Covid-19 has distressed societies to the core. Among the fault lines it has exposed is the fact that gender bias remains rampant in news coverage.
A recent special report – The Missing Perspectives of Women in Covid-19 News – shows that too few women experts have been quoted on the pandemic in the media. The study looked at South Africa, Kenya, India, Nigeria, the US and the UK.
Put together by the International Women’s Media Foundation and commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the report found that even when a woman’s voice is heard in the news on Covid-19, it is drowned out by the voices of men. And that when women are given a platform in stories about the pandemic, it is seldom as authoritative experts or as empowered individuals. Rather they appear as victims of the disease.