Help challenge the sexism at Media Lens

Medialens (home:  http://www.medialens.org/ ) is without doubt one of the best media criticism websites on the internet. Through their media lens message alerts the editors at media lens, David Cromwell and David Edwards, mobilise Medialens’ readers to email editors and journalists in order to pressure mainstream (generally liberal) media outlets in the United Kingdom. Media Lens alerts are also regularly published on other progressive websites such as znet (www.zmag.org).

However Media Lens, like many other progressive websites, while paying lip service to the problems of sexism, has never written a media alert about sexism in the media, or indeed the general problems related to male domination. Media Lens has published 157 media alerts, and not one has focused upon male domination of the mass media, or male domination of society in general. This despite the fact that the evidence is available on their own website for the reality of this domination.

According to my own count, over 90% of the journalists mentioned in the media alerts are men, and over 95% of the editors mentioned on the media lens website are men; so the male domination of the media upon which Media Lens is focused should be obvious.

When I pointed this out on the message board of Media Lens, the editors responded in what can only be described as typical male fashion of men when challenged by women: first of all they denied there was a problem: “As to why we haven't written a Media Alert on male domination in journalism, it's a fair point. But it's a point that could be made about a vast number of issues…… People ask us why we don't write more about other life and death issues: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Chechnya, Colombia, GM food, Aceh, animal rights, mobile phone radiation, soil erosion, deforestation, Third World debt - the list is endless.” (Quote from Media Lens’ editors)

I’m sure many women activists are all-too-familiar with this type of argument: progressive men see male domination as just another ‘issue’, despite the fact that this ‘issue’ is about 10,000 or more years of worldwide domination by men of the decision making in human society, decisions which have brought humanity to the brink of extinction either through the use of nuclear weapons or through environmental destruction. Progressive men, if I may generalise from my own experience, do not want to face the fact of MALE control of political and financial institutions, and the fact that this control flows from the historical and current use of massive organised violence.

In addition, the editors at Media Lens fell back on the oldest of sexist arguments: they claimed I was being unreasonable: “It's not enough simply to declare that this is "THE issue" that "progressive men" (and, I'm sure, many "progressive women") somehow have to "see" - you need to present facts and arguments. You also need to be willing to engage in reasonable dialogue.” (quote from Media Lens’ editors ).

The ‘unreasonable’ woman is of course one of the basic sexist representations of women that allow men to ignore what women say. My ‘unreasonable dialogue’ was that I refused to accept the Media Lens’ editors rationalisations for 157 media alerts without a single alert focused on the male domination of the media and the male domination of economic and political institutions.

I don’t claim to represent ‘feminism’, but I do think that that the time has come to put the focus on the fact that male domination in general, and organised male violence in particular, is not a side issue, but THE issue, for humanity.

I’m asking all of you who agree that Media Lens should devote at least one Media Lens Alert to the subject of the male domination of the mass media, and the male domination of political and economic institutions, to write the editors at Media Lens and let them know. I strongly urge all of you who write to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Email the media lens editors here:  editor@medialens.org and copy the message to me here:

 emmagoldwoman2002@yahoo.com

I also encourage you to go to the media lens message board and post a message about this subject.

Please go here:  http://www.medialens.org, and click on the ‘Message Board’ tab.

Thank you,

emma goldwoman


P.S. For more information about my approach to organised male violence you can read my essays here:

A MODEST PROPOSAL CONCERNING MASCULISM  http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=25801
TEN THOUSAND YEARS IS ENOUGH!
 http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=13070&group=webcast
THE MOVEMENT FOR MALE RESTRAINT
 http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=13624&group=webcast
HOW TO CHALLENGE VIOLENT MALE DOMINATION
 http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=14156&group=webcast
A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF VIOLENT MALE DOMINATION
 http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=14726
THE PROBLEM OF MALE OBEDIENCE
 http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=20208&group=webcast
WOMAN'S GREATEST FEAR
 http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=22453&group=webcast
FREDERICK ENGELS AND MALE VIOLENCE
 http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=25102&group=webcast
INTERVIEW WITH emma goldwoman
 http://www.portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=35304&group=webcast
RESPONSE TO MY CRITICS
 http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=36278&group=webcast
WOMEN (AND MEN) OF THE WORLD, UNITE!!
 http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/03/47034.shtml
The Labor Theory of Female Value
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/05/69759.html
 http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/05/265550.shtml