Sexual Harassment of Women Journalists

Abstract

A survey of 227 women newspaper journalists revealed that more than 60 percent believe sexual harassment is at least somewhat a problem for women journalists; more than one-third said harassment has been at least somezuhat a problem for them personally. Two-thirds experience nonphysical sexual harassment at least sometimes, and about 2 7 percent experience physical sexual harassment at least sometimes. News sources were the most frequent harassers, and harassment ranged from degrading comments to sexual assault.

The Current State of Women Print Journalists: An Analysis of the Status and Careers of Females in Newspapers Sports Departments

“…While strides have been made towards equity in the sport media, the majority of respondents also indicated that they have at times had limited access and have faced discrimination from athletes and coaches. These results mirror those of Walsh-Childers et al (1996) who found that two-thirds of female sports journalists had at one point in their career experienced non-physical sexual harassment. On the other hand, it is important to note that the majority of respondents either disagreed or were neutral when asked if they had faced discrimination from sport administrators.…”

“…Through liberated thinking and the law, women eventually gained locker room access in the 1980s and 1990s. The opened doors came with a price, however, as females encountered harassment from athletes, team management, and male sports reporters who felt inconvenienced by their presence (Walsh-Childers et al, 1996;Cann and Mohr, 2001;Padgett, 1998;Kane and Disch, 1993;Miller and Miller, 1995;Eberhard and Myers, 1998). Although instances of harassment appear to be less frequent, there have been reports of some female sports journalists still fighting for acceptance, credibility, and equal pay while enduring greater criticism than their male counterparts (Allum, 2002;Michaelis, 2001;Miller and Miller, 1995;Smith, 2000).…”

Journalists, harassment, and emotional labor: The case of women in on-air roles at US local television stations

“…The second blind spot is that among studies that do explore harassment of women by people outside one’s organization, the emphasis has been almost entirely on sexual harassment, thereby overlooking forms of harassment that are not sexual in nature (e.g. Walsh-Childers et al, 1996). As a result, harassment of the kind described above – such as disrupting live shots or criticizing a journalist’s appearance – may have been missed in previous research.…”

Journalists’ victimization experiences and fear of crime at the workplace: Results of a questionnaire survey from Greece and Cyprus

“…Our knowledge and discussion about journalists’ victimization experiences is largely limited to fatal incidents that occurred in conflict and war zones around the world (Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 2013). Some research has also been conducted on the sexual (Walsh-Childers et al, 1996; Wolfe, 2011) and stalking (Gass et al, 2009) victimization of journalists, but without the use of nationally representative samples or samples that adequately capture the victimization experiences of a diverse group of active professional journalists. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify the prevalence of physical, property and psychological workplace victimization and the extent of fear of crime among a representative sample of professional journalists working in two southern European countries: Greece and Cyprus.…”