USE FAIR LANGUAGE AND PORTRAYALS
It’s not just the stories we read in the media that influence how we think about the world. How things are described plays an important role too. Use appropriate language when talking about women and men and portray them in the same way to reduce gender stereotyping and sexism. See the box ‘Gender Fair Language and Portrayals – a mini guide’ further down to find out what this means in practice.
TRAIN NEWSROOM STAFF IN GENDER BIAS AND BALANCE
All employees should be aware of the importance of gender balance, and have the practical know-how to produce gender balanced news content. Training should include both the ‘parallelism’ and ‘reversibility’ techniques.
CREATE A STYLE GUIDE
With a gender balance style guide, all of your newsroom staff are aware of appropriate and inappropriate language (as above). You can use existing resources, such as:
- Name It. Change It. The Women’s Media Center’s Media Guide to Gender Neutral Coverage of Women Candidates + Politicians, WMC
- UNESCO Guidelines for Gender-Fair Use of Language, UNESCO — ‘Glossary of Terms’ in Unspinning the Spin: The Women’s Media Center Guide to Fair and Accurate Language, WMC
- ‘Glossary of Terms’ in Unspinning the Spin: The Women’s Media Center Guide to Fair and Accurate Language, WMC
