The Politician, The Wife, The Citizen, and her Newspaper: Rethinking women, democracy, and media(ted) representation

Abstract

Recent dramatic rises in the number of women elected to British parliaments have renewed critical interest in the significance of gender, and ways of theorising and researching women's political representation. However, the central role played by the media in contemporary politics is often neglected in feminist political scholarship. At the same time, the spaces occupied by women in political news journalism and the body politic remain under-explored by media theorists. This article argues that if we are to fully understand the politics of representation and what fairer representation for women might mean, we need to address these neglected dimensions. To make the case, I present an analysis of press coverage of the 1997 British General Election campaign. This seeks to draw together conventionally disparate strands of feminist, political and media theorising in order to highlight the gendered politics of newspaper imag(in)ing, storytelling, and commentary. Improving women's presence in media(ted) political discourse, I conclude, might be one means of strengthening women's symbolic and substantive representation.