Women's Media Center

Women’s representation in media

The Women's Media Center “works to ensure women are powerfully and visibly represented in the media” and “to diversify the media in its content and sources, so that the stories and perspectives of women and girls are more accurately portrayed.” The organization convenes panels, issues reports, organizes grassroots campaigns, and meets with media outlets to address issues of women’s representation and general diversity.

In response to the report from the American Psychological Association's Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, the Women's Media Center partnered with over 10 other organizations to organize the Sexualization Protest: Action, Resistance, Knowledge, also known as the SPARK Summit. The SPARK Summit was a day-long event to speak out and to push back on the sexualization of girls while igniting a movement for girls’ rights to healthy sexuality. The SPARK Summit took place on October 22, 2010 at Hunter College in New York City.

Sexism watchdog

WMC acts as a watchdog for sexism in the media and develops campaigns to advocate for fair and balanced coverage. During the 2008 presidential election, WMC released a video “Sexism Sells but We’re Not Buying It,” along with a petition campaign to call attention to sexism against female candidates during the primaries. Another video, “Media Justice for Sotomayor,” discusses racist and sexist media coverage during the 2009 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

On August 31, 2010, the WMC partnered with the Women's Campaign Forum Foundation and the Political Parity Initiative of the Hunt Alternatives Fund to launch Name it. Change it. (NICI), a ground-breaking national campaign that addresses sexism in the media targeted at female politicians and political candidates. NICI aims to ensure accountability through a coordinated rapid response network to dramatically decrease incidences of media misogyny.

Health care reform and reproductive rights

In reaction to the 2009 Stupak–Pitts Amendment and other proposed health care reform legislation limiting access and funding for abortions, WMC began actively advocating for women’s reproductive rights. On December 10, 2009, WMC announced the launch of its Not Under The Bus campaign to “keep women’s health care fair, safe, and accessible to all.”

With the campaign announcement, the organization declared its “first call to action is to stop the Stupak Amendment, the Hatch-Nelson Amendment, and others like them which are the most draconian restrictions on women since the 1977 Hyde Amendment that cut federal funding for abortions by Medicaid.”

2010 campaign against CBS and Focus on the Family ad

In January 2010, Women’s Media Center and a coalition of more than 30 organizations "dedicated to reproductive rights, tolerance, and social justice", including the National Organization for Women and NARAL Pro-Choice America, sent a letter to CBS, NFL and its advertisers calling on them to pull an advertisement featuring football player Tim Tebow, sponsored by conservative Christian group Focus on the Family (FOTF), from Super Bowl XLIV. The resulting campaign garnered widespread national media attention. Previously, in 2010 CBS had rejected a humorous ad from a gay online dating service, ManCrunch, and in 2004 an ad promoting the United Church of Christ as gay-friendly, citing a policy against any controversy in Super Bowl ad. CBS then decided to end this policy and accept controversial ads, so that the anti-abortion ad would be aired, which the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) called a "homophobic double standard."

In its letter to CBS, the WMC coalition said "Focus on the Family has waged war on non-traditional families, tried its hand at race baiting during the 2008 election, and is now attempting to use the Super Bowl to further ramp up the vitriolic rhetoric surrounding reproductive rights. By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will alienate viewers and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers."

The WMC campaign was criticized for freedom of speech concerns. A New York Times editorial called the campaign censorship, and said that, "Instead of trying to silence an opponent, advocates for allowing women to make their own decisions about whether to have a child should be using the Super Bowl spotlight to convey what their movement is all about." A Los Angeles Times editorial said that, "CBS is to be congratulated for standing up to the pressure. We're solidly for abortion rights, but the campaign against the ad is a misguided attempt at censorship." Bill O'Reilly of Fox News said Greene and her group were, "trying to muzzle them. That's not the American way." The coalition responded with an op-ed article in Huffington Post in which former WMC President Jehmu Greene wrote:

Our campaign to get the ad pulled is not a first amendment issue -- the Women's Media Center, NOW, Feminist Majority and others are not government entities attempting to regulate speech. As we exercise our first amendment right to protest, we are incorrectly labeled "would-be censors." The FCC and media corporations make decisions every day about what can air over the networks without charges of censorship. We wouldn't be having this conversation if the ad was sponsored by the KKK."

During Super Bowl XLIV, CBS elected to air the two 30-second commercials, which included Tebow's personal story as part of an overall pro-life stance.

Women Under Siege

Women Under Siege is a project of the Women's Media Center. It has reported on the use of rape as a means of oppression in Syria. Women Under Siege has also reported extensively about the continued use of rape as a weapon of war in Myanmar (also known as Burma).