The report on the place of women in the media in times of crisis, delivered on September 9, 2020, by Céline Calvez, MNA for Hauts-de-Seine, to the Minister of Culture and the Minister Responsible for Equality between Women and Men, Diversity and Equal Opportunities, notably highlighted the significant decline in the number of women experts on the air, based on an observation conducted between March and June 2020.
Six months after the report was submitted, out of the 26 recommendations formulated to strengthen the visibility of women in the media, 24 were adopted by the ministers and constitute their action plan for strengthening the place of women in the media.
Three of them have already been implemented. The contracts for the objectives and means of the public audiovisual sector, which are being finalised, commit companies to combating discrimination, stereotypes and violence against women and include numerical indicators that measure the share of women in the programmes and the share of women in the staff of the companies concerned. Similarly, the decree of 9 December 2020 on the reform of the Strategic Fund for Press Development and the Fund for Support of Emergence and Innovation in the Press now expressly provides thatThe European Union must also ensure that the State and the press companies make commitments to ensure parity within the press companies. Finally, the Ministry of Culture has decided to support financially, as the report recommends, the site expertes.fr in order to support this service that contributes to a better representation of expert women on the stages and on the airwaves.
Nine recommendations, relating to the implementation of measurement tools and the human resources and vocational training policy of companies, are the responsibility of the media themselves. Government awareness of these issues by media companies is planned for rapid implementation.
In addition, five recommendations fall exclusively within the scope of the CFS, which plays a key role in improving the representation of women in the media.
Finally, seven recommendations are currently being evaluated for implementation in 2021: encouraging media education mechanisms to deconstruct sexist stereotypes, integrate the requirement of gender equality in all calls for media literacy projects, analyse the possibilities of creating a parity bonus from the CNC to audiovisual productions to promote parity within the artistic filming teams and to take into account, in the allocation of aid to the press, the commitment of companies to the place of women, the creation of a media-specific index on the internal aspects of organizations and finally, Create an annual award for the media company that has been particularly active in promoting gender parity and better representation of women in the media.
Six months after this report was submitted, Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin and Élisabeth Moreno are committed to the implementation of this action plan, which will be monitored at the next Ministerial Committee on Gender Equality in Culture and Media. The goal of this plan is to ensure a greater presence of women in the media, which we know are shaping the collective imagination.