RAPE SPORTS INFOGRAPHIC FINAL

Infographic: Women only wrote 37% of reproductive issue stories

Looking at news coverage of reproductive issues over a one year period from 2014-2015, Women’s Media Center found an interesting disparity: over half of the bylines were written by men.

RAPE SPORTS INFOGRAPHIC FINALA quick look at the history of opposition to abortion and other reproductive health services make it clear that men have no problem speaking for women when it comes to their issues.
And research released by WMC have confirmed this phenomenon: after looking at 1,385 news stories, columns, op-eds, and editorials covering reproductive issues, 52% of the stories were written by men, while only 37% were written by women. And in presidential election coverage related to abortion and contraception, the gender gap widened with male reporters accounting for 67% of the writers.

Looking at 12 of the top media outlets, not a single one of them had women writing the majority of their stories. WMC’s research also reveals how this imbalance has consequences for who gets quoted in those stories. They found that male reporters were more likely to quote male sources in their stories, while female reporters were more likely to quote women. The study also looked at which topics related to reproductive health were covered most.

What this all means is that essentially, male voices are dominating the discourse on reproductive issues. Apparently mansplaining knows no bounds. Check out the infographics below.

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Feministing's resident "sexpert", Sesali is a published writer and professional shit talker. She is a queer Black girl, fat girl, and trainer. She was the former Training Director at the United States Student Association and later a member of the Youth Organizing team at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She received her bachelors in Women's and Gender Studies from Depaul University in 2012 and is currently pursuing a master's in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. A self identified "trap" feminist, and trained with a reproductive justice background, her interests include the intersections of feminism and: pop culture, youth culture, social media, hip hop, girlhood, sexuality, race, gender, and Beyonce. Sesali joined the team in 2010 as one of the winners of our So You Think You Can Blog contest.

is Feministing's resident sexpert and cynic.

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