Posted by Bud on April 27, 2010 at 10:58:19:
Courtesy of Mary Schmich at the Chicago Tribune:
Where are the women�s voices on Chicago radio?
Airwaves dominated by ranting men
8:11 a.m. CDT, April 23, 2010
Betty Loren-Maltese � the former Cicero town president recently released from prison � is scheduled to co-host on WVON radio Monday. Whatever you think of the idea of yet another felon behind a Chicago radio mike, there's a bright side:
At least she's a woman.
On most days, Chicago radio feels like a giant frat house. I say this as someone who knows, admires and listens to some of the radio brethren.
But it's dismaying that in this great city, in this purportedly enlightened age, so few women are riding the radio waves. Even worse, we're paddling backward.
"Locally, things are worse for women � in talk radio, morning-drive radio, radio overall � than they were a quarter of a century ago," says Robert Feder, a longtime media critic who blogs at vocalo.org.
Way back in 1985, Feder wrote a story about the shortage of women in Chicago radio.
"In my wildest dreams," he said Thursday, "I couldn't have conceived things would be worse for women 25 years later."
Don't believe it? Sit at your car radio, as I did Thursday afternoon, and press the scan button. Male voice after male voice.
True, some women, some very talented, can be heard in slots here and there, but with rare exceptions, not in solo or leading roles.
Listeners notice.
"I do a lot of talks to women's groups," says Jen Weigel, 39, a former broadcaster who has been rallying women to the cause on her blog, "and I am amazed at how many come up to me and ask why there are not women on Chicago radio and why is it filled with so many angry men over 50."
You could attribute it to Rush Limbaugh, whose success has proved to programmers � mostly male � that baritone rants are a gold mine.
"The premium is on staking out very aggressive, extreme points of view and demonizing the other side," Feder said. "The role of the radio host has changed. He's no longer the moderator. He's the provocateur. That, you could argue, is a male role. I wouldn't make the case that women aren't capable of doing it, but for a woman to pull it off, that's very tricky."
Consolidations in the industry have helped squeeze women out. So have the recession's cutbacks.
And could it be that there's just not an audience, even among women, for women on the radio?
"People would call and complain about hearing women," says Catherine Johns, a popular WLS radio host in the 1990s who now co-runs Chicago Hypnosis Center. "Said their voices were squeaky and high and irritating. And those callers were very likely to be older women. I suspect it's still true."
She suggested I ask Tribune readers if they want to listen to women on the air.
So: Do you?
Equality between men and women doesn't mean equal numbers of men and women in every field. But radio is public and powerful. Excluding women from radio excludes them from public power.
When women aren't helping to lead the conversation, the conversation gets warped, narrow and, yes, boring.
At the risk of stereotyping, I'd guess that women are less likely than men to want radio that's all boxing match. That doesn't mean, however, that they want radio exclusively about boyfriends and pantyhose.
There's a radio format waiting to be invented, one that would give women a bigger voice and tap into a bigger market. Some guy could get rich helping to figure it out.