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Just Being a Woman Isn't Enough AnyMoreEinat LachoverPublished online: 08 Nov 2011.

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JUST BEING A WOMAN ISN’T ENOUGH

ANY MORE

Israeli television news of women in local

politics

Einat Lachover

This study focuses on TV news coverage of women in the local elections held in Israel in 2008. The

questions posed were: Did national TV news in Israel during the election campaign reflect the

changes in the status of women in local politics that have occurred in the last two decades? How

prominent was the representation of women politicians in national TV news coverage and what

patterns did it display? The sample used in the study consisted of all items dealing with women that

were broadcast by one of the national TV stations during the month prior to the local elections. All

the news and current affairs broadcasts were analyzed. All items in which women candidates

featured, as well as items dealing with issues relating to women in politics in general, were taped

and transcribed. The study was based on an interpretive analysis employing the analytical tool of

“media frames.” Although the extent of the coverage of women remained quite meager, this reflects

the sociopolitical reality in which women politicians are still a small minority. However, whereas

the literature emphasizes the negative stereotypical representation of women politicians, the

national TV news representation of women in the local elections was more complex. On the one

hand, it mirrored the patriarchal power structure, primarily the subordination of women to men,

but on the other hand it also offered a forum for genuine feminist discourse.

KEYWORDS Israeli TV news; women politicians; local politics; media frames; interpretive

analysis

Introduction

Nowadays, more and more women are running for political office at all levels for a

variety of reasons, including sociocultural developments, changes in women’s voting

patterns, and the increasing diversity of their non-political activities. Nevertheless, although

there may be more female candidates, they are still grossly outnumbered by their male

counterparts (Joni Lovenduski 2005). Syliva Fogiel-Bijaoui (2010) lists four types of barriers

that stand in the way of women in politics: psychological, socioeconomic, political, and

media-related. The current study deals with the media barrier, focusing on TV news

coverage of women in the local elections held in Israel in 2008. The primary questions I

sought to answer were whether women were excluded from national television news

Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2012ISSN 1468-0777 print/ISSN 1471-5902 online/12/030442-458

q 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2011.615639

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during these elections, and if so, whether the exclusion was quantitative, qualitative, or

both.

The Status of Israeli Women in Local Politics

Women in Israel have not succeeded in translating feminist achievements in the

workplace and education to the political arena. Statistics relating to the representation of

women in elected bodies in the world show Israel to be somewhere in the middle (Fogiel-

Bijaoui 2010). Although women won the right to run for election in the early 1920s, this had

no effect on their actual representation. Politics merely became another forum in which the

traditional gender order was maintained, with the number of female politicians on both the

national and local level remaining low (Hannah Herzog 2004).

In the two decades after Israeli independence in 1948, the proportion of women in

the Israeli parliament was between 6.5% and 10%, among the highest in the world at that

time (Fogiel-Bijaoui 2010). As a result of this and other factors, such as the election of Golda

Meir to the office of prime minister in 1969, Israel enjoyed the image of a country

promoting gender equality. In the following years, however, the representation of women

in the parliament did not substantially increase, as it did in the rest of the world, although

there was a moderate rise beginning in 2000, with the 10% ceiling that had previously

persisted being repeatedly broken (Fogiel-Bijaoui 2010). Today, women account for 22 of

the 120 members of the parliament, or 18.3%, a figure almost identical to the world average

of 18.6% (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2009).

However, local government constitutes an important political arena for minorities,

enabling them to consolidate their power on the local level and thereby pave the way for

their entrance into national politics (Tamar Horowitz 2003). Moreover, minority groups are

believed to have better chances of success in local than in national elections since local

politics are deemed of lesser consequence and prestige, and the candidates are rarely

preeminent politicians. In the case of women, this premise also draws on the cultural

distinction between private and public sphere: local politics deal with concerns closer in

nature to the domains associated with women (education, welfare, quality of life), whereas

national politics, particularly in Israel, are dominated by issues relating to foreign affairs,

security, and conflict, which are considered male domains, and thus give men an advantage

over women. In addition, local politics are less demanding in terms of job description, and

therefore regarded as more suited to women (Herzog 1994).

Nonetheless, despite a steady rise in the representation of women in local authorities in

Israel since the 1970s, the proportion of elected female officials remains below the world

average (Fogiel-Bijaoui 2010). Up to 1973, women accounted for less than 5% of themembers

of local councils in Jewish localities. This figure began to grow in 1978, and continues to

increase at amoderatepace (Tal Tamir 2007). In the 2008elections,which are the subject of this

study, 236 women gained seats on local councils, representing 11% of the elected officials on

the local level, which is way below theworld average of 21% (Fogiel-Bijaoui 2010). 1 According

to Herzog (2004), Israel’s centralized political system, which results in national “ideological”

parties also dominating local politics, contributes to the exclusion of women. Indeed, the

modest rise in the representation of Jewish women in local politics can be attributed to the

growing strength of independent groups that are not affiliated with national parties.

The picture is even bleaker in the case of Israeli-Arab women. This sector represented

a mere 0.7% in the local elections in 2008, where the clan system places power solely in the

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hands of men (Herzog 2004). 2 Furthermore, comparison of the proportion of women

elected to local councils in 2004 by district reveals considerable differences between the

geographical center and periphery. The highest figures were recorded in Tel Aviv (17.4%)

and the central district (11.5%), with the lowest found farthest from the center of the

country: 8.2% in the southern district, and 6.0% in the northern district (Tamir 2007).

