When surfing for ideas to post on our class blog, I often browse through different websites looking for headlines that relate to women in the political arena. But today, a news medium itself caught my attention as opposed to a headline.
The Huffington Post, a widely successful American news aggregator, features a 'Huffpost Women' section on their site. The 'Top Stories' section is littered with stories about weight loss, The Bachelor, "electrifying sex", and dating advice. Are these really the issues that Huffington Post has deemed to be of most significance for the modern woman? I was kind of shocked, and offended really, to scroll through the list of story headlines. These certainly aren't the issues that I feel compelled to read up on. Where were issues of real value? The page was completely absent of anything related to business, politics, culture, technology, and international issues.
The absence of such issues was particularly striking given that the site is founded by a woman - Arianna Huffington who, it should be noted, was named by Forbes in 2009 as number 12 on their first-ever list of the Most Influential Women in Media.
That brings about a deeper question - of the women that we do have producing content in the media, how many's perception of themselves and women alike fall into this trap of producing content that stereotypes women and belittles their relevant issues. It's food for thought - and an issue that I think complements the Miss Representation video we watched this week in class.
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