Folha’s Letters to the Editor receives about 600 letters and e-mails per week. With the space that it has, two columns daily on page A3, it takes advantage of very few, not even 10%. This generates a lot of frustration, and the ombudsman frequently gets messages from readers who are unhappy about the difficulties that they encounter getting their opinions published.
Demands for more space are not new and have been dealt with unsuccessfully by other ombudsmen. But what caught my attention this week was a different complaint, coming from Belo Horizonte and written by Modeste Trindade Theodoro, a teacher.
She went to the trouble of counting how many letters by women were published in Folha and two newspapers in her home state of Minas Gerais, Em Tempo and Estado de Minas. Her survey covered only four days, between July 1 and 4, but the results were significant.
The teacher counted 84 letters published in the three newspapers. The results were: 77% were written by men and 23% by women. I decided to extend the survey of Folha to a whole week, from Saturday, July 3 through Friday, July 9. The result was similar. The newspaper published 57 letters in its Letters to the Editor, with 43 sent by men (75%) and 14 (25%) by women.
I looked in two direct competitors, and the results were quite similar. During the same period, O Estado de So Paulo ran 87 letters in its two sections that publish letters from readers: 65 were written by men (75%) and 22 by women (25%). In the Rio daily O Globo, there were 137 letters, with 108 from men (79%) and 29 (21%) from women.
What about opinion columns?
Ms. Theodoro’s curiosity was not limited to letters. She checked the opinion columns and op-ed pieces that these newspapers publish, and they were dominated even more by men. Of 55 columns and op-ed pieces that she counted in three newspapers on those four days, 50 were written by men (91%) and only five by women (9%).
I applied the same criteria at Folha, but I limited myself to page A3, the opinion page. The newspaper published pieces in various spaces daily, but that is the most-coveted page designed to “stimulate debate about problems in Brazil and the world” and “reflects diverse trends in contemporary thinking.”
There are six pieces per day; a single one rarely occupies the whole page. In the period I observed, 14 pieces were published, all written by men. All of them. The last one written by a woman came out came out on Friday, July 2, by Maria Sylvia Carvalho Franco, a philosophy professor at Campinas University and So Paulo University, “Lula and popular culture” (about President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva). The previous Friday, on June 25, “Brazil in France” by writer and psychoanalyst Betty Milan, came out. The situation in the two competitors is absolutely equal. Estado published 14 pieces in its “Open Space” and O Globo published 15 (not including regular columnists). All of them were written by men. A survey taken by Folha’s op-ed and events department, responsible for editing the pieces, shows that in the past 365 days it published 730 pieces and only 63 were written by women. In other words, 9%, the same percentage found by Ms. Teodoro.
Distinct problems
The conversations I had with the editors in charge of Letters to the Editor, Luiz Antnio Del Tedesco and for op-ed pieces, Fbio Chiossi, show that the two are different phenomena.
The topic of op-ed pieces is unique and an exclusive responsibility of newspapers. While they accept spec pieces, most of what they publish is contracted. According to Chiossi, editing the articles does not follow a gender quota policy, but there are criteria, such as how the piece is representative and its quality. “The minimal participation of women is not intentional,” he said.
It’s not possible that at universities, specialized institutes, and non-government organizations there are not an equal number of women with knowledge and writing ability who could write for newspapers. It is not a question of intention but of editorial policy and willingness.
The problem with letters is different because, according to Tedesco’s survey, the number of letters by women is few. On Thursday, the day before a holiday, it received 68 letters and e-mails. Among these, only nine (13%) were sent by women.
Why do women write to newspapers so seldom? In the letter she sent, Ms. Theodoro raised three possibilities, in the form of questions: “Are letters and op-ed pieces (by women) sent but rejected? Don’t women like to write (for these sections)? Or don’t they have any time?”
I don’t know. Newspapers are traditionally identified with the male public, but this has been changing over the years. The most recent profile of Folha readers, made in 2000, showed that half of the newspaper’s readers are women.
Folha should reflect a little on this situation if it wants to be in harmony with its public and grow. Its Letters to the Editor publishes the fewest letters among the three largest newspapers. Like its two competitors, almost every day the small space is partially occupied by responses to stories rather than opinions of readers.
The newspaper should make more space available out of the concern that publishing letters reflects balance and diversity.
Phrase
“Are letters and op-ed pieces (by women) sent but rejected? Don’t women like to write? Or don’t they have any time?”
MODESTA TRINDADE THEODORO
teacher Belo Horizonte
INTERVIEW
“Diversion occurs in all the press”
Dulclia Schroeder Buitoni is a journalism professor at the School of Communications and Arts at So Paulo University and the other of two books “Paper Woman” (Loyola Publishing) and “Feminine Press” (tica Publishing).
Folha – How do you analyze the small participation of women at newspapers?
Dulclia Buitoni – I believe that newspapers should be concerned about the question of representation. But this is a diversion, or a vice, that occurs in the press around the world. Even in countries where women have more of a social presence, they appear less. But they appear here even less. Just to have an idea, years ago I did a survey in Veja (a weekly news magazine), in the interview section, and it was really crushing there. In a whole year, only one woman was interviewed. In this case, like in the op-ed section in Folha, it is editorial selection and I doubt that there are no other women who could be interviewed.
Folha – Why is this? Is the press masculine gender?
Dulclia Buitoni – The press is masculine gender (laughing). Despite all the advances in the work place, the press still is masculine. In truth, the world is still a world of male standards, however much greater freedom exists. I teach classes at the university and see this. The girls are more brilliant and enter with the best grades, but normally those who ask questions in class are boys. It all has to do with context.
Folha – What can be done?
Dulclia Buitoni – I think that the press could help, not with a system of quotas, like the political parties, but it could think a little more about this question of gender and diversity. It is not only gender, but age, ethnicity and place of residence. The media would be very enriched.
Traduo de John Wright
