"There has to be a sense that radio stations will get it in the neck"- The Women’s Podcast

If a national radio station featured a programme where 90 per cent of the voices were female, listeners would be shocked and say "what's going on here?", former RTE television and radio producer Betty Purcell told Kathy Sheridan on this week's episode of The Women's Podcast.

She joined broadcaster and Irish Examiner columnist Alison O'Connor and Newstalk's Talking Point presenter Sarah Carey to discuss a new study about the dearth of women's voices on the airwaves.

The study, by the National Women’s Council of Ireland and Dublin City University, funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), examined gender balance on primetime current affairs programmes on RTÉ, Newstalk and Today FM. The overall breakdown of voices was 28 per cent female and 72 per cent male, but there was an even less equitable breakdown on individual programmes.

Purcell said: “We need to be asking whether this is acceptable in any way, given that we have a more or less 50/50 gender balance in the country?” She added that she hopes the BAI “will put the pressure on management” so they understand that “gender inequality is no longer acceptable”.

“I think there has to be a sense [in radio stations] that you are going to get it in the neck if you don’t have proper gender balance on your programme,” O’Connor said.

The panellists discussed the merits of gender quotas and consequences for radio stations that do not adhere to gender targets. They also talked about internal bias.

“My theory is that we’re not used to the female voice…I think we all have an internal bias against the female voice because we’re just not used to it and we don’t hear it.

We’re also not used to hearing the female voice speak with authority,” O’Connor said.

Later in the episode, we heard from comedian Grainne Maguire, whose recent tweets about her menstrual cycle directed to Taoiseach Enda Kenny inspired countless Irish women to do the same as part of the repeal the 8th campaign.

The tweets made international news headlines, and on the podcast, Maguire talked about her very interesting week.

Also on the podcast this week Irish Times columnist Hilary Fannin spoke to Bernice Harrison about the art of memoir writing and her own memoir, Hopscotch, published by Doubleday, about growing up in 1960s Dublin.

“Once you open the door and walk into that period of your life, it’s quite extraordinary what will come out to greet you. I don’t think we forget anything, I think we just put dust covers on things,” said Fannin.

November is food month at The Irish Times, and next week The Women’s Podcast is all about food.

In keeping with that theme, The Women’s Podcast wants to know: What is your guiltiest food pleasure?

Listeners are invited to tweet their answers to the question of the week @ITWomensPodcast, post to our Facebook page or email thewomenspodcast@irishtimes.com.

Individual episodes of the podcast are available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher.