Media Framing of Feminism

The mainstream media frames events, people, places, and pretty much everything, a certain way. Various media outlets engage in framing in pursuit of influencing the public on how to not only interpret and think about certain issues, but how to feel about them. We see in this week’s content how multiple outlets in the media framed their coverage of Senator Hillary Clinton during the 2008 election cycle using a specific angle, an angle that attacks feminism and equal representation in the political field. News anchors repeatedly framed the Senator as a mean, bossy, emotional woman while influencing their male dominated audience to think of Clinton as their wives. Through the first three waves of feminism, modern day mainstream media wasn’t relevant at all, as mainstream media outlets today clearly have their own agenda and choose what to cover and what not to cover, influencing the public to believe what topics are more important. The question I pose for this week’s topic is: How is feminism framed/narrated by the media? Is it framed as more empowering? Annoying? Extreme? Controversial?

Before digging into this, it’s good to know how the media tends to frame other subjects. As someone who has done multiple papers on framing theory, it’s noteworthy to say that news outlets often choose conflict frames when covering certain things, almost always in pursuit to get the audience’s attention and clicks. Therefore, it’s safe to say that feminism today is framed as more controversial than anything. Topics of feminism are often framed as a war between men vs. women, right vs. left, or a fight for traditional values over modern values. Almost always, the media frames feminism as a conflict, rather than empowering.

The first example that’s arguably the most notable is the coverage of abortion. Using the most recent Presidential election in 2024 as framework, we see how the framing of the issue of abortion and women’s reproductive rights was not framed as a healthcare or policy issue, but as a major point of political conflict between Democrats and Republicans. Instead of consistently presenting abortion as a topic of individual rights, the media wanted their clicks and framed the issue in a way that tailors to the audience, covering it as either a strong suit of the Democratic party, or not big as big of an issue for Republicans.  Mainstream outlets like The New Yorker characterized the entire 2024 election as cultural ‘gender war.’ This goes to show how abortion and gender rights were framed as opposing political issues rather than policy issues. The media constantly shifted attention from what abortion access can mean for people depending on the results of who wins and loses politically from the issue.

Very similarly, the media framed the issue of transgender rights the exact same way. Following the Republicans and President Donald Trump’s election victory in November 2024, Fox News hosts had this to say as reasons for the Democrat’s losses:

Jessie Watters: (The Democrats) “Started making genders up.”

Judge Jeanine Pirro: (Now US Attorney for D.C.) “Americans weren’t feeling at home in America. They were told that they have to have drag queen story hour for your children at school. And they were told you know if your kids want to transition, you know, we don’t really have to tell you about that.”

Greg Gutfeld: “I find it that the media Democrat complex being so shocked and surprised that people react negatively instead of poorly. If you call everybody names, racist, sexist transphobic, they’re gonna become youphobic.”

 

Through many examples, it’s safe to say the mainstream media consistently frames feminist’s issues as a conflict in order to draw division and attention from ranging audiences. This is yet another example of how women are presented and characterized in modern day pop culture. Of course, they are sexualized, exploited, and misrepresented in the media as well, but that doesn’t seem to end in quite some time.