Women in media ‘tired of waiting’ for fair go

By Sarah Goff-Tunks, Caitlin Maloney, and Jessica D’Souza

Women continue to be underrepresented in leadership roles in Australian media, holding less than a quarter of senior positions, according to the latest report by Women in Media. 

Though women make up 41 per cent of the Australian media workforce, they only hold 23 per cent of the industry’s leadership roles. 

Strategic advisor for Women in Media, Petra Buchanan presented these findings from the Women in Media Industry Insights Report 2025 at their national conference.

“This report isn’t just a set of numbers, it’s a story of what it feels like to work in media as a woman in 2025,” said Buchanan during her address.

She added: “Women are ambitious; they are capable, but too often they’re feeling stuck, and they’re tired of waiting”.

A common experience echoed in this year’s report – which received over 300 responses from women working across media and communications – was the feeling among women that they were “doing everything right” but not making any progress with their career, according to Buchanan.

Women unsure or dissatisfied with their career path reached a four year high of 59 per cent, with pay, limited growth opportunities and disengagement found to be some of the main reasons for women considering leaving their job in media.

When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality can feel like oppression… We just want to reflect half the population, but to them [men] it feels like they’re being oppressed.

The lack of female media leaders was a key topic of Women in Media’s National Conference, where journalists, writers, producers, actors and media professionals gathered to discuss ongoing challenges for women in the industry.

Buchanan told the audience the report’s findings were “signals of systemic challenges across the media landscape”.

“That disconnect between policy and practice is where trust breaks down,” she said.

Buchanan said limited improvements to growth opportunities for women will have significant consequences for the media industry.

“When women don’t progress, we lose leaders, mentors, diverse perspectives, and balanced public conversation,” she said.

American journalist and podcaster Hanna Rosin also spoke at length about misogyny in the American media landscape during her keynote address.

A senior editor at The Atlantic, Rosin has researched and written about the growing dominance of women in public life in several articles and books.

“The problem for women… is that whoever’s in power loves to tell stories for women. But the power of women is… wiggling out of these stories to tell their own versions that they know in their bones to be true,” she said. 

People are getting frustrated with traditional legacy media that isn’t reflecting them, that isn’t speaking to them, so instead of just sitting there, they’re going to social media

Rosin was hopeful when speaking about the future of women in public landscapes dominated by male voices. 

“In times when I feel inundated by the news, I think to myself, ‘women move’,” she said. 

“We are objects in motion. And objects in motion stay in motion.”

 

Despite increased national reforms to implement gender equality targets, the report found 74 per cent of women said their employer had not communicated how they intended to address gender pay gaps in their workplace. 

Charlotte Mortlock, former Sky News journalist and founder of Hilma’s Network – a movement encouraging women to join the Liberal Party – said much of her work is about reassuring people that increasing inclusivity in the Coalition is not about trying to get rid of men.

Despite the Liberal Party committing to 50 per cent female representation across the nation’s parliaments by 2025, only 33 per cent of Liberal MPs in Australia are women.

“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality can feel like oppression… We just want to reflect half the population, but to them [men] it feels like they’re being oppressed,” she said.

“I think that the language that we put around that is really important because we cannot demonise young men, and we cannot say ‘you’re ridiculous’. We have to, I think personally as a very vocal feminist, we have to be responsible in the language that we are using because when young men go off the rails, it impacts women.”

Mortlock also said that young people are turning away from mainstream media in the same way they are turning their backs on major political parties.

“People are getting frustrated with traditional legacy media that isn’t reflecting them, that isn’t speaking to them, so instead of just sitting there, they’re going to social media and they are finding other people that do look like them, that do have a lived experience that they can relate to, and they are following them,” she said.

“It is an opportunity that we as a political landscape, as a media landscape, that we can respond to and say, okay, if you are in traditional media, I don’t think that should cause you to panic and get furious.

“I think you should go ‘right, we need to make sure that we are speaking to them. We need to make sure that we are connected to them and creating media that they want to hear, that is interesting.’” 

I’m jealous of your mainstream media voices because I think for a lot of powerful women in the US, the price is really, really high.

 

Hannah Ferguson, CEO of Cheek Media agreed that legacy media needed to adapt to younger audiences.

“What you need is a really tiny microphone and someone who cares,” she said.

Ferguson criticised traditional media organisations for their unwillingness to create more news content tailored to younger audiences.

“Their refusal [to adapt] is proof and evidence that they can’t actually keep up,” she said. 

However, Rosin praised Australian media for being more trusted than US mainstream media, as well as Australia’s history of tough and “badass” female interviewers. 

“Mainstream institutional media in Australia has a lot of foothold here. It still has a lot of respect,” she said.

Referring to the assassination of Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman in June, Rosin said: “I’m jealous of your mainstream media voices because I think for a lot of powerful women in the US, the price is really, really high”.

Main image of Edwina Bartholomew by Sarah Goff-Tunks.