commercial is more appealing to people by the direction of response. And this is one of the basis in which they choose the commercials. But perhaps their method in that case of picking people is invalid because they don't make a random selection. They stay on the street corner and say, "Who would like to come in and get a free prize? To me that is only appealing then to one kind of person unless they feel that person is a major consumer in the United States. In other words, perhaps we need new research techniques to convince the agencies because it's really the agencies that produce these. And they do studies to validate what they think. Dr. Linton has done a number of studies on television code and he said, this is the same thing is true in that situation. He said that the agencies will present something in great violation of the TV code. And then they will take it to the station station will say, "We're a code station, "we can't accept this." Well, it never is completely made over to meet the code, but there is a compromise. So in essence, the people at the agencies they are creative, they are imaginative but they also seem locked in a certain approach. And the one other thing I've noticed that agencies having placed quite a number of students there is most agencies do not see radio TV as a different medium. They often sign except in the largest ones, a copywriter for print, and then give that print copywriter the job to write for the eye and the ear. And I know that when I was in the commercial field and I often had to rewrite the copy 'cause I thought the agency copy was so poor. And that's when I found out what happened. So I think it's not just one thing it's a lack of recognition that the ear and eye or different kinds of media is the kinds of appeals. And also partly the parochialism, I think of New York. You know, so much in broadcasting and advertising comes out of New York and they sort of set an image and unless we are strong enough in the Midwest and other parts of the country to create our English, we follow along. As long as we're gonna have a lot of network stations and network commercials it's a little hard to train people, particularly who might get jobs without having gone to radio and TV school. - I think that I can see that. The thing that scares me a little bit is that there are some people I believe who can adapt to that. And I feel the way quite a few of them adapt is damaging to women. For example, you can advertise Noxzema shaving cream in a magazine by having a half nude woman draped around the large can. And you wouldn't necessarily do that on television, but you can have a very sultry Swedish blonde with the accent saying, "Take it all off." That you you can't have that in print. And I think that some of them have been quite effective in adapting and damaging women. My response to that would be, if indeed we are the ones who buy that much we should stop buying. I think that some very offensive commercials offensive for other reasons, simply because they were so blatantly commercial, or a fancy because they blared at people. I think that some of these have been removed from the air under protest. - Yes I think one of the airlines that was using the fly me approach, got such a response, that they quickly gave that up in terms of using the woman's name women's names. I know that now for a while had stickers that they were distributing. When you joined now that said, "This ad insults women," and you would just paste it onto the ad that you found insulting and this was for magazines particularly, and mail it back to the company. Which would be a way of communicating back. But it's not as easy perhaps to communicate back to the radio and TV stations or where to send it. - I think that some of these are purposely objectionable because they do attract attention. I know, I remember it was Noxzema shaving cream that had the sexy Swedish blonde, even though I rescind it, I do remember it. And I think that that might be part of their strategy in using that form of advertising. Maybe to counteract that we could try to remember the good ones. Last night I saw the DuPont special with Raymond Burr on Pope John. And I noticed one commercial there that stood out because it was very different than usual. They were talking about a new machine produced by DuPont that performed chemical tests on blood that usually took an hour and it only took 10 minutes. The commercial portrayed an unconscious man in the emergency room with a physician instructing the nurses to go run these tests. And the nurses were shown operating the complex machinery, but the attending physician in the operating room was a woman giving directions, taking care of saving the man. And I saw this and it stood out because it is so unusual. And I think people like that who are putting on commercials like that can be commended as well as the objectional one stands. - And one more thing about that particular commercial that I like is showing the woman as authoritative, but not authoritarian. And I think this was one thing that is difficult. I have sometimes in my earlier years, I would try to imitate male behavior, trying to learn my managerial behavior and think, well, "He asked this when in this situation, so I will." And then I soon found, just because it was coming from a woman, the identical response or behavior was not acceptable. And therefore women have to find a different way of being authoritative without being the stereotype to which- - Well, there's a lot more to discuss about images of women in radio and TV, but it's now time to take a station break and we hope you'll join us for the second half of a feminist perspective. Welcome back to our feminist perspective evening. We are discussing images of women in broadcasting as part of a three-part series on images of women in the mass media. And we have as our guests, Dr. Elizabeth Esch, from here at KU, Jan Sanders, assistant Dean of women at KU, also pursuing graduate work in speech communication, human relations, and Mary Rowe who is an anonymous guest this evening, who is a graduate of the KU program in broadcast journalism and is now employed in local radio station. We were discussing a little bit about the kind of image of women that is portrayed through commercials. And now as we go on with discussion, we'd like to invite our listeners to call in if you have questions or if you want to comment, on anything that we're saying this evening. The number is 8644530 and we would be glad to try and respond to or listen to any of your comments or questions. Another part of the study done by the NOW chapters in Washington DC, concerns soap operas. And I think this is a particularly unique kind of programming. I think it's done mainly for women. It's assumed that people who watch the soap operas are women and the study stood out, in what kind women are portrayed in soap operas which I think is particularly damning in the sense that the women that were portrayed were neurotic or conserved with boyfriends in home and family and these kinds of things. And then the women who are homes start to see themselves in this way, as incapable, as needing help from the outside world, just leaning on a man and start to demean themselves and feel like just a housewife. And so I think this particular area is one that, since it is made for women, and portrays a negative image about women, is one that's very much a concern of feminist groups. I don't know if any of you have ever watched soap operas if you haven't been at home but would you care to respond to that? - Well, I have watched them occasionally. You know, everybody gets sick once in a while. And I have noticed over the years, of course the subjects have changed quite a bit from when they originally were on. They were very clean soap wise, as well as content wise. I think in this way, I think they're a little more honest looking at life as it is. And I think we can't condemn all the soap operas although the majority of them will follow the pattern that you had mentioned. I just read recently that for the first time, the CBS which is supposed to be the one with the most soaps has thought its ratings are dropping. I can only make an educated guess that maybe it's because the now generation of viewers are beginning to find this offensive or repetitious and formulistic and are losing interest. They're also trying some new soaps with some new approaches, which I have not seen but I think they were supposed to start either this week or last week, hoping to recapture particularly the young generation who was tired of seeing the stereotype images. - Well, I think another important thing other than what women woman is portrayed as like in housewife roles, is that the housewife sitting at home sees the housewife on the tube being supported by the people around her and by getting feedback that is good. And if she is unhappy at home, she sees that the career woman on the tube is given negative feedback and she doesn't want to go to that. She wants to stay happy at home. And so it just makes a vicious circle. - Or makes her wonder what's wrong with her that she's not happy at home when all these women on TV seem to find that so fulfilling. - Exactly. - I think in the study, it did point out that the career women that were on the air were still very different from the career men. That for instance in one of the soaps, the doctors, one of the doctors was a woman, but she was very concerned about and guilty about her mothering role. And her ex-husband was suing her for being a neglecting mother. And yet none of the other male doctors were having these kinds of problems and being an absent father, you know or a father away from the home. So I do think it portrays the message that you were talking about that a career woman is not ideal that the women at home or are more ideal in this particular setting. - I find what Dr. Esch said very interesting about the decline in the ratings of the CBS soaps. But when you look at the rest of the daytime programming, which is primarily for women, you find old movie reruns, quiz shows and look at the quiz shows. All of the quiz shows have a male moderator. The woman's role is twofold. First of all, she is the one who stands at the door and holds out her hand, or she opens the refrigerator, or she's perched on top of a boat. She helps display the prizes. Her other role is as a contestant and she jumps up and down and gets excited and cries and kisses the quizmaster when she wins and can't make up her mind, which door she wants. And if that is the choice, when presented with soap operas or with this kind of quiz show at least I find this a little bit better than one I used to watch called, do you remember "Supermarket Sweepstakes" where you were given a shopping cart and your husband would push it and you were both in tennis and you saw how many goodies you could dump in your market basket and the person who got the most goodies won them all. Well, at least that one's fallen by the wayside but we still have prices, right? And let's make a deal and those sorts of things for women to watch and identify with. - And I think we'll I know there are many college-educated women at home women who feel it's important to be there when your children are in preschool years, perhaps or who've made that as their choice, who really would like something that was more involving, who did take the world seriously and would like hard news, or documentaries to be there during the daytime when they maybe have some free time. Evening around mealtime is not from my own experience of having a child is not the time you can sit down and take it in the news. That's the time when you're kind of coping with some of your family responsibilities. So I think that they could benefit from putting some different kinds of programs that are for women during the day time. Be interesting to see if some of them would try what kind of rating response they would get. - And I think this is a problem. They usually find that it costs at least four times as much to put on any kind of a news type documentary