Chart of the Day: Women write about family and gender, men cover literally everything else

When we talk about gender imbalance in the media, it’s not just about women being generally underrepresented compared to men–it’s also about what topics they’re covering. Are women’s voices present in the media conversations around the full range of important issue areas of the day, or are they still siloed into certain traditionally feminine spheres? Welp, take a look at today’s depressing chart brought to you by Foreign Policy using data from The Op-Ed Project:

I’m actually surprised that gender split when it comes to family and gender issues isn’t even more skewed toward women. I guess our tendency to more readily turn to men as experts on everything under the sun nearly outweighs our assumption that things like gender and family are just touchy-feely “women’s issues” unworthy of serious exploration by “objective” male minds. Perhaps this is a sign that we’re coming around to the idea that men also have genders and, usually, families too?

Maybe that’ll feel a little more like progress once women make up more than 15 percent of bylines on topics like the economy and global politics. I hear those are pretty important issues too. But what do I know? I spend most of my time writing about gender.

(h/t @JustinWolfers)

Maya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.