From Tightrope to Gendered Trope: A comparative study of the print mediation of women Prime Ministers

Abstract

Women politicians have historically experienced and continue to experience gendered and misogynistic coverage in the mainstream print media. This is visible above all in an undue media focus on their gender, appearance and personal lives that serves to delegitimise and trivialise their political careers. This dissertation aims to interrogate the origins and implications of such coverage for women prime ministers in Westminster-style democracies, and to demonstrate the central role that the media plays in the upholding of gender norms. As such, it is guided by a central question: how do the mainstream print media produce and reinforce gender norms in their coverage of women political leaders? Several sub-questions flow from this inquiry, including: How do the media construct gendered representations, and does this change across countries and over time? Do gendered representations differ in accordance with the political affiliation of the leader and newspaper?

To address these questions, I examined print media coverage of the respective prime ministerial ascensions of the United Kingdom's Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, Australia's Julia Gillard, and New Zealand's Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark, analysing a representative sample of 1039 mainstream newspaper articles published during the first three weeks of each leader's prime ministerial term. I used feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA), feminist content analysis (FCA) and visual analysis to deconstruct and understand how and why the media rely on gender norms and stereotypes. I also interviewed former prime ministers Helen Clark and Julia Gillard, adhering to a feminist interviewing approach to gain a personal perspective and original insight into this phenomenon.

On the basis of the research findings I developed a framework of 'gendered tropes', encompassing five significant themes found in the media coverage of women political leaders. The gendered tropes are: gender and femininity; appearance; family; first names; and comparisons to Thatcher. Each of these encompasses many 'sub-tropes', themes and metaphors that together serve to emphasise gender norms and thereby reinforce the existing gender order. I also found that the political spectrum was of relevance, as the conservative press generally rely on gendered tropes more frequently and more intensely than their progressive counterparts, especially with reference to progressive leaders. Finally, I show that gendered reportage differs over time, with recent leaders experiencing more gendered and misogynistic coverage than their predecessors, reflecting an increase in the personalisation of politics. Through these main findings, this dissertation opens up various avenues for discussion and exploration of the phenomenon of gendered media, and increases our understanding of a problem that not only affects women politicians and political leaders, but all women.