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A moment, or a movement? Three women media leaders forecast the future of their industry in the #MeToo era

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A moment, or a movement? Three women media leaders forecast the future of their industry in the #MeToo era

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Content 1

A MOMENT, OR A MOVEMENT?
THREE WOMEN MEDIA LEADERS FORECAST THE FUTURE OF THEIR
INDUSTRY IN THE #METOO ERA

by

Mirabella McDowell

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS (SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)

August 2019

Copyright Mirabella McDowell 2019
2
Acknowledgements

To Sasha Anawalt, my thesis chair, thank you. Thank you for seeing my potential as a
writer and as an arts journalist, for gently nudging me out of my comfort zone, and for your
unwavering faith in me and in this project. Thank you for seeing a place for me in your
incredible Arts Journalism program, and for making Annenberg feel like home; your warmth,
passion and enthusiasm is inspiring.
To Matthew LeVeque, thank you for our numerous conversations on this topic and
others; for your words of advice and reassurance, and for always encouraging my thoughts and
viewpoints. Your help, in myriad aspects of this program, has meant so much to me. Thank you
for taking the time. Most of all, thank you for listening.
To Alex Jutkowitz: Thank you for teaching me the art of strategic storytelling. You’ve
allowed me to imagine new possibilities and opportunities for myself, and your guidance has
been absolutely invaluable. Thank you for instilling in me the importance of wonder, wisdom,
and delight, and for being a constant source of them yourself.
Thank you to my many other brilliant Annenberg professors as well, namely Tim Page
and Mary Murphy. You’ve all collectively changed my life in the best possible way, and I quite
literally wouldn’t be where I am without you. I will forever be grateful to have you as mentors
and as friends; thank you for everything.
To my extraordinarily talented Arts Journalism and Annenberg colleagues, thank you for
your edits, your insights, and your kindness.
And finally, to my family: None of this would be possible without you. From answering
every single one of my calls when I was excited about a new idea, to reading countless drafts and
calming my endless worries, thank you, from the very bottom of my heart. This is for you.
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 2

Abstract 4

Introduction: Revisiting Gloria Steinem’s “The Media and the Movement: A User’s Guide” 5

Chapter 1: The Feminist Case for Entitlement 12
In Conversation with Cindi Leive, Former Editor-in-Chief of Glamour Magazine

Chapter 2: An Intersectional Future for Women Media Entrepreneurs 18
In Conversation with May Lee, Founder of Lotus Media House

Chapter 3: Changing the Context for Women in Media 23
In Conversation with Sarah Harden, CEO of Hello Sunshine

Conclusion: No Turning Back: The Fate of the Media and the Movement 28

References and Resources 31

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Abstract

Drawing on the ideas set forth in Gloria Steinem’s piece, “The Media and the Movement:
A User’s Guide,” the following series of interviews and essays aim to outline the current role of
the media in the Women’s Rights Movement, and vice versa. Ultimately, this collection seeks to
answer one central question: Will our current cultural moment, often called, “The #MeToo Era,”
bring about real change for women in the media industry?
The word “media” in this work is applied broadly – traditional print, broadcast,
television, film, and the Internet all fall under this terminology, as each assist in creating and
reflecting our culture. This piece traces a path through history, from the suffragette movement to
present-day, in order to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the media industry’s
enduring, evolving relationship with the Women’s Movement.
At the core of this work is a succession of interviews with pioneering women media
leaders, their dialogue meant to contribute context, depth, and diverse perspectives to the
discussion. These three women share personal accounts of their own defining experiences, assess
the state of the media industry today, and give predictions for its fate.
In the end, each woman essentially comes to the same conclusion: Though there is still
progress to be made in reconciling the media with the Women’s Movement, there’s no going
back from this moment. However, these essays fundamentally argue that in order for this
feminist momentum to sustain itself into the future, more women must be afforded positions of
leadership in the media industry.

