@inproceedings{8745489,
  abstract     = {{The representation of female politicians has been the subject of numerous studies within feminist media
research. They almost unanimously report a numerical underrepresentation of female representatives
and more emphasis on their appearance, age, and family life. This generates two primary effects that
are detrimental to a modern democratic society. First and foremost, underrepresentation harms the
evaluation of officeholders and candidates and, by extension, their chances of election victory or the
preservation of their elected office (Goodyear-Grant, 2013). Second, the absence of role models in
political roles makes it more likely for adolescents to stay alienated from seeking political office. The
result will be ‘a continuation of political underrepresentation for the foreseeable future’ (Goodyear-Grant,
2013). Although there are many recent studies on the subject, most of them focus solely on the
representation of women candidates in an electoral context (Lühiste & Banducci, 2016; D’Heer, De
Vuyst, and Van Leuven, 2021). This paper wants to address these shortcomings by conducting an indepth
quantitative content analysis of 4,298 individual mentions in 3,528 articles from five different
Flemish newspapers about nine ministers during three distinct periods of the legislative cycle. We find
that the numerical underrepresentation of women is less evident than in previous research. In terms of
substantive media representation, female politicians’ private lives, age, and personality traits are not
referred to more often than those of their male colleagues. However, we do notice a strong focus on
women’s gender throughout the entire political cycle and their physical appearance during the election
period.}},
  author       = {{Storme, Elise}},
  booktitle    = {{Belgium : State of the Federation 2021, Proceedings}},
  keywords     = {{Content analysis,newspaper coverage,gender bias,Flanders,representation,women,politics}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Namur, Belgium (online)}},
  pages        = {{27}},
  title        = {{How about the female voice : evaluating the representation of Flemish ministers in newspaper articles}},
  url          = {{https://events.unamur.be/event/48/}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}