Liberal Debutante

Where to even start? The wage gap? Underrepresentation in science? The fact that my profs have all been men except for one? How about I go with my profession. Media and music.

My job title is “Women’s Collective Coordinator”. It is my job to organize female volunteers, creating a working collective within the radio and run shows that bring more women voices and music on air. At our station 19% of our shows (15 out of 78) are hosted by women, and this is 8% higher than most radio station.

On top of that, the record labels that we deal with are all headed by men, because all the record labels are headed by men with the exception of about 2 or 3. At our radio station, women make up 18% of our reoccurring guests which is more than double than the national percentage. Luckily our paid staff is 78% women, and I assure you, that is MUCH higher than large radio stations and changes every year. Last year only 34% of the staff was women. 5 of our positions are changed every year to bring new content on air. Only one of those positions is required to be a woman, and all 5 of these positions get paid substantially less than the other 4, but that’s sort of understandable.

Our station manager (head cheese) is a man, as is the music director - the guy who filters all our music. But our program coordinator and our volunteer coordinator (my supervisors) are both women.

Some people complain to me because my regularly scheduled shows are often not just me. I bring other women in to do interviews, specials, play lists… etc. This isn’t because I just don’t feel like planning my shows - in fact, I love planning my shows and I love doing them on air even more. It’s because there is a huge lack of under representation of women on radio (and in the media in general.)

In a radio meeting I brought all these facts up - asking why we don’t have guidelines to try and break these numbers. Have a 50/50 radio representation. I was told that women aren’t as entertaining as men. That the women DJs take longer to go through the training, so they never follow through with it. The men have more interesting shows, so it’s hard to drop their shows to make room for new DJs. Bringing in more women would mean an over flow of inexperienced women.

Fine.

The inexperienced bit, I could take, its understandable. We don’t want the airwaves being flooded with people who suck. So, I started bringing women on to a show Big Broadcast. Every week we alternate my co-host and I give women the opportunity to get on air and get experience so that they can go and get their own show. So far only one of the women that I’ve been working with have been granted their own time slot. (Fridays 5 - 6! It’s a hip hop show and she’s fantastic.)

I went to talk about this with my station manager and was told there was nothing he could do about it. If women aren’t applying for show spots, then they’re not applying for show spots. I spoke to all my women volunteers to find out why they’re not applying for show spots, and the number one responses were that there isn’t enough support from the staff in getting trained and ready and that they’re intimidated by recent comments made that the women aren’t entertaining enough.

I have a total of 26 active women volunteers. Some of them don’t want to go on air. Almost all of them do want to go on air. But our staff doesn’t do nearly enough to prepare them to do this. And doesn’t encourage them to try to get on air. It’s just not true that women aren’t as entertaining. Women are plenty entertaining. And this is just my station, where there is already a higher percentage of women on the air. And most radio stations don’t have a work position like mine - one dedicated to trying to get women involved. …I can see how little women are getting played and getting encouraged… I can’t even imagine what other women at stations are facing who don’t have a women’s coordinator to stand up for them.

Women being broadcasted isn’t the only place that sexism is happening on the radio. There are plenty of cases where sexist material is being broadcast. Do us all a favor and if you hear any sexist remarks being broadcast, phone in and file a complaint to the station manager. For some reason when people get on the radio they think its alright to start bashing people more than usual. I’m guessing this is because they can hide behind the microphone and not worry about facing their accusations.

Anyway. If you’re on a campus - go join your campus radio station and get a show. It seems a little scary at first - but seriously, being on air becomes second nature eventually. If you’re in a community with radio stations - call in and see if there are women involved. If there aren’t that many, press them as to why, and say you want to hear more. One phone call of complaint can put an entire radio station into a stir, especially if its about sexism… No radio station wants to be pinned as a sexist one.

Also - if you want to support women in radio at my radio station you can donate by clicking the donate deelie, or listen to the station all day on Friday March 16th and call in at any time to donate money.