The media carry significant notions of social and cultural norms and values and have a powerful role in constructing and reinforcing gendered images. The news in particular has an important role in how notions of power are distributed in the society. This report presents study findings on how women and men are represented in the news in the Nordic countries, and to what extent women and men occupy the decision-making positions in the media. The survey is based on the recent findings from three cross-national research projects. These findings are supported by national studies. The results indicate that in all the Nordic countries women are underrepresented in the news media both as news subjects and as sources of information. Men also dominate in higher-level decision-making positions. The report includes examples of measures used to improve the gender balance in Nordic news.

This multi-authored scholarly volume explores the divide between men and women in their consumption of news media, looking at how the sexes read and use news, historically and currently, how they use technology to access their news, and how today’s news pertains to and is used by women. The volume also addresses diversity issues among women’s use of news, considering racial, ethnic, international and feminist perspectives. The volume is intended to help readers understand adult news use behavior--a critical and timely issue considering the state of newspapers and television news in today’s multi-media news environment.

This multi-authored scholarly volume explores the divide between men and women in their consumption of news media, looking at how the sexes read and use news, historically and currently, how they use technology to access their news, and how today’s news pertains to and is used by women. The volume also addresses diversity issues among women’s use of news, considering racial, ethnic, international and feminist perspectives. The volume is intended to help readers understand adult news use behavior--a critical and timely issue considering the state of newspapers and television news in today’s multi-media news environment.

While powerful gender inequalities remain in American society, women have made substantial gains and now largely surpass men in one crucial arena: education. Women now outperform men academically at all levels of school, and are more likely to obtain college degrees and enroll in graduate school. What accounts for this enormous reversal in the gender education gap? In The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools, Thomas DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann provide a detailed and accessible account of women’s educational advantage and suggest new strategies to improve schooling outcomes for both boys and girls. The Rise of Women opens with a masterful overview of the broader societal changes that accompanied the change in gender trends in higher education. The rise of egalitarian gender norms and a growing demand for college-educated workers allowed more women to enroll in colleges and universities nationwide. As this shift occurred, women quickly reversed the historical male advantage in education. By 2010, young women in their mid-twenties surpassed their male counterparts in earning college degrees by more than eight percentage points. The authors, however, reveal an important exception: While women have achieved parity in fields such as medicine and the law, they lag far behind men in engineering and physical science degrees. To explain these trends, The Rise of Women charts the performance of boys and girls over the course of their schooling. At each stage in the education process, they consider the gender-specific impact of factors such as families, schools, peers, race and class. Important differences emerge as early as kindergarten, where girls show higher levels of essential learning skills such as persistence and self-control. Girls also derive more intrinsic gratification from performing well on a day-to-day basis, a crucial advantage in the learning process. By contrast, boys must often navigate a conflict between their emerging masculine identity and a strong attachment to school. Families and peers play a crucial role at this juncture. The authors show the gender gap in educational attainment between children in the same families tends to be lower when the father is present and more highly educated. A strong academic climate, both among friends and at home, also tends to erode stereotypes that disconnect academic prowess and a healthy, masculine identity. Similarly, high schools with strong science curricula reduce the power of gender stereotypes concerning science and technology and encourage girls to major in scientific fields. As the value of a highly skilled workforce continues to grow, The Rise of Women argues that understanding the source and extent of the gender gap in higher education is essential to improving our schools and the economy. With its rigorous data and clear recommendations, this volume illuminates new ground for future education policies and research.

Essential reading for our times, as women are pulling together to demand their rights— A landmark portrait of women, men, and power in a transformed world. “Anchored by data and aromatized by anecdotes, [Rosin] concludes that women are gaining the upper hand." –The Washington Post Men have been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But Hanna Rosin was the first to notice that this long-held truth is, astonishingly, no longer true. Today, by almost every measure, women are no longer gaining on men: They have pulled decisively ahead. And “the end of men”—the title of Rosin’s Atlantic cover story on the subject—has entered the lexicon as dramatically as Betty Friedan’s “feminine mystique,” Simone de Beauvoir’s “second sex,” Susan Faludi’s “backlash,” and Naomi Wolf’s “beauty myth” once did. In this landmark book, Rosin reveals how our current state of affairs is radically shifting the power dynamics between men and women at every level of society, with profound implications for marriage, sex, children, work, and more. With wide-ranging curiosity and insight unhampered by assumptions or ideology, Rosin shows how the radically different ways men and women today earn, learn, spend, couple up—even kill—has turned the big picture upside down. And in The End of Men she helps us see how, regardless of gender, we can adapt to the new reality and channel it for a better future.

Gendered Media addresses the broad topic of gender and media, where "gender" is not simply a shorthand for "woman" but also embraces masculinitiy/ies, queer, lesbian and gay identities. Karen Ross provides the necessary historical context against which to read recent sex- and gender-based media phenomena such as Big Brother, Terminator, girls' use of mobile phones, women news editors, the Wonderbra generation, the Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin phenomena, and so on. The book is an overview of the various aspects of gender and media in one volume. The book provides introductory overviews to the various themes around women, men, sexuality and the ways in which these attributes are cross-cut by other demographics such as age, ethnicity and disability. In this way, the book genuinely tries to provide a broad introduction to the ways in which gender, in all its facets, engages with media, in one accessible volume.