Since the 1960s, feminists have argued that "it matters who makes it." When it comes to the mass media, "who makes it" continues to be men.

Women working in the media have made some inroads. In 2001, the International Federation of Journalists reported that around the world, 38 per cent of all working journalists are women. Studies conducted by Canadian researchers Gertrude Robinson and Armande Saint-Jean have found that 28 per cent of newspaper editors are female. And according to San Diego State University communications professor Martha Lauzen, 24 per cent of American television producers, writers, and directors are women.

Denis Monière, political analyst and professor at Quebec's University of Montreal maintains that even if the visibility of female journalists has grown in the last ten years, we shouldn't be too quick to shout victory. In 2002, the Canadian Newspaper Association reported that 43 per cent of Canadian newspaper employees are women. However, they account for only eight per cent of editors-in-chief and twelve per cent of publishers. Women employed in the sector tend to work in "pink-collar ghettos"; they make up 70 per cent of the advertising department, and 80 per cent of the accounting and finance staff.

In addition to being un-represented in positions of authority, Monière thinks women are also under-utilized in covering the subjects considered most important—politics, economy and social trends. And when it comes to the evening news, women are almost invisible. The posting of Sophie Thibault in 2002 as the ten o'clock news anchor for the national French-language channel TVA is a "first" for Canada. Most often, women are consigned to noon-hour shows, local newscasts, "fill-ins" and weekend spots.

And MediaWatch points out that though more than half the journalism graduates in Canada are female, studies have shown that only 30 per cent of newspaper articles are written by women. A study carried out in France in 2000 by the Association of Women Journalists (Association des femmes journalistes—AFJ) pointed out that French television devotes five to nine per cent more news coverage to women than do the other media—clearly the result of more women journalists working in television than in the radio and newspaper industries. The same study showed that women journalists select six per cent more stories on women than men journalists.

However, men continue to occupy approximately 75 per cent of the positions of power in the mass media. And the prospects become much bleaker for women as they climb the corporate ladder.