(WOMENSENEWS)–In the days immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, The Washington Post added a second op-ed page, media critic Geneva Overholser said in a recent National Public Radio commentary
“This meant that the Post could present twice as many views as usual. Instead of the typical five opinion columns, there were 10. And every one was written by a man,” reported Overholser, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group.
She added that during the first week after the terrorist attacks, the New York Times and the Washington Post–the two dailies most read by policymakers–together had 65 signed opinion pieces. Four were by women. In the Los Angeles Times national editions that week, 22 of 23 op-eds were by men, Overholser said.
“To feel voiceless in a democracy in so difficult a time is very close to feeling disenfranchised. Echoing through my head of late is that plaintive phrase used by Sojourner Truth in 1851 at a women’s convention in Akron, Ohio. ‘Ain’t I a woman?’ the former slave asked the assemblage of shocked white feminists. Much has improved since then, for both blacks and women. But I can’t help thinking that a new version of that phrase–‘Aren’t we citizens?’–feels painfully timely,” Overholser said.
To hear Overholser’s commentary, go to:
National Public Radio:
http://www.npr.org