The overwhelming majority of women elected to local councils has an academic

education and found their way to politics through volunteer activities and community

involvement. Active and committed, they are highly appreciated for their political/social

dedication. They themselves see their election not only as a springboard for personal

development, but also as an expression of their pledge to promote women’s issues and

social issues in general. Importantly, most of them are devoted feminists (Herzog 2004).

News Media Representation of Women: Symbolic Annihilation

The research literature is rife with examples of quantitative exclusion of women from

the news (Carolyn Byerly & Karen Ross 2006; Margaret Gallagher 2006). A common response

to such findings is that news coverage reflects a reality in which women are still absent from

the centers of power in numerous domains. And yet studies show that news reporting

consistently presents a picture of reality that is more male-dominated than in actual fact

(Liesbet Van Zoonen 1994). Moreover, studies of news production reveal the extent of

genderization in this process (for examples see Marjan De Bruin & Karen Ross 2004).

Women are also subject to qualitative symbolic annihilation in the news media, with

studies showing that the representation of women is generally narrow and stereotypical.

Women are usually identified with the private sphere and with one of the two cultural

female stereotypes: sex object or mother (Byerly & Ross 2006). Another characteristic

feature is their representation as victims, promoting the stereotype of the woman as weak

and helpless (Gallagher 2006). Studies conducted in Israel similarly demonstrate the

symbolic annihilation of women, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in the local news

media, reflecting and constructing their status on the fringes of Israeli society (Dafna

Lemish 2004).

Such representations reinforce and perpetuate the normative distance between the

“woman’s world” and the world of politics, as perceived by both men and women. In other

words, the media generally show women to demonstrate qualities and behaviors

inconsistent with those expected from politicians, thereby increasing the distance between

the political figure and the normative woman. This is one of the reasons women in the

political arena find it difficult to persuade the voters that they are viable candidates who are

worthy of their support (Fogiel-Bijaoui 2010).

The News Media Barrier for Women in Politics

There has recently been growing interest in female politicians, particularly in the

themes and styles of their campaigns, their images in the news media, and the way they

handle their public image (Annabelle Sreberny & Liesbet Van Zoonen 2000). Studies

indicate that the news media are one of the major factors working against the entrance of

women into politics. Research shows that less coverage is devoted to women than to their

male counterparts, and that women politicians are presented in the same stereotypical

manner as women in general: considerable attention is paid to their appearance and age,

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they are referred to by their first name, and they are photographed in a private space rather

than a parliamentary setting (Maria Braden 1996; Karen Ross 2002, 2010). One of the most

striking findings is that use is frequently made of different, and even contradictory,

stereotypes simultaneously. Women are consequently held to a double standard and often

conflicting expectations. Thus, for example, the female members of parliament in Tony

Blair’s government were accused of being spineless when they displayed loyalty to the

government, but were met with hostility when they expressed criticism of it (Ros Gill 2007).

Several studies have focused on the differences in the news coverage of men and

women running for office, and the effect of these gender differences on the public’s

attitude towards the candidates. In an investigation of dozens of US national political

campaigns in the 1980s, Kim Fridkin Kahn (2003) found that female candidates received less

coverage than their male colleagues and that most news reports concerning women were

negative and stressed that they had no chance of winning the election. Furthermore,

whereas the media accurately conveyed the messages of male candidates, those of the

women were distorted. Thus, although women candidates concentrated largely on

“female” issues (social matters), news coverage of their campaigns emphasized “male”

issues (policy). In addition, media coverage was found to influence the public’s perception

of the candidates, with the women being viewed less favorably.

In her study of women in local politics in Israel, Herzog (1994) reported a rise in the

extent of the coverage of women politicians between the 1950 and 1960s and the 1970–

1990s, especially in the local press. The increase in coverage was, of course, associated with

the increase in the number of women in this arena. Nevertheless, Herzog found several

forms of exclusion that perpetuated the distinction between the private and public sphere

and continued to relegate women to the former. These included coverage of female

politicians in the women’s sections of newspapers, alongside photographs of models or

recipes, or pictures of them in their kitchens or in “feminine” poses, thus suggesting either

that they brought their female world to politics or denied their feminine identity in order to

be politicians. She concluded that although these women had seemingly crossed over into

the political world, in media representations they remained in their domestic/feminine

world. These findings are consistent with the results of other Israeli studies examining the

representation of female politicians in election broadcasts in 1988 and 1996. They, too,

showed that the meager exposure afforded them focused on the familiar women’s issues of

education, health, and welfare. The “motherhood” strategy in particular was evident in the

1996 campaign, where even the senior politician Limor Livnat was “legitimized” by being

presented in her role as a mother (Dafna Lemish & Chava E. Tidhar 1991, 1999).

News coverage of elections

Election years are an especially appropriate time to examine the representation of

women in politics, given the major role of news items in democratic societies in the run-up

to elections. The importance of election news coverage for the way democracy works

derives from the fact that people rely mainly on this source for information that may affect

their choice of candidate, so that the news media can exert considerable influence with

regard to the issues, attributes, and frames people consider most important and salient

(Stromback & Kaid 2008). Although election broadcasts, especially televised ads, also serve

as a source of information (L.L. Kaid & C. Hotz-Bacha 1995), in Israel, as elsewhere, they are

attracting fewer and fewer viewers and therefore losing their power to influence the public

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or media agenda (Gabriel Weimann 2009).3 This leaves television news as the primary

vehicle for information about election campaigns, particularly for undecided voters and

people with no special interest in politics.

