By Olivia Hamilton, Bristol Women’s Voice Volunteer
Navigating challenges, offering hope and inspiring change
In any professional industry, being a woman comes with additional obstacles, learning to navigate bias, dealing with gendered assumptions and even one’s own self-doubt. For women in journalism, production, or any form of creative media, these challenges are amplified by cutthroat competition and the exclusionary ‘boys club’ atmosphere.
At the Bristol Women’s Voice International Women’s Day event, I attended a panel on women in media, chaired by The Cable’s Priyanka Raval, which explored the unique challenges women face in creative media industries, both getting their foot in the door and being seen and respected once they are there.
The media industry as a ‘boys club’
The discussion started with Dr Theresa Trimmel from the University of Bristol introducing her work on equality and diversity in the film and television industries. She explained how, even in a post #metoo professional landscape, not much has actually changed; the reality is still a lack of women and women of colour, both in front of and behind the camera.
Shanay Bowen, multimedia producer, corroborated this with her lived experiences and shared her stories of the ‘boys club’ feel to the industry, which often leaves her as the only woman on a set. She expressed how this can change the way you are perceived and accepted by your colleagues.
Getting a seat at the table
They ascribe this lack of diverse representation, in part, to how difficult it is to break into the industry. Most of the women on the panel spoke about their unorthodox and often convoluted entry points into their now well-established careers.
Miranda Rae, founder of Sound Women Bristol and station manager at Ujima Radio, told the audience, all the clichés are true; it’s not what you know but who you know. In her decade spanning career, she hears the same stories today as she did 30 years ago.
Working in male-dominated spaces still requires women to perform differently in order to navigate biases and earn the respect of their colleagues. The panelists shared anecdotes of being labelled as overly difficult or harsh by their male counterparts and expressed a preference for workspaces that are more diverse in order to feel safe and simply enjoy the work that they do.
They also agreed that it’s up to women like themselves to extend the ladder down to other women at the start of their careers, something that requires intention and effort. However, this is still not the overwhelming reality of the industry and it is sometimes the case that women with established careers do not use their platform to amplify the voices of other women.
For those at the start of their media careers, freelancing is often used to gain experience and open doors. However, freelancing can be tough and can be a gateway for exploitation and harm.
The risks associated with freelancing for women
Siân Norris, feminist activist and investigative journalist at openDemocracy shared, from personal experience, the three biggest risks for women in freelance journalism. Along with the expected physical vulnerability of independent reporting, especially in areas of conflict, Siân spoke about the mental health risks of her work. She said that focusing all day every day on stories about violence against women and girls can be a heavy mental burden and she spoke about the need for an improved understanding of the ‘vicarious trauma of journalists’.
She also raised the issue of online abuse against female journalists, especially as her work touches on contentious subjects such as abortion and the far-right. Male journalists do not have to deal with the same kinds of hate. Usually, tweets are insulting their intelligence rather than a rape or a death threat. Siân spoke about a ‘barrage of abuse’ being ‘part of the job’ and how that has required her to develop both a thick skin and a dark sense of humour.
She emphasised that women who aspire to a career in media should not let this hold them back but rather use it to their advantage. Her lived experiences as a woman allowed her to recognise a link between abortion access and the far-right that other male journalists in the far-right space could not see, which led to her book ‘Bodies Under Siege’ published in 2023.
Motherhood and childcare support
The conversation then turned to motherhood and navigating being a parent while pursuing a career in media. Jheni Osman, an independent science journalist, author and presenter, blamed the childcare support system in the UK for women leaving the workforce when they become mothers. While remote work has made editing an article and feeding your baby at the same time possible, support for working mothers does not go far enough and women are often made to choose between their family and their career.
Dr Theresa Trimmel explained how her research supports this narrative. Studies into employability after having children show that while motherhood is presented as a significant issue for the workforce by employers, fatherhood is not. This raises wider questions about who bears the burden of unpaid care work in the UK and how it affects industries such as journalism and beyond.
Taking up space
Jheni also directed some insightful advice to the audience about applying for jobs. She spoke about her experience with seeing men apply for a role that they had just 50% of the necessary skills or experience for, while seeing women wait until they were qualified or even overqualified before applying to a role. This can be attributed to a confidence gap and the prevalence of imposter syndrome in women, and particularly women of colour.
Shanay echoed this sentiment, encouraging the women attending the panel to take up space, to know their worth (especially financially) and not to let anyone question why they’re in the rooms they are in.
Offering hope and inspiring change
Despite recognising the unique challenges women in media face, even today, the discussion concluded on an optimistic note. Once again, the panel stressed the importance of extending the ladder down to other women and creating inclusionary networks where opportunities can be shared around instead of gatekept. After all, it’s what men have been doing for their buddies all along.
The importance of financial transparency was also mentioned and having open conversations about pricing for services and salaries, along with the need for independent and anonymous reporting mechanisms for misogyny and racism in the workplace.
The final message was that we should all be constantly fighting to tell women’s stories, because they are the ones that truly matter. The feeling in the room at the end was one of cautious optimism, that although women in media have to work twice as hard to be half as respected, it is possible for positive change to ripple through creative industries and into the entire workforce. We have a shared responsibility as women to look out for each other, tell each other stories, amplify each other’s voices and most importantly support each other while pursuing our dreams.