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Introduction
Revisiting Gloria Steinem’s “The Media and the Movement: A User’s Guide”

For as long as there has been a Women’s Movement, women have been endeavoring to
use – that is, reclaim, repurpose, infiltrate, invent, and reimagine – the media to shape and
propagate their message.
Such is the premise of women’s rights activist and journalist Gloria Steinem’s landmark
piece, “The Media and the Movement: A User’s Guide.” Published in 2003 as part of Robin
Morgan’s all-encompassing feminist anthology Sisterhood is Forever: The Women's Anthology
for a New Millennium, Steinem carefully lays out the past, present, and predicted-future
relationship between the Women’s Movement and the media. The media, she explains, has
enormous influence in shaping public opinion and dialogue; even dictators know to seize control
of the media “before seizing control of land or people” (Steinem 2003, 103).
But today, women can use the media to advance the movement in ways not remotely
imagined even a few years ago. Social media, now an integral part of modern life, is
democratizing feminism. Outcries that largely began as hashtag activism like #MeToo and
#TimesUp are not only radically amplifying women’s voices, but are remolding the media
landscape and raising the standard of accountability in the top echelons of companies. Female
change-makers, risk-takers, and trailblazers – many verified as such on social media with the
highly-coveted, tiny blue check mark – can mobilize viewers around the world with a single
post.
Gloria Steinem anticipated the burgeoning potential of this digital revolution, ending her
own “The Media and the Movement” piece with these galvanizing words: “With all the world
6
now only seconds away, can we fail to seize the moment – and the movement?” (117). Almost
two decades later, could she be right? Are the media and the movement finally aligning?
To understand the current role of the media, it’s critical first to understand the movement.
Sarah Banet-Weiser, a professor of feminist theory at the University of Southern California, dubs
this new feminist wave “popular feminism” in her book Empowered: Popular Feminism and
Popular Misogyny.
According to Banet-Weiser, popular feminism restructures the politics of feminism to
focus on the individual woman, reversing the historical feminist politics of “the personal is
political” to “the political is personal” (Banet-Weiser 2018, 17). Individual women are
emboldened to become “empowered entrepreneurs” and realize their full capacity as leaders,
responding to “centuries of being undervalued as citizens and overvalued as objectified bodies”
(45).
Digital media has afforded spaces and places for popular feminists to create media, voice
their opinions, and launch businesses, says Banet-Weiser. With an emphasis on metrics, likes,
clicks, and followers, feminists are using this newfound visibility to rectify gendered injustices,
highlight women’s experiences, and disassemble harmful and outdated stereotypes (18, 19).
While this emphasis on visibility has prompted some marketers to conflate activism with
consumerism, this context ultimately allows feminism to reach a much wider audience than
previously possible.
The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, for instance, founded by Dr. Stacy Smith at USC
Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, concentrates on women’s representation
in the mainstream media. These “inclusionists,” as they call themselves, cull hard data and
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assemble annual reports on diversity in Hollywood in continuous efforts to reverse the
entertainment industry’s deep-seated inequities and ingrained biases.
Smith’s team recently launched the 4% challenge, imploring Hollywood studios to
increase the number of women (and women of color) in the director’s chair; the challenge has
since been accepted by many of Hollywood’s biggest, most influential studios, from Universal to
MGM (The Hollywood Reporter).
In recent years, millions of women have sought out female role models online, too. This,
along with an unprecedented circulation of feminist imagery on the web, similarly suggest a
watershed moment.
The photograph of Christine Blasey Ford, hand raised in the air before Congress, became
a visual representation of women’s shared rage towards institutions that ignore or suppress
sexual misconduct allegations; the snapshot was shared innumerable times over. House
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweets her policy positions, fostering key discourses
with her constituents; many in Congress, men and women, have followed her lead. Nancy
Pelosi’s “clap-back” meme made her the face of women-fed-up-with-men’s-shit overnight, while
well-known and highly “followed” actresses, like Selena Gomez, Mindy Kaling and Jameela
Jamil persistently opt to use their media platforms to promote body-positive, female-centric
messages for women.
This is all incredibly heartening. But when fully teased out, this relationship between
women’s liberation and the press is riddled with instances of flagrant misogyny manifested in
media prejudices. The media and the movement have, more often than not, been embroiled in
eerily similar conflicts decade after decade, as backlash faithfully trails the movement like a
moth drawn to light.
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This can be traced as far back as the 1920’s, when the focus of the Women’s Movement
was largely on taking legal steps toward equality: “The vote is the emblem of your equality,
women of America, the guarantee of your liberty,” suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt announced
proudly. But the suffragettes, if not entirely overlooked by a male-run media, were often
ridiculed in the press, miscast as insane or militant and caricatured with thick glasses and
galoshes, huffing on cigars (Aragon and Miller 2012).
These women attempted to control their collective image by rallying in traditional high-
necked Edwardian blouses and long skirts, helping to legitimize themselves in the public eye and
garner support for their cause (Stylist). Yet, with men in charge of nearly every publishing house,
the mainstream press did little to service the feminist cause.
Decades later, the movement began to make more headway. Women of the 1960’s
