Survey: Visibility of female ministers is weak in the media

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The Finnish TV channels and largest daily newspapers tend to give little publicity to female ministers.
      When a group of researchers from the University of Turku listed the ten politicians with the highest level of visibility, no female ministers were included in the group.
     
The list of the ten most visible Finnish politicians includes five male ministers, indicates a survey that was funded by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation.
      Among female politicians, President Tarja Halonen was third, while the Social Democrat leader Jutta Urpilainen was fourth.
     
Based on the survey, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party) is the most visible politician.
      According to Minister of Social Affairs and Health Liisa Hyssälä (Centre), female politicians are more than ever evaluated on the basis of their age and appearance.
      ”In that respect, the attitudes have become tougher”, said Hyssälä in Brussels on Monday.
     
Hyssälä believes that if Jutta Urpilainen were a man, she would not have been treated by the media in a similar way.
      Men seem to get a break in Hyssälä's view. "Nobody says anything about Sauli Niinistö's being old, for instance", she notes of the Speaker of Parliament, and points out that Niinistö is actually older than she is. Both were born in 1948.
      Despite the presence of a good many women in cabinet positions, politics remains very much a male-dominated profession, Hyssälä points out. She says she has no complaints about the treatment she has received personally.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  COMMENTARY: Little red number trumped by wedding out of the blue (5.1.2009)
  Politics goes entertainment (5.12.2006)
  President Halonen and female ministers create interest among Japanese (21.10.2004)

Helsingin Sanomat