WHEN WE SWITCH ON THE TV . . we are likely to see a man on screen on 8 out of 10 occasions and likel

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WHEN WE SWITCH ON THE TV . . we are likely to
see a man on screen on 8 out of 10 occasionsand
likely to see a woman on screen on 5 out of 10
occasions.
The screen showed only men on 196 occasions
(54) and only women only on 70 (19)
occasions. Both on together on 94 (27) occasions.
AT WEEKENDS, this under-representation of women
was even more pronounced. I found men-only
screens on 64 of occasions, and women only
screens on 13 of occasions that is over a
three fold difference!
WHAT WERE MEN AND WOMEN DOING ON SCREEN?
Women were portrayed as active much less often
than men (36 occasions for women and 87 for men)
and only shown as sportswomen on 3 occasions
(mens sport was shown on 33 occasions).
WHAT DID I DO? Between 15th October to 2nd
November 2008, any time I was at home, I took
snapshot hourly readings on the five main TV
channels. I varied readings between 10, 20, 40
and 50 minutes past the hour. Each reading
consisted of me switching on each of the five
channels in turn and recording the first person
on the screen whether they were male, female or
both - and what they were doing. I ignored
adverts, and returned to the channel a few
minutes later. This resulted in readings on 74
occasions, collected on 14 days 23 were at
weekends and 51 on weekdays. Forty one readings
were daytime (16 between 8-13hrs and 25 between
13-18hrs) and 34 were evening, after
6.0pm. These readings, nearly always including
five channels, resulted in 366 individual
viewings.