show because you get fewer listeners and therefore the costs go up and the income comes down. I think it would mean finding a place and a format in which it would not be either initially considered quote documentary. I think particularly we have to remember, more of our viewers particularly are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. And therefore they have this need to watch both as an outlet and the only thing that they can follow and there is a role model being perpetuated and maybe why like these "Sweepstakes" things would appeal to people at this level of having material once. And I think what the box is, is TV is still a mass medium. In fact, it's the only mass medium left. Radio isn't really mass anymore with this various target audiences. But TV buy its economics has to appeal blendly to the mostest and so to speak. I think here's the problem is unless they're going to hire the kind of people we turn out at Kansas University like Mary Rowe here, and people who've been filled both functions who can have commercials, which will be tasteful, which will sell and not be demeaning. It can be done but it takes a talent and investment and locations to do it. - I'd like to turn the topic just a moment to radio, and to some of the programming that is directed exclusively to women in radio. I've read quite a bit recently about the new thing they call topless radio, where they have a feminine forum, in which the male disc jockey will present a very suggestive question. "What really turns you on?" And then the women call in on an open phone line and tell what really turns them on or whatever the sexy question of the day is. And this seems to be the newest thing in programming for women. And I find that objectionable personally. - You may find something hopeful then because the leading one was taken off the air last week, and several others are being taken off because the women are finally beginning to complain. This is the point, I think the best source it used to be like when I was in the theater the best advertising is word of mouth and I think likewise in the media if you get the people to complain, they will be heard. And I think we have to encourage people to speak up and complain about things that they find they don't like. Perhaps that's what we can do most tonight, is encourage people to take that, to win us the time, this is all it takes. Not only to complain, I think maybe more important to praise, when something is good. Because we tend more or less to point out what we don't like rather than say what we do like. And perhaps we have to teach people in schools, how to use their media. So their media will serve them rather than abuse them. One of my little theories is that it should start about sixth grade when you're learning civics. That's when you should start introduction to media because it's going to be more and more important as we are gonna be a wired nation eventually whether we like it or not - I was just reading that the viewing time for television is up to 7.2 hours a day in the average American household, almost 7.2. The source for that statistic is Julian Goodman, president of NBC. It's almost up to the workday now the average American home has 7.2 hours of television viewing. - Well, I think in light of the amount of time that children spend watching TV, that's another area of course to be concerned about if we're going to attack schools for their sexist textbooks. And certainly we have to attack the Saturday morning cereal programs. I think recently the much lotted children's program of Sesame Street has come under attack for it's sexism. It's roles was portraying women as women's work and man's work and little boys do this and little girls do that, and sending out very sexist messages, although they're very careful about racial balance on that program, they are not not sensitive to some of the complaints and concerns about sexual stereotyping. So I think that, considering that phenomenal amount of time that TV is on at homes that is probably much more time than any parents spends interacting significantly with their child every day. And yet we think that we're the ones that are carrying on the values to our children. Certainly it's frightening to a feminist parent who is trying to overcome a lot of these stereotypes. - Well, I think there's way back a wise teacher said to me, "Attitudes are caught not taught." And I think this is the danger of this type of thing. Yeah, you see it and don't realize that you're forming yourself after what you see on TV. And so I think we have perhaps in preparing our communicators also try to get them do more attitudinal studies. But here's one of the main dichotomy seems to be is the commercial broadcasters in many instances, do not want the college prepared communications graduate. I think they use the excuse, I know sometimes it's a valid excuse for a little station, I mean that they can't pay them as much. But I think they know they're gonna come in and somewhat upset the cart and they wanted to kind of keep it on a steady chill. - Mary, is that some of the feelings that you felt when you were searching for a job that perhaps being a woman and knowing that a lot of women have changed in their attitudes, that they were sort of afraid that you might be different and not willing to accept the stereotype that they wanted you to accept? - I don't know if I exactly understand what you mean, but I'll try. I was interning before I got my job. And as a student, and they knew that I wouldn't be there all the time they were always glad to tell me everything I wanted to know and let me give my own opinions about things and make suggestions. But the closer I got to graduating and looking for a permanent job, the more deaf ears that were around and the more stereotyped characteristics I was expected to display. - Some of your women classmates, have they found jobs, or would you say that men are finding jobs more easily in this field? - I haven't been taking, well my last classes were not with a lot of the majors