WOTV channel 4 for women not a venue for gender equity

A local TV station produced by and featuring on air personnel that are exclusively women. What a great idea!

The broadcast industry has been so male dominated since its inception, but an all female TV crew could provide West Michigan viewers with perspectives that would be essential to the transformation of this community.

There could be women talking about politics, the economy, health care, the environment, foreign policy and education. These women could be highlighting the achievements of women locally, nationally and globally.

There could be regular segments that look at how women are at the forefront of most major social movements, both historically and at the present. Women are part of every major social uprising around the world, from India to Greece.

There could be regular segments discussing why women are still paid significantly less than men in this country and why there is an increase of women living in poverty and a significant growth in numbers of women in the prison industrial complex in the US.

This would be a great example of giving voice to women and using a local TV station that would truly serve the public interest. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

There is a new TV station devote to women, WOTV channel 4, but the station appears to be using the re-designed channel mostly for commercial purposes that target women in very gender-limiting ways.

By gender limiting I mean the channel features 7 women who offer advice or act as experts on the following topics – motherhood, wellness, eating healthy, local social calendar and financial planning. The station also features a woman who is referred to as the “Zen expert.”

Most of these areas of interest are in very narrowly stereotyped female areas of interest and do not allow for women to address larger political, social and economic issues that equally impact women.

For example, here is the description for the Social Sizzle Expert. “Jordan Carson is the WOTV 4 Women expert on the Social Sizzle, focusing on the hottest events and places around west Michigan! You can spot Jordan checking out the newest Grand Rapids restaurant with the girls, MC’ing a charity event, hitting up local boutiques or strolling around Rosa Park Circle with her Toy Yorkie, Sammy.” This does not really inspire the kind of contribution that women could make that was envisioned by the Women’s Suffrage movement or the various waves of feminism over the past 40 years.

However, the channel does seem to be a mechanism for promoting more commercial messages, which presents women primarily as consumers or more crudely as SHOPPERS.

The WOTV 4 for women website also offers lots of beauty tips and cooking recipes, since we all know this is what it means to be a woman. In addition, the channel seems to be catering to more upscale women and professional women. Women who are struggling financially, women who are grassroots organizers and care givers, educators and healers are not really who this channel seems to be highlighting in its first few weeks of operation. One can look at the WOTV channel 4 for women party pictures to get an indication of the kind of women it serves, with the event being held at the Cygnus 27 restaurant inside the Amway Grand Plaza.

The broadcast industry is given the rights to the airwaves to serve the public interest. The WOTV channel 4 for women at this point doesn’t seem to be serving the public interest, rather it seems to be serving commercial interests. In addition, the channel seems to be doing harm to the gains made by women over the past 100 years by presenting narrow gender conformity based on the topics they cover and the audience they seem to be targeting.

Imagine if that channel featured women from the YWCA, the Grand Rapids chapter of NOW, the women of Our Kitchen Table, women from the GVSU or Aquinas College Women’s Center, female religious leaders, female community organizers and women who fight gender inequity every day in this community. That would be a TV channel worth getting excited over.