Paxo says the media is now a woman’s world
Monday 25 August 2008 at 14:31 UTC
Jeremy Paxman – that scourge of bullshitting British politicians and proud possessor of a gob the size of a minor planet – has been stirring it up yet again. At the Edinburgh TV Festival (where else?) Paxo declared that middle class white men such as himself are now an endangered sub-species in medialand:
“Do I think it’s a man’s world in television? That is the most ridiculous question I have been asked all week. The worst thing you can be in this industry is a middle class white male. If any middle class white male I come across says he wants to enter television, I say ‘give up all hope’ – they’ve no chance.”
Paxo is correct, in a sense, but for the wrong reasons.
Paxman’s critic Mariella Frostrup has it right: the upper echelons of the media are dominated by middle class white men. Although there are increasing numbers of XX-chromosomed creative talents and useless management wasters on the way up, men are still in control.
Where women rule is at lower levels in newsrooms and the publishing sector in general. In the five years I’ve been working as a freelance journalist, I’ve had just one male commissioning editor, and he left the job after a couple of months to return to practising law. Virtually everyone else – editors, publishers, PRs, the lot – is female.
Why is this so? I haven’t a clue.
Do I mind? Not a bit.
Monday 25 August 2008 at 19:46 UTC
I’m beginning to get the impression that Paxman has set out on the long, slow decline into senile delusion. Wasn’t it around the same time last year that he started “The Great Y-Front Vendetta” against Marks and Sparks? What’s next, I wonder? Wheelie-bins? He hasn’t tackled those yet.
But I suppose that’s what years of University Challenge do to you.
Why there are more women in media jobs which previously would have been occupied by men? Because these jobs are no longer quite as attractive, profitable and prominent as they used to be. The guys leave for more lucrative careers and the girls step in - usually accompanied by cuts in salary and standing. The same thing has been going on in the academic world. It’s nothing to do with feminism or equality. The more things change ….
Monday 25 August 2008 at 20:05 UTC
Anja - Paxo has over recent years been moulding himself into a national institution, readying himself for his dotage. It’s not at all a long, slow decline into senile delusion. It’s classic English eccentricity, gobbiness and grumpiness.
University Challenge? More like the Garrick Club!
As for the media, yes, the industry is no longer quite as attractive as it used to be, and salaries have dropped markedly in recent years. But the same goes for many industries once regarded as “professions”. I don’t know the reason for the rise of women in the media and publishing worlds, but I don’t think you’ve explained it.
Monday 25 August 2008 at 21:07 UTC
Francis,
Women have been around in professional writing - just as in teaching - for a long time, only usually amongst the lower orders. It’s hardly surprising that this would be one of the fields where they would eventually rise to relative prominence when changing socio-economic conditions permitted them to do so.
I don’t just mean things like growing tolerance towards working women, new educational opportunities or professional childcare/freely available contraception, but especially (and more recently) the emergence of new professions that can make a person so amazingly, filthily rich that the income of a humble editor or TV producer must pale in comparison.
Why work for the Beeb when you can hedge fund your way towards your next million? Let the girls do that!
Monday 25 August 2008 at 21:10 UTC
Anja - hedge funds are, like, so 90s. These people will all soon be knocking back budget vodka under Blackfriars Bridge. Why would the girls want to do that?
Monday 25 August 2008 at 21:23 UTC
They don’t - they want to be creative and communicative! It’s in their frigging genes!
Monday 25 August 2008 at 22:15 UTC
Oh, I can imagine many girls who’d be happy to knock back budget vodka under Blackfriars.
At the moment, though, many of them appear to be busy appearing on reality TV programmes. Or on a package holiday in Greece….
Monday 25 August 2008 at 22:31 UTC
Do you know Blackfriars Bridge? It’s the haunt of dossers and final resting place of Vatican bankers. Even the most pissed-up Essex girl has certain standards to uphold.