in my field. So I really don't know about their success in finding jobs. - I think that one of the things that you were suggesting, that the graduates can perhaps impact upon the stations, as well as the consumers, I wonder about how well that works in the sense that most of the power in the media as you said before is in New York, and that is exactly distant from people who are trying to impact with an affiliate station. How would you see the way to go about that? Do you think you have to get to the top before you can impact or? - Well I am definitely in favor of preserving and saving free radio and television. so don't misunderstand what I'm going to say next. But I do feel Cable is going to become a very strong force particularly to be the community link. And we'll have our little town halls again, and we will be able to develop programming here at lower costs. Of course, we can't have them a slick. But here is where I think our creative graduates, if they can afford to starvation wages necessary right now while Cable is new, to get into cable, because I know some of my students have come up with some extremely, innovative programming. Some which really would not cost a lot. And it would give various role images to both sexes. Cause I think we also know we're talking women but we're also teaching them in wrong roles, with all these stereotypes. that we're reinforcing that as well. And one way to defend the men who presently are in power, they are the men who were raised to see women as subservient. And so we can't just change their attitudes overnight. But I think the thing to do is to show what can be done and how it can we done and we can do this both on these smaller cable systems or we can experiment. Also with the video cassettes, I think that a creative young producer can produce a good commercial or program on video cassette and then peddle it. If you come up with the idea rather than make the network go to the cost of producing it, it might get a chance. Also take, actually look at some of the things that the TV now is doing is most of our successes this year are invitations or directly importations from England. We have lost our creativity in America partly because of the writing by committee system and decision by committee system. Which has been the way the business has been run. While I was in Washington a few weeks ago, I was surprised and pleased to see the number of young men, many under 30 in very important managerial positions. So perhaps this culture shock of the older man say 50 or more who has been more trained in this, will be lessened because he will soon be retiring. And perhaps if the new young breed comes in with these ideas in training, perhaps this is where it will change too. I'm hopeful. - Well, I think that we've talked little bit about the images of women in broadcasting this evening, and invite any of our listeners once again, to call in to 8644530. If you want to share anything with us, any of your responses, I want to remind our listeners that this evening, the commission on the status of women is honoring outstanding women here at KU and outstanding alumni of the university, at the women's recognition program at eight o'clock in the Kansas room. All women are invited it is a reception, and a chance to meet with other women who might share some of your same concerns. There are also a couple of other things coming up this week that are of interest to women. One would be on Thursday evening is a human sexuality seminar called, "So You're Single in a Couples World" that will be at 7:30 in the Kansas room. And while we explore some of the dilemmas of men and women who are living singly in a society, which is more or less accommodated or built to accommodate couples. So invite any of you to come to that, that is free. Also this weekend at K-State, is a weekend workshop, "Woman, a Changing Perspective," April 27th through 29th at the University of Vermont and in Manhattan. Some of the topics to be discussed are, Equal Opportunities Can We Get Them? The Face Under the Woman, Returning to College, Returning to the Working Force, Non-Sexist Child Rearing, and many other workshops and seminars of interest to women. You may find out about this program, Woman, a Changing Perspective, by calling or writing to the division of continuing education at Kansas State, or by calling the Women's Resource and Career Planning Center and the Dean of women's office because we also have some brochures and registration blanks there if you're interested in going. Now that we've made those announcements, we can once again turn to our topic under discussion of images of women in radio broadcasting. We've been talking quite a bit about whether some of the changes that we hope for and some of the new graduates that are kind of coming out might move into these areas. I think another way that changed my come about is from feminist pressure groups. The study that we referred to several times this evening, was done by women who are not trained in the field. Just women who were offended at the kind of image that was portrayed about them. And who sought to rescind the license of a TV or radio station. Would you see this as a viable means of pressure of bringing about change? - Well as a believer in democracy, Yeah, I think it is the best way. - I think it's more hopeful for those of us who were not in the field of feeling that we can have some sort of impact. - Well, it seems a paradox that we were talking about the field, because what the field is, is communication and it's public communication, it's public airwaves. I'm intrigued by the policy statement of an organization called the " Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press" based in Washington DC. And the whole thesis of their organization is, according to the first amendment, freedom of the press belongs to everyone not just those who own the media. We must find ways for all Americans to have equal access, to their fellow citizens. So people can get to know each other as they really are not as