revived the suffragettes’ momentum, publicly denouncing their perennial place in society as the
“second sex,” as French feminist Simone de Beauvoir asserted. Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking
novel The Feminine Mystique – which pedaled the notion that women (shockingly!) wanted
more than to see-saw between the roles of mother and spouse – challenged the media-idealized
image of the perpetually cheery, fulfilled suburban house-wife.
As one woman in Friedan’s novel implored, "I'm desperate. I begin to feel I have no
personality. I'm a server of food and a putter-on of pants and a bedmaker, somebody who can be
called on when you want something. But who am I?" (Friedan 1963, 21).
In the famed two-part article “A Bunny’s Tale,” too, a scantily clad Gloria Steinem –
bunny ears, bustier and all – penned her own exposé on the exploitative environment of the
Playboy Mansion, calling attention to issues like workplace harassment and discrimination and
proving her work could rival the print powerhouse Playboy Magazine (she would found Ms.
9
magazine years later). But for a time, the piece prevented Steinem from being offered more
weighty assignments; journalism remained a heavily male-dominated profession, and as she later
reflected, “I had now become a Bunny—and it didn’t matter why.” (Steinem 1995).
The publication of Our Bodies, Ourselves further signaled a pivotal step in dismantling
stigmas surrounding openly discussing women’s health topics. The book, however, regarded as
“obscene trash” by evangelical pastor Jerry Falwell, was banned in countless libraries and
schools (CNN).
Despite tangible successes achieved in the 60’s, the movement was dogged by an apathy
towards feminism in the Reagan-era, with crusades to halt its advancement led by a zealous
religious right. Media inventions like the “man-shortage” and “infertility epidemic” were later
exposed as being part of this counterattack.
Our current moment seems once again imbued with a new burst of feminist energy
perhaps not felt since the long-haired, free-love days: Women around the world are marching in
pink “pussyhats” and wielding hand-made signs; the pejorative slur “nasty woman” has been
reclaimed by feminists as a unifying battle cry; intersectional feminism has become a
fundamental ideology, now regularly expressed in art and in politics.
But this moment, while also taking up the century-long fight for gender parity in every
arena of daily life, seems most earnestly concerned with putting women in positions of
leadership. A historic number of women were elected to Congress last year, Nancy Pelosi was
reappointed as Speaker of the House, and Hillary Clinton earned the popular vote in the last
presidential election.
Even now, though, backlash to the movement is glaringly obvious, rearing its chauvinist
head in the media. Hillary Clinton’s presidential run serves as the quintessential example. In her
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memoir Dear Madam President: An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World,
Jennifer Palmieri, former Director of Communications for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential
campaign, illustrates how Clinton was forced to run for office “with half her humanity tied
behind her back,” largely for fear of how she would be represented in the media, and
consequently, to the American people (Palmieri 2018, 8).
The result, Palmieri acknowledges, is that rather than fashioning a new model of
leadership for women, Clinton was reduced merely to “a female facsimile of the qualities we
expect to see in a male president” (6). She was lambasted in both subtle and deliberate ways by
the press, with coverage overwhelmingly dedicated to her unlikability and inauthenticity. Her
looks, demeanor, clothing and even her cadence were all put under intense scrutiny. Palmieri
notes that this “unconscious but pervasive gendered bias… held Hillary back in many ways,”
further adding, “It is hard for her story to be told when people are too busy disliking the sound of
her voice to listen to what she is saying” (40, 127).
Even after the injurious treatment of Hillary Clinton, publications continue to print
regressive non-stories that undermine progressive women: The Hill recently published a story
headlined, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s mom hopes she gets married soon.” Another, from
Politico: “Kamala Harris is connecting with audiences – sometimes to a fault.” Equally
infuriating is that still, to a stunning degree, media outlets choose to use photographs that
negligibly reinforce sexist tropes of the outspoken woman as being “hysterical” or “overly
emotional.”
The issue, therefore, is paradoxical. An intensifying, collective desire to have more
female leaders is apparent. But despite the media being in a state of great disruption, the industry
lags behind myriad others in promoting gender equality in its own structures: In 2018, the World
11
Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), through its Women in News
(WIN) program, found that only 17 percent of women in news were in leadership positions at the
world’s 100 largest media corporations (The Herald). This lack of women in the highest levels of
power in the media, unsurprisingly, affects the portrayal of women (namely ambitious women)
in news coverage, as well as how women’s issues are discussed and to what degree.
It seems that even with the leaps and bounds of progress the Women’s Movement has
made over the past century, one thing is overt and inescapable: Without more women leading top
media companies, the media and the movement can never truly align, and the movement can
never reach its full potential.
I spoke with three female pioneers in the media industry – Cindi Leive, former editor-in-
chief of Glamour magazine; May Lee, founder of Lotus Media House; and Sarah Harden, CEO
of Hello Sunshine – about the groundbreaking companies they head, all which put women and
women’s stories at the center. Each woman conveys her own defining experiences, considers
what our current moment means for the industry, and imparts bits of counsel to the next
generation of women media leaders.
Their accounts, individually and collectively, provide a model of, and forge a path to, the
future of the media industry, a future where media corporations necessitate placing women in the
highest ranks of leadership and, finally and decisively, reconcile the media with the movement.

