Most Australian Broadcasting Corporation's broadcasters present in their programs - as their interviewee - the male speaker in society and predominantly so. His interpretation, opinion, insight, outlook, imagination, advice, adventures, scholarship, dominates ABC programs, whereas the female interviewee/speaker rarely rates a mention; she is heavily out-numbered, despite the fact that females are half the population, 'hold up half the sky.'
We live by rules, laws, by-laws, and mores formulated and articulated by the male mind. Merit too, is an entity advanced by the male mind. Look at the books on your shelves, in our libraries and bookshops, on our curricula. Discover how many male speakers represent our lives, how few female speakers are represented; listen, note, how many interviewees, heard on Radio National are male - how few are female.
While I appreciate, and sometimes immensely so, what men past and present have written and wrought (thank you, WB Yeats; thank you, Patrick White, et al) the fact that the overwhelming majority of speakers/Speakers on the benches of influence and inclusion are male, is one of the greatest challenges the female voice faces.
Since the ABC states itself to be "an independent and comprehensive broadcaster which delivers innovative and quality services and programming to the community," I make this public appeal to its organisers to lead the way by broadcasting the male as well as the female interviewee/speaker in approximately even numbers. Democracy, after all, depends on numbers.
The ABC says that "it holds the power to make programming decisions on behalf of the people of Australia." And that "By law and convention neither the Government nor Parliament seeks to intervene in those decisions." Yet have ABC's organisers/managers/editors noticed how the male speaker virtually monopolises their/our programs - has the ABC Board considered the inequality of having, overwhelmingly, the male interviewee as their speaker?
I would like to live in a society where it is possible to have a gender balance, a gender equality, an equalism principle, in the ABC's programs, by inviting the expertise as well as the experience from males and females who work in universities, in Parliament, at home, in the judiciary, in commerce, in libraries, at the many publishers, writing centres, the police, the media, & community centres. Move to halt the injustice of the token female speaker syndrome at "our ABC".
The ABC may yet care to investigate the number of male speakers on the programs broadcast by Jill Kitson, Geraldine Doogue, and Ramona Koval, as well as the number of female speakers they have interviewed in those same last 6 years, 6 months, 6 weeks. Note too, the books written, overwhelmingly, by the male writer - and discussed on Channel Two's Jennifer Byrne's First Tuesday in the Month book club.
The diversity of voices on "our" ABC's programs and programming is predominantly a diversity among male speakers. I'm asking that the ABC refrains from a "following the path of the least resistance" presence in their programs, settling, overwhelmingly, for the male interviewee - and thus, speaker. It is possible to make the transition from ramparts to riches.