interpreted by others. And so the public can hear and benefit from the contributions of all of us. It seems very paradoxical that we're talking about public airwaves, which are administered by private corporations that are distorting the image of the largest population group in America. And it appears that women have very little recourse to these public airwaves. Cable is a very intriguing idea but again, this is people pay for the privilege of having a cable in their homes and the public broadcasting goes on in the same vicious circle. - I think another thing we have not mentioned is the fact that even public broadcasting, if you've been reading the papers is having the same problem. Probably broadcasting originally was conceived to serve local communities, to compensate as an alternative for the commercial, and yet it has also tried to go network and therefore it has also tried to have mass appeal. And therefore it's been making I guess the same generalized errors rather than being selected. I think it's a change of attitude at the top. And I don't know exactly how we should do that. You have to let a woman in the profession. I've found that you always have to be able to do more, than the expected of a man. I got an engineer's license simply because an engineer kept lying to me. And so I finally went out and got the engineers license and fix two or three little things. And that evidently shook up I guess his male ego if you want to use those words and after that, I never had a fix thing. He worked properly for me, but I had to Google all that work, so that I could prove that he was not doing his job. It was a benefit to me. I had a lot of things that I found enjoyable. It also surprised me because I went one time to the engineer's luncheon of a national convention and I got a little tired of being asked, "Whose wife are you?" Because I was the only woman in the place. So it is the surprise. Men are surprised and they often do feel threatened. And I think here's where a feminine tact has to come in. We don't lose our patience. I can say that with experience because I got witchy at one time. I guess I got very angry about something that was definitely a male chauvinistic kind of thing. And I thought I won at the time, because I even got the president to scold the person involved. Then I found the long run I lost, because the long-term benefits were very negative, and fearful responses because other men who had also been trying to not do their jobs realized I could do this and instead of persuading them to look at me as an equal, it just created a chasm. So I learned after that, not to lose your temper, that's not the way to do it. - It's of course their ideas perhaps that women are emotional and rather than rational. Well, what are some of the programs that you feel are most helpful in the field right now that may be portraying women in ways that are not some sexist or what are some of the women that you feel are contributing greatly in terms of their image in the airwaves? We've mentioned Nancy Dickerson and Pauline Fredrickson. And I think we would probably add Barbara Walters, to that as as a woman who's allowed to do very serious kinds of programming. Are there other programs, or women that you feel are especially making a contribution at this point? - Well, I was very surprised to see a woman commentating from Saigon. That they sent a woman and he put her in khakis, and in a way, I guess, can send it to the idea that she could take care of herself there as well as a man. And I think that held an image right there. - A different kind of program, not necessarily news programming that I enjoy watching and finding encouraging is the "Mary Tyler Moore Show," in which Mary Tyler Moore, is not presented as the bubble headed scattered brained comedian. Her age is fearlessly given as 32 and she is unmarried, gasp and she doesn't really want to get married. She seems to enjoy a satisfying career, and a fairly satisfying social life. And I think this is a new type heroine for television. Although I understand that the original series, Pilot had her portrayed as a divorced woman and that was not passed by the networks. So she has to be just a single bachelor girl. They weren't ready for that, but I find that program encouraging. - Well, I think it isn't important because marriage is not for everybody. And I think sometimes a little girls are taught to think if they don't nail a man, by the time they're 20, that they're failures. And which I think unfortunately leads to a lot of unhappiness, and we should let the young women see there are many alternatives. - Well, I think in one of the condemnations of Sesame Street made by the feminist group was that it encouraged young girls to become mothers, to see themselves in this way. And that this is a very dangerous message to be getting out in their society now that we're already over producing in that area, and that we need for our own sakes to encourage women to consider other fields than the socialization of children, young girls to become mothers. It's very counterproductive now to what we hope for in terms of quality of life in our society. So I think that some of these attitudes are going to have to change out of the response from other kinds of groups, not necessarily feminist certainly population control is a concern not just feminist groups but of ecologist and other kinds of groups who will be making the same kinds of statements. I wanna thank our guests, Dr. Elizabeth Esch, Jan Sanders and Mary Rowe for joining us this evening on a Feminist Perspective, while we have discussed images of women in broadcasting. Next week, the third part of this series will be on Images of Women and Literature and Films, we will have with us Giles Fowler, a film critique from the Kansas City Star, and Janet Schurz Fenian, a professor of literature here at KU. We hope you will join us for the third in this three-part series of Images of Women in the Mass Media. This is Janet Sears. I'm a feminist perspective hoping you will tune in again next week.