Seksisme in de media

A successful candidate who presents herself as a competitive woman in the popular TV programme The Cleverest Person in the World, rather than as a TV babe, has thereby made herself extremely unpopular with Flemish viewers. In this same programme, we usually get sexist jokes from grinning male members of the jury. And in the Netherlands two new TV programmes made for and by women have been uncommonly harshly written off by commentators, newspapers and magazines.
 
So what’s going on? Is sexism really spreading in the media? Has political incorrectness become the done thing? Do we have to be ‘incorrect’ to be sharp and funny? Or is there nothing new under the sun?

Nica Broucke, chief editor of Elle
Marianne van Leeuwen, co-founder of Sisteract, an Amsterdam-based marketing agency
Karl van den Broeck, editor of Knack
Corine Van Hellemont, philosopher, expert in gender studies and researcher in communication sciences at Antwerp University. Publications include ‘Seksistische reclame’ (Sexist Advertising) (Acco, 2008).
Chantal Pattyn, director of the Klara radio channel, chairs the debate.