Mainstream Media - It's more than a woman thing

A feminist dream team is doing its best to get more women's views into the news. Old friends Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda visited the Sun-Times Wednesday as new business partners in the New York-based Women's Media Center. They want to serve as a resource for journalists, they said, and influence the coverage of issues critical to women.

They shared their opinions on:

• The Middle East. "The only groups in Israel and Palestine that are talking are women's groups," Steinem said.
• The possibility of a military draft. "There is a draft," said Steinem. "There's a poverty draft, an education draft, a green card draft."
• Presidential candidates. "It's interesting that women who support Hillary Clinton think that she can't win, and black men who support Barack Obama think that he can't win," Steinem said.
• Newspapers that publish upbeat "women's news." "It's called, 'Why don't you smile, honey?' " Steinem joked.
• Don Imus. There were no black women with a radio forum to vent their outrage, they noted.
• Immigration -- which, for some reason, is viewed as a male issue, while sex trafficking is perceived as a female event, Steinem said.
  
  They don't want to silence men. The Women's Media Center is an effort to make sure women are more accurately represented, president Carol Jenkins said. Women should be "as powerful in the media as they are in real life," she said.
  
  LINK: Chicago Times