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Chapter 1: The Feminist Case for Entitlement
In Conversation with Cindi Leive, Former Editor-in-Chief of Glamour Magazine

Cindi Leive can plainly recall an era not-so-long ago when women’s liberation seemed
little more than a punchline.
“I remember one of my classmates stood up and made an impassioned speech to our 10
th

grade history class about the Equal Rights Amendment,” she tells me, “how it was up for
ratification, and how we all needed to support it. Everybody laughed, and thought it was such a
joke” (Leive 2019).
Growing up in the 1980’s – an era when conservative, post-feminist mania saturated the
media – Leive is all too familiar with the persistent pushback to the Women’s Movement.
Perhaps this is part of the reason the 52-year-old former editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine, a
position she held for 16 years, has been a fierce advocate for women throughout her prolific
career, using her access to prominent media pipelines to touch on topics like abortion, women in
politics, and female leadership – matters that are still largely taboo, shrouded in controversy, or
both.
To get a sense of Leive’s passion for the Women’s Movement, one only has to listen to
some of her most recent commentary on how women are treated in our world today. “We don't
really embrace female rage, which is why bestselling books for women about work are usually
called things like "Lean In," and not, “Screw You, Kevin, for Taking Credit for My Work After
You Interrupted Me 12 Times in That Meeting," Leive pronounced on the PBS segment “Brief
but Spectacular” (PBS NewsHour).
She paused, then added with a wry smile, “Which is a book I would buy.”
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From a young age, Leive was raised to understand the value of female power: Her mother
was a biochemist at a time when there were few female scientists, and her experiences deeply
impressed upon Leive that “women are as fully equipped for excellence as men.” Early on,
however, Leive was lured not into the realm of neatly-pressed lab coats and glass microscope
slides, as her mother was, but to a wholly different undertaking: Journalism.
Growing up, Leive immersed herself in the comics of “Brenda Starr, Reporter.” She
would later intern at a few magazines in college before eventually landing her first job at a
fashion magazine, where she truly found her niche. While she never saw herself assuming an
editor-in-chief position, her perception of herself began to shift with the help of supportive,
visionary female mentors like Ruth Whitney, who herself served as editor-in-chief of Glamour
for three decades.
Leive first held the position of editor-in-chief of Self, also a Condé Nast publication,
before becoming editor-in-chief of one of the nation’s premier women’s magazines, Glamour.
This was Leive’s defining role, and one she would revolutionize; under her incisive tutelage, the
magazine transmogrified. Leive is responsible for growing Glamour’s audience to a record 20
million across print and digital, expanding the magazine’s principal “Women of the Year”
award, and establishing barrier-breaking initiatives like “Powered by Women,” which promotes
the use of female photographers, stylists and other creative talent in the industry (USC CCLP).
Leive also founded, “The Girl Project,” to support girls’ education – making Glamour the
first women’s media brand with a nonprofit initiative. She launched The51million website during
the contentious 2016 election season, a site covering political issues for women in real time;
Hillary Clinton was the first presidential candidate to be endorsed by Glamour (USC CCLP).
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Because of Leive’s inestimable triumphs, she is exceedingly well-versed in the incredible
impact of the media on women, particularly in this moment. So, I asked her opinion: Is the media
finally in alignment with the Women’s Movement?
She hesitates before responding. “Yes, and no,” she decides.
Leive maintains that a fundamental goal of this feminist upsurge is to collectively, as a
society, “retrain our eyes,” to notice not only how women are being represented, but women’s
utter lack of representation as well. For instance, “If you show a crowd scene to a group of men,
they will believe that the scene is female-dominated if it’s only 33% women,” she explains.