Critical studies of the nature of election news coverage indicate a growing tendency for

trivialization. Thus, for example, American studies show amove from a concern for substantial

issues to a focus on negative messages (Joseph Cappella & K.H. Jamieson 1997; T.E. Patterson

1993). Israeli examinations of national election coverage reveal a similar trend (Gabriel

Weimann & T. Shaefer 2004; Gabriel Weimann, Y. Tsfati & T. Shaefer 2008). No previous studies

have examined the role of the media in local elections in Israel. However, investigations of the

national media coverage devoted to different localities, without reference to elections,

indicate that the nature of the coverage is influenced by the social and ideological distance

from the media elite, which is associated with the elite circles in the country in general.

Sociocultural distance from the center was found to lead to a stereotypical representation of

certain geographical regions and communities (E. Avraham 2000).

In view of the literature, the current study sought to examine the following questions:

Did national TV news in Israel during the 2008 election campaign reflect the changes in the

status of women in local politics that have occurred in the more than twenty years since

Herzog’s study? How prominent were the representations of women politicians in national

TV news coverage and what patterns did it display?

Televised News Coverage of the 2008 Local Elections in Israel:Sample and Method

This study focuses on the medium of television, which serves in Israel, as it does in

most of the world, as the dominant channel of communications between the government,

the candidates, and the voters (Stromback & Kaid 2008). However, whereas in the US and

many other countries the local news has become an increasingly influential political forum

(B. Allen, D.P. Stevens, G. Marfleet, J. Sullivan & D. Alger 2007), this is not the case in Israel.

Due to the small size of the country (population of 7.5 million over 22,072 sq. km), local

news broadcasts are virtually nonexistent. Such broadcasts were introduced only in 1990

for cable subscribers, but are currently facing closure for financial reasons. Indeed, they

have never constituted a significant source of information for the public. Moreover, over

the years the local cable news channels have been centralized, so that they no longer truly

reflect the local agenda (Gozanski 2009).

The sample used in the study consisted of all items dealing with women that were

broadcast by one of the national TV stations during the month prior to the local elections

(10 October, 2008–10 November, 2008). Three such stations operate in Israel: two

commercial channels, 2 and 10; and a public channel, 1. All the news and current affairs

broadcasts were analyzed (twenty-two programs, save for the morning news programs,

because of their small viewing audience). It should be noted that newscasts in Israel enjoy

relatively high ratings at all times. During the month of the study, ratings for the prime time

newscasts were 19%, 10%, and 8% for channels 2, 10, and 1, respectively (Israel Audience

Research Board 2009). All items in which women candidates featured, as well as items

dealing with issues relating to women in politics in general, were taped and transcribed. An

item was defined as any reference to women politicians or women’s issues in the context of

the local elections which appeared in the broadcast, including in the highlights aired at the

beginning and the anchor’s opening text.

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The study was based on an interpretive analysis employing the analytical tool of

“media frames.” According to Stephen Reese (2001), framing is a process whereby social

actors use symbolic means to structure the social world. In Robert Entman’s (1993)

definition:

Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of a

perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to

promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or

treatment recommendation for the item described. Typically frames diagnose, evaluate,

and prescribe. (p. 52; emphasis in original)

In the case of news, framing is a joint operation of journalists and other social actors,

including politicians and interest groups, who have been taking an increasingly proactive

approach, in order to amplify their perception of an issue (Z. Pan & G.M. Kosicki 1993).

I have analyzed variety of lexical selection (for example: keywords, metaphors, names

and verbal constructions) and rhetoric elements (for example: hyperbole, emotional

overstatement, melodramatization) that were used in the texts. I have especially looked for

those components that were consistently promoted to the headlines (the leader and the

preface).

In order to supplement the textual analysis, brief telephone interviews were

conducted with four journalists who were involved in producing items in the sample.4 The

aim of these interviews was to learn more about the circumstances surrounding production

of the items. The journalists were asked who initiated the items (candidates, editors, or the

journalists themselves), how the subject of the items was chosen, and so forth. As we shall

see below, in one case in particular, understanding the circumstances surrounding the

production of the item contributed significantly to the analysis.

The Quantitative Exclusion of Women Candidates and Women’sIssues

A total of eighty-five items dealing with the local elections appeared in news and

current affairs programs on national TV during the month prior to election day.5 Of these,

twelve (14%) related to women, and thus served as the sample for this study. Women were

of secondary interest in one item, and the main subject of the others.

One of the strategies commonly used in studies of this kind is to compare

representation with reality. In these terms, the quantitative exclusion of women from

coverage of the local elections in 2008 was not significant, as the overall proportion of

female candidates was 16.5%, and the proportion of women running for mayor was 5%.6 In

other words, although women received little coverage, they did not attract less attention in

the news than their share in social reality.

Ten of the items about women were devoted to the candidate herself, and the other

two dealt in general with the issue of women in local politics. This is consistent with the

results of political science studies, which show a major change in Israeli local government

that is reflected, among other things, in a greater tendency for personification in local

elections. In other words, more emphasis is placed on the personality of the candidates

than on the issues raised in the campaign (A. Brichta 2001).

Comparison of the three TV stations reveals that the public channel devoted the most

coverage to the local elections in general, and to the women candidates in particular.

