is reason, the rape of a white woman by non-white assailants receives more media attention than sexual assaults on women of color. The message given to women is that gender victimization, in and of itself, is a marginal issue.
Attempts to expand women's perspectives on current issues by increasing the number of women journalists, particularly writers of opinion pieces, have been largely unfruitful. Gender tokenism in the print media is the rule rather than the exception. Many male editors who "already have one" woman writing opinion pieces are reluctant to hire another, for fear of jeopardizing the unwritten "quota of one" (Rhode, 1995, p. 690).
As a result of the media's inattention to women's issues, feminism, an important social movement in American history, has been largely diminished in the press. The media have succeeded in alienating women from feminism via a variety of tactics. One method is to caricaturize the movement's leadership. Feminists are routinely presented as hairy-legged, bra burning, extremist harpies. Betty Friedan has been a favorite target of criticism leveled at her personal appearance, her eccentricities, her unhappy marriage, and her personal shortcomings. Even when the press compliments a feminist, it does so in a manner that diminishes the movement. For instance, Shannon Faulkner, who filed suit for admission to an all-male military academy was praised by a male reporter in the following fashion, "She is not a crusader, activist, earthshaker, cantankerous man-hater, lesbian or ugly duckling out to find a mate" (Rhode, 1995, p. 694). Such statements erode women's self-esteem because it is implies that passive females are more attractive to males.
The media image of females has succeeded in causing prominent women who agree with feminis
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