“This is because when you’re used to seeing maybe one woman, adding even a few women to
the mix makes it look, to many people, like a lot. This same phenomenon is why you get people
in boardrooms now saying, wow! There’s so many women in here, all our issues are done and
solved! When in reality, probably 3 out of 20 people in the room are women.”
But Leive says she has also noticed huge signs of progress, many of which stem from the
transparency that social media provides.
Using Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as an example, she explains, “It’s still frustratingly true
that whenever there’s a story about a powerful woman expressing herself, like Ocasio-Cortez,
she is likely to be illustrated with her mouth open, her face is in a sneer, and her finger wagging,
in this sort of classic, angry woman pose. But it’s also true that whoever has published that
image will now get called on it by women on social media, who are talking about all the other
images that could’ve been used instead.”
Leive also credits some of this most recent headway to the work of key players in the
media. Investigative reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey – who broke the Harvey
Weinstein story in The New York Times – “caused so many editors all over the country to issue
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investigations of harassment, which was once considered just so every day and boring as to not
be worth major column inches or time,” says Leive. Another example is filmmaker Dawn
Porter’s documentary “Trapped,” which examines restrictive abortion laws across the country.
“Individual journalists across social media are using their own platforms to critique the
world and media coverage from a feminist perspective,” she says. Leive herself has a whopping
231K followers on Twitter, her voice proving to be a vital one in the online discourse and debate
of feminist ideology.
Still, Leive remains cautiously optimistic when discussing the gains being made, as if
anticipating a déjà vu moment akin to her experience in that 10
th
grade history class. Speaking on
whether or not the media and the movement are finally aligned, she confesses, “I don’t think
we’re there yet, even two years after the election, and two years into this hyper-awareness of this
presentation of women.”
When asked about a potential backlash to the movement, she is resolute in her response.
“I have no doubt that we will go into a moment where all the things people are doing right now,
with the marches, the ‘future is female’ tee-shirts all over Instagram, the constant headlines about
#MeToo, those will recede,” she explains.
A backlash will be “inevitable,” she indicates, and notes that in some ways, it may have
already begun. Leive cites recent accounts of men in corporate workplaces who have been
minimizing their contact with female colleagues rather than instituting substantive policy
changes in their organizations. Some male executives have even gone so far as to conduct
“secret” meetings excluding female coworkers, complaining that it’s just “too complicated” to be
around women in the workplace right now (The New York Times).
16
While this backsliding is undoubtedly troubling, it also reflects an imperative attitudinal
transition in our culture: That women expect to be treated with a certain amount of respect by
their male colleagues, and this respect is being demanded, not politely pleaded or patiently
implored.
Leive posits that this is a result of a confluence of factors, one of the most obvious being
the election of Donald Trump. “No matter what you think about Hillary Clinton,” she says, “she
was a highly qualified candidate and did virtually everything that the textbook said a woman
needed to do in order to be elected. When Trump won, it showed that millions of people could
turn their back to the fact that they were electing someone who had bragged about sexual assault.
Many women woke up to the underlying misogyny that had been there for so long.”
But Leive says generational dynamics are at play here, too.
“You have a generation of women who have been raised to have higher expectations of
how they’re going to be treated at work, which has led to completely appropriate indignation and
outrage at workplace abuses that women maybe 10 or 20 years older wouldn’t have had. Older
generations