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Channel 1 aired seven items dealing with women, with three and two items appearing on

Channels 2 and 10, respectively. Channel 1 also led in terms of air time, devoting twenty-

five minutes to the coverage of women, with only 12:15 minutes and 14:30 minutes for

Channels 2 and 10, respectively. Thus, as might be expected, the public channel showed

greater commitment to the subjects of local politics and sociocultural diversity than the

commercial channels. While the latter are required by law to express these values as well,

unlike the public channel they must also take into account financial considerations.

In light of the finding of no significant quantitative exclusion of women, we turned

our attention to the nature of the coverage, seeking to discover whether the representation

of women emphasized their talents, competence, and chances of winning the election,

whether it stressed their inferiority or other types of coverage. The analysis indicated the

use of three media frames: high news value; the conventional frame of submissive

femininity; and the alternative frame of challenging femininity.

High News Value: Double or Triple “Otherness”

Virtually all the items relating to women, with only one exception, were distinctly

framed as newsworthy. The news value of an event is a definition used to determinewhether

the story warrants news coverage, and if so, how much prominence it should be given. As

people in the media have no clear criteria for measuring this quality, they make their

decisions intuitively. Communications research has sought to identify the factors that cause

journalists to consider an itemnewsworthy. P.J. Shoemaker andA. Cohen (2006), for example,

suggest two crucial elements: deviance or social significance. Deviance relates to the

definition of people, ideas, or events as diverging from the norms in their region, community,

or family. For journalists, the operative indicators of news value of this sort are novelty,

difference, otherness, conflict, controversy, or sensationalism. The current study found the

news value of items dealing with women to be almost invariably associated with deviance.

A major finding regarding the news coverage of Israeli women in local politics from

the 1950s to 1990s was that they were represented as “others” by virtue of their gender,

with use made of the common stereotypes of women (such as: passive, emotional,

caregiving, childish, sexy, subordinated to males) which delimit and restrict the female

identity (Herzog 1994). Analysis of the TV news items on women in the 2008 elections

revealed that almost all of them continued to represent female candidates as different or

deviant. However, this definition is no longer derived solely from gender, but rather from a

double, or even triple, “otherness,” that is, gender along with one or two additional features

of the “other” on the basis of religion, ethnicity, or geocultural location. It would seem that

by 2008, women in local politics were no longer a “new product,” so that their news value

could not rely on gender alone. They were considered newsworthy only if they were

“others” on additional dimensions as well.

Mona Al-Habanin, for example, a Bedouin woman running for mayor of the Bedouin

town of Rahat in southern Israel, bore the triple “otherness” of gender, ethnicity, and

geocultural location. 7 Al-Habanin’s deviance was the primary frame in which she was

represented. Thus, in introducing an item about her on the prime time newscast, the

Channel 1 anchor asked, “Is there a chance that after these elections we will see a Bedouin

woman on a city council in the south?” (30 October, 2008). Similarly, in the item itself the

reporter pronounced, “In the run-up to the coming elections, a little piece of history is being

made in the town of Rahat: For the first time, a woman is running for city council” (ibid.).

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The frame of news value based on double or triple “otherness” was particularly

evident in an item that focused on two women candidates whose only common feature

was that they were both considered to have broken through barriers. One was Aviva Hajbi,

an Orthodox Jewish woman allied with Shas, the national Sephardic religious party, who

was running for mayor of the southern development town, Netivot. Bearing the typical

appearance of an Orthodox woman, dressed modestly with a wig covering her hair, Hajbi

was represented, first of all, as a trailblazer. In the words of the story on the prime time

news, she was “the first ultra-Orthodox woman to go against all the distinguished rabbis of

Shas” (Channel 10, 28 October, 2008). The other woman in the item was Asma Elghbariegh,

a young Arab woman from Jaffa, the Arab section of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, who was running for

mayor. Elghbariegh was framed as deviant in the very first scene in which she appeared.

Campaigning in the streets of Jaffa dressed like any modern western woman, with her

clothes revealing no signs of her ethnicity, she stopped to talk to an Arab citizen. When he

heard she was a candidate for mayor, he responded, “Don’t make me laugh . . . Forget this

nonsense. When would they make an Arab woman mayor of Tel Aviv?” (ibid.).

Ahlama Peretz enjoyed special visibility in the TV news programs, appearing in items

on all three channels and even dubbed “national media pet” (Channel 2, prime time news,

29 October, 2008). Her news value was associated, among other things, with the fact that

she was running for mayor of Sderot, another southern development town. Bordering on

the Gaza Strip, Sderot has been in the forefront of the violent conflict between Israel and

the Palestinians for years. In the months preceding the elections, the town had repeatedly

been the subject of news items reporting on the intensive rocket attacks it had sustained.

Most of the coverage of Peretz stressed her location in a town under fire. Thus, for instance,

one item opened with the words, “Tonight we turn the spotlight on Sderot. In the town

which suffers mainly from security problems, there are no less than five mayoral candidates”

(ibid.), and another item began, “First of all, we turned, of course, to Sderot, the Israeli town

that has been hurting the most in the past two years” (Channel 1, 5 o’clock news, 12

October, 2008).

Another candidate with high news value as a result of deviance, although not for

demographic reasons, was Miki Goldwasser. She was familiar to the Israeli public for having

conducted an international media campaign for the return of her son, a soldier abducted by

Hezbollah in Lebanon.8 Goldwasser was running for mayor of Nahariya in northern Israel.

The item about her candidacy began by highlighting her biographical background as a

valiant woman, stating, “Miki Goldwasser is number 2 on Sabag’s slate. She is the woman

who fought for two years for the release of her son” (Channel 2, prime time news, 23

October, 2008).

The frame of news value was also highly apparent in the item about the only

“ordinary” woman candidate among those who were covered in the TV news. Unlike the

others, Yael German, one of the three women who were already sitting mayors at the time

of the elections, had no identity as an “other.” However, although she fit the typical profile

of women in local politics (Jewish, educated, middle-class), she was covered in the context

of deviance. The item dealt with an unconventional commercial produced for her

campaign, which was unusual for a degree of creativity and humor beyond what the Israeli

public is accustomed to in local election ads.9

Another candidate who received relatively extensive coverage was Tagrid Saadi, a

Muslim Arab woman running for city council in the Arab town of Sakhnin in northern Israel.

Two items were devoted to Saadi, and each was positioned prominently in the newscast

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and accompanied both by a filmed segment and by an interview with the reporter in the

studio. Saadi’s news value was not associated with gender or national “otherness,” even

though she was a young Muslim woman running on a left-wing Jewish-Arab slate.10 Rather,

she was considered newsworthy for reasons of a different element of deviance which was

related to the regional conflict. The items stressed that she was an Israeli-Arab who had

been convicted of abetting an act of terrorism, or as the sensationalist captions at the start

of the items declared, “A terrorist is running for election” (Channel 1, 7 o’clock news, 9

November, 2008), and “The terrorist on the city council: Convicted of abetting the terror

attack in Mahaneh Yehuda, she is running for the Sakhnin city council” (Channel 1, prime

time news, 9 November, 2008).11 In both items she appeared in traditional Arab dress, and

her own voice was never heard. This type of representation is consistent with the coverage

of Israeli-Arabs in the Hebrew language media in Israel, where they generally appear in the

context of the Middle East conflict and in media frames that present them as a threat to the

existing social order (A. First 2002). Saadi’s story was similarly presented as deviant, not to

say “absurd,” in the words of the anchor in reference to the first of the two items.

The news value of one of the two stories dealing with issues relating to women in

general was also associated with the dimension of conflict. It reported on the decision not

to allow pictures of women candidates for city council on Jerusalem buses. Citing reasons

of modesty, the major public transportation company in the city, whose buses bore

election ads during the campaign, banned pictures of women in order to forestall a

consumer boycott by ultra-Orthodox citizens. Orthodox-secular relations in Jerusalem are

one of the most conflictual issues in Israeli society and are therefore a subject of media

discourse. It was in this context that the story appeared.

Framing women candidates as newsworthy, because they deviate from the norm,

results in the exclusion of the majority of female politicians who are totally unlike those who

were deemed to have news value. Herzog’s (1994) findings indicate over-representation of

women with more social resources, that is, those who enjoy high human capital (education,

socioeconomic status, country of birth). In contrast, the current findings show that most

candidates who were covered in the TV news in 2008 were largely from the geocultural

periphery. It is especially striking that although the number of Arab female candidates was

extremely small (0.7%), they were represented prominently in the media (three and a half

items out of twelve).

The Conventional Frame: Submissive Femininity and the FamilyCandidacy

The conventional frame, that is, the stereotypical representation of the submissive

woman, was particularly conspicuous in the coverage of two candidates who were framed

in a way that clearly stressed their association with and dependence upon their spouses. In

effect, it was this frame itself that afforded them news value. The first of these candidates

was Ahlama Peretz, who was running for mayor of Sderot. Although she was judged

newsworthy partly because of the geocultural “otherness” of this southern town, her news

value stemmedmainly from the fact that she was the wife of the politician Amir Peretz, who

had held a number of public offices, including deputy prime minister, head of the Labor

Party, and defense minister. The conventional frame was stressed in the coverage of her

campaign, and indeed served as the focus of three of the four items about her, as well as a

subject of discussion. In one item, the reporter asked, “Does being the wife of Amir Peretz

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help you or hurt you in Sderot?”, and the candidate replied, “It depends who you ask. My

opponents will say it hurts me, but most of the people in Sderot will tell you they’re very

glad” (Channel 2, prime time news, 29 October, 2008). Another item opened with the

statement, “One of the most intriguing figures in the current local elections is the wife of

former defense minister Amir Peretz. She is running for mayor of Sderot” (Channel 10,

weekend news, 25 October, 2009). This representation is consistent with the results of a

study of the figure of the “first lady” in the Israeli press, who was found to be represented

stereotypically with the emphasis on the traditional roles of mother, wife, and homemaker,

and the “feminine” qualities of concern, support, warmth, and emotionality (Dafna Lemish &

G. Drob 2002). Peretz was represented as a woman who for many years had devoted herself

to her husband’s political career and was now seeking to make a change, to break out into

the public space and become a leader herself. In the words of the item cited above:

“Ahlama Peretz spent most of her adult life in the shadow of her husband. Before he

became defense minister, she was almost totally unknown to the public. Always in the

background, she raised their children and ran their home, and was very active in

educational and community causes” (Channel 10, weekend news, 25 October, 2008).

And yet even when she entered the public space, Peretz was framed as “the wife of,”

as a candidate whose “family had dedicated itself to her campaign.” As the promo for the

item above proclaimed, “Ahlama Peretz is entering politics with her husband and daughter

behind her” (ibid.). Although the story also made mention of her program to develop

Sderot, it was presented as an unrealistic vision. “You have to be a dreamer or a madman to

picture it [Sderot] looking like that” (ibid.), the reporter declared, thereby calling into

question her suitability for office. Furthermore, Peretz’s candidacy often seemed no more

than an excuse for an item about her husband, the senior politician; in many of the scenes

in the item above he was shown beside his wife and was sometimes even in the center of

the picture. Symbolically, the story concluded with the words of the husband as he gave his

seal of approval to his wife’s campaign, saying, “I want to live in a place where Ahlama

Peretz is mayor” (ibid.). The interviewer responded, “Of course you do, you’ll get preferential

treatment” (ibid.), further confirming the frame of submissive femininity.

Another item built mainly around the conventional frame related to two candidates:

the first was again Ahlama Peretz, and the second was Flora Shoshan, none other than

Ahlama’s sister-in-law, Amir Peretz’s sister. The frame was established at the very start of the

item, with the statement, “In two days, both of them will be vying for the highest office,

each in her own town. And that’s not the only thing they have in common. They are both

married to former heads of the council in the town in which they are now running”

(Channel 1, prime time news, 9 November, 2008). The background music was taken from

the theme song of “Dynasty,” implying rivalry between the two candidates and that their

candidacies were based on family and their access to circles of power and prominence

rather than on their own competence. When the women themselves related to their

pedigree, they did not challenge the frame of submissive femininity, but actually reinforced

it. Peretz was represented as a woman consciously seeking to exploit her family

connections by saying, “I plan to take advantage of his capabilities. I have it here in my

home, so why not . . .why should I go looking for it somewhere else” (ibid). For her part,

Shoshan verbally rejected the conventional frame, but analysis of the visual message cast

doubt on the sincerity of her words. She appeared rather hesitant and inarticulate when she

said, “I don’t want to take the role of the apologizer. Because I’m already . . . I’m very strong, I

lead. I empower. I just do it in a big way” (ibid.). Moreover, while she was talking, the camera

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was panning the venue of the interview—her living room, not her office—focusing on her

face, which looked rather ill at ease, and then moving to her husband, who did not speak,

but was seated where he could see and hear what was going on.

Literature on the coverage of women candidates in the Israeli news media refers to

the stereotypical representation that highlights or annihilates their femininity (Herzog

1994). In the local elections in Israel in 2008, this conventional frame centered mainly

around their subordination to a male figure, focusing in this context on two specific

candidates. Furthermore, in contrast to research findings that emphasize the attention to

women’s appearance and to their location photographed in a private space (Braden 1996;

Ross 2002, 2010), this was not found at all in the study.

The Alternative Frame: Challenging Femininity

In addition to the frames of news value and submissive femininity, TV news programs

also represented women candidates in the alternative, feminist frame of “challenging

femininity.” This was especially evident in two items. Both items related to the inferior status

of women in politics as part of the larger issue of gender-based discrimination. In both

cases, reference was made to inequality in the private sphere, e.g., abusive relationships,

single mothers, etc., as well as in the public sphere, e.g., the fact that women earn less than

men, have a higher unemployment rate, etc. The two items expressed the liberal feminist

viewpoint that women should strive to make greater inroads into the established political

arena. The stage was given to representatives of feminist organizations who called for a

change in the existing social order, and feminist terminology was employed.

The first item dealt, in the words of the anchor, with the fundamental issue of “women

in politics” (Channel 1, 5 o’clock news, 24 October, 2008), and was the product of public

relations efforts by WePower, an organization promoting women’s leadership in Israel. To

help advance their agenda in the public discourse during the election campaign, the group

hired a media agency which succeeded in arranging this interview with the organization’s

president, Michal Yudin, for a current affairs program aired on the public channel. 12

Analysis of the interview revealed one of the problems of the representation of

feminist issues in the media: the discussion of repressive patriarchal mechanisms in society

frames women as victims. In the first part of the interview, Yudin was obviously aware of

this dilemma, and consequently stressed the power of women in local politics. On the other

hand, the two interviewers, who were manifestly sympathetic to her cause, attempted to

raise the question of women’s relative absence from political forums. As a result, they

rejected the definition of the current situation as a gratifying achievement, and focused on

the poor showing of women in local elections. Thus, for example, when the male

interviewer asked rhetorically, “But isn’t [the number of women candidates] still relatively

low, even extremely low in relation to men?”, Yudin replied, “It’s low because there are close

to twenty thousand male candidates. But at the same time, thirty-five women are running

for the position of mayor or head of regional council” (ibid.). The female interviewer

continued to pressure the feminist activist, stating, “Look, the very fact that this is an item

about women in politics is an indication that there’s still a lot to do and lot of improvement

needed” (ibid.).

The focus of the second item was Mona Al-Habanin, a candidate for mayor of the

Bedouin town of Rahat in the Negev and an activist for women’s rights in Bedouin society.

The item was produced by local television in the south and was aired on the national public

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channel, as is frequently the case in respect to issues relating to a particular region of the

country. The story framed Al-Habanin’s candidacy itself as an achievement for the

conservative Bedouin sector, but it did so in a manner that was critical of Jewish society as

well. In the words of the southern reporter, who was present in the studio, “If women have a

hard time making inroads into local politics in Jewish society, which considers itself

modern, it has never before happened at all in conservative Bedouin society” (Channel 1,

prime time news, 30 October, 2008). Al-Habanin was presented as a trailblazer, with use

being made of the term “feminism” and other relevant theoretical concepts, as in the

description, “Mona Al-Habanin . . .wants to break new ground for other Bedouin women

seeking to shatter the male hegemony, and has chosen to do so, or to convey this feminist

message, on a male slate” (ibid.).

She was filmed striding confidently through the streets of Rahat, dressed in

traditional Bedouin garb but with her face uncovered, and meeting with supporters at party

headquarters. The item concluded with the reporter asking, “Will the voters do the

unexpected and support Mona?” (ibid.). The rhetorical question was voiced against the

background of a scene of Rahat showing older Bedouin women in their traditional robes

walking beside younger women in trendy modern clothes talking on cell phones, but

wearing head coverings. The visual image reflected the complexity of the social reality of

Bedouin women and the revolutionary nature of the candidacy of Al-Habanin, who

appealed directly for equal rights for Bedouin women in the item, saying, “There has to be

full equality both in civil rights and in decision making in the town and in our society” (ibid.).

Such a straightforward expression of the feminist stance is extremely unusual in the

mainstream Israeli media, and therefore warrants further consideration. Investigation of the

manner in which this atypical itemwas produced revealed a further theoretical aspect of the

study of women’s representation in the news. One of the two reporters behind the story had

a degree in communications and had taken two courses relating to the feminist critique of

themedia.13 Nevertheless, I cannot know to what extent his awareness of feminist discourse

led to the alternative framing in the item. Indeed, the complex theoretical question of the

connection between the people who create the news (reporters and editors) and the

features of the news product itself is beyond the scope of the current discussion. Feminist

activists and scholars argued in the 1970s that a rise in the number of women in the media

would lead to equality in gender representation and fewer female stereotypes, with a more

measured and less naı̈ve version of this contention becoming current in the 1980s and

1990s (Gallagher 2001; Kay Mills 1997). The item in the present study indicates that a

journalist’s formal professional education may influence the news product as well. It thus

demonstrates one of the criticisms raised against the premise that women in the media

would affect the product, suggesting that the crucial factor is not the gender of the reporter,

but rather the degree of their feminist awareness (Angharad Valdiva 1992).

The item also invites intercultural analysis, as it was produced in two versions, one for

a Jewish audience for the local news in Hebrew (subsequently aired on the national public

channel), and the other for an Arab audience for the local news in Arabic. The original item

was filmed and edited by an Arab (Bedouin) reporter, after which a Jewish colleague used

the footage, translating and editing the text for the Hebrew newscast. Al-Habanin herself

was interviewed in Arabic for the Arabic broadcast and in Hebrew for the Hebrew

broadcast.

Comparison of the two versions revealed that whereas in the Hebrew item the

anchorwoman, the reporters, and Al-Habanin all openly expressed a feminist attitude,

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feminism was alluded to only tacitly in the Arabic item and relied solely on the words of the

candidate. 14 Thus, for instance, Al-Habanin’s candidacy was presented in Hebrew as an

achievement and a welcome landmark, but in Arabic it was presented merely as

unconventional, without any positive overtones. The anchorwoman of the Arabic newscast

stated simply, “Rahat is witness to an unusual phenomenon in the election campaign” (HOT

3, news in Arabic, 19 October, 2008). Similarly, the word “feminism” did not appear in the

Arabic version, nor did any other terms associated with the feminist movement or ideology.

Instead, the fact that Al-Habanin succeeded in becoming a candidate for local office was

attributed to her choice of political affiliation, with the reporter explaining, “The A-Nahda

party in Rahat decided to include Mrs. Mona Al-Habanin on its slate”(ibid.).

Two voices also emerged from comparison of Al-Habanin’s own statements in the

different languages: her feminism was firm and overt in Hebrew, and more moderate and

covert in Arabic. In the Hebrew item, she pointed an accusatory finger at her society for

restricting women, saying, “It’s the society that doesn’t give [women] the chance to

advance and play an active role” (Channel 1, prime time news, 30 October, 2008). In the

Arabic item, there was no trace of any allegation of this sort. Similarly, in Hebrew she called

for “full equality [for women] both in civil rights and in decision making in the town and in

our society” (ibid.), but she issued no such direct challenge in Arabic.

The unmistakable narrative differences between the two versions derive from

differences in the perception of their target audiences. The Hebrew item was aimed at a

Jewish audience considered more liberal in terms of gender equality and more open to

accept a critique of the Arab society, while the Arabic item was aimed at an Arab audience

believed to hold more conservative views on this issue and to be more resistant to self-

critique. Nevertheless, neither version made any reference to the candidate’s most

outstanding activity, the founding of the Desert Princess Association, which seeks to do

away with polygamy among the Bedouins in southern Israel. The absence of any mention of

this feminist project reflects the fact that polygamy in the Bedouin sector is a subject to

which a blind eye is deliberately turned, not only by Bedouin society, but by Jewish society

as well.15

Despite the feminist voice in the coverage of the 2008 local elections, it is important

to stress that it remained limited, framed solely in the context of the difficulties

encountered by women candidates. The first of the two items to display the alternative

frame was the official response of a feminist organization to the barriers placed before

women in politics, and the second was the personal response of a specific activist to the

particular problem she faced as a candidate in a Bedouin community. Thus the feminist

candidates who were represented in the media, no matter how much they were shown to

embody “challenging femininity,” did not influence the social agenda, but merely

responded to the existing patriarchal agenda.

Conclusion

No summary of these findings can ignore the change in the national television news

coverage of women in local politics in Israel in 2008. Although the extent of the coverage of

women remained quite meager, this reflects the sociopolitical reality in which women

politicians are still a small minority. However, whereas the literature emphasizes the

negative stereotypical representation of women politicians in the news, the national TV

news representation of women in the local elections in 2008 was more complex. On the one

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hand, it mirrored the patriarchal power structure, primarily the subordination of women to

men, but on the other hand it also offered a forum for genuine feminist discourse.

A particularly interesting finding relates to the frame of news value, which focused on

the double or triple “otherness” of most of the women candidates deemed worthy of

coverage. Women were still “others” in the sociopolitical arena of local politics in Israel in

2008, with the number of women choosing to run for office being extremely low (16.5%),

and the number of those winning election even lower (9%). Nevertheless, in terms of the

national TV news, it appears that gender “otherness” was no longer considered

newsworthy. A candidate was judged to have news value only if she displayed a

combination of gender and one or more other categories of “otherness.” This raises the

question of whether the representation of women candidates as deviant and breaking

through barriers created a positive image that enhanced their chances of being elected.

The answer lies in the representation itself: in most cases their candidacy was framed as

irrelevant. For example, Asma Elghbariegh, the Arab candidate for mayor of Tel Aviv,

believed she was capable of breaking through the barriers of gender, ethnicity, and culture,

stating, “These are boundaries that . . .boundaries that have to be broken at some time”

(Channel 10, prime time news, 28 October, 2008). However, the reporter concluded the

item about Elghbariegh and her colleague, the Orthodox Jewish woman Aviva Hajbi, who

was also attempting to break through gender and culture barriers, by dismissing their

chance of success, claiming:

But in order for Asma and Aviva to bring down these walls, they will have to win over the

male and female voters, who still prefer to vote for men. And there’s another thing.

Campaigning for mayor can cost as much as three million shekels, and male donors still

prefer to invest in men, and so the cycle remains unbroken. (ibid.)

The theoretical value of the findings stems from their demonstrating that the

representation of women can change in a way that does not necessarily reflect shifts in

sociopolitical reality. A study in the field of news production might be able to identify the

reasons underlying the change by taking into account both the personal features of

journalists (e.g., feminist awareness) and professional/organizational variables, as dynamic

negotiations are very likely conducted between these two dimensions. The frame of news

value as it emerged in this paper may also be associated with the fact that the study

focused on local events which were brought forward into the national arena. As noted

above, Israeli research shows that the sociocultural distance between local events and the

media elite leads to stereotypical coverage. In other words, for a local item to be considered

newsworthy by the national media, it must be framed as deviant.

The results of this study also suggest other issues that go beyond the scope of

research into the media representation of women. First, the positive trend found here in

terms of both the quantity and quality of the coverage of women was manifested mainly in

the items aired on the public channel rather than on the commercial channels. The public

channel constituted more of a space reflecting social and ideological pluralism, thereby

fulfilling its major function by giving legitimacy to the range of viewpoints and perceptions

in society and representing the various groups of which it is comprised. Secondly, the

analysis demonstrated the role of the media in defining symbolic gender boundaries which

merge with the symbolic boundaries of ethnicity. Here, too, the representation was found

to be quite complex. Arab women candidates were framed not only stereotypically as a

threat and “demon,” as in the case of Saadi, but also in a very different manner, with

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Elghbariegh and Al-Habanin shown to be holding a mirror up to Israeli society and

challenging it.

NOTES

1. Based on data from the State of Israel Ministry of the Interior.

2. Based on data from the State of Israel Ministry of the Interior.

3. In Israel, there are no televised election broadcasts for local elections.

4. The interviewees were: Leanne Vildau and Ahmed Abu-Swis (local news section, HOT Cable

TV), Linor Alaluf (Channel 1), and Paz Shwartz (Channel 10).

5. Given the lack of previous studies of the coverage of local elections in Israel, it is difficult to

assess the extent and prominence of the last elections in public discourse in the country.

Nevertheless, it can be said that these elections did not attract considerable attention, as

none of the issues raised entered the public agenda. Moreover, the elections were held

when attention was focused on other events, including Israeli national elections, the US

presidential campaign, and the outbreak of the world economic crisis. In fact, the items

dealing with local elections constituted only 0.8% of all the news items broadcast in the

month leading up to election day.

6. Based on data from the State of Israel Ministry of Interior regarding the elections in 2008.

7. The Bedouin in southern Israel are semi-nomadic and occupy the bottom rung of the

socioeconomic ladder in the country.

8. Her son and another soldier were taken captive in June, 2006, an act that served as the

official cause of the Second Lebanon War. After a two-year struggle for their release, it was

learned that they had been killed at the time of their abduction and their bodies were

returned to Israel.

9. See for example German 2011.

10. Hadash, an acronym for The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality.

11. A suicide bombing by a woman terrorist in Jerusalem’s outdoor market in April, 2002.

12. From an interview by the author with the president of the organization, Michal Yudin, 30

August, 2009.

13. From an interview by the author with Leanne Vildau, 24 August, 2009.

14. For purposes of the analysis, the Arabic version was translated into Hebrew by a native

Arabic speaker.

15. Although polygamy is a felony under Israeli law, official estimates indicate that it is present

in 20–36% of Bedouin families. Almost no action has been taken to curb the practice in the

Bedouin population (A. Lotan 2006).

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Einat Lachover is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Communication, Sapir College, Israel.

Her main research areas include feminist media studies and alternative media. E-mail:

einatl@mail.sapir.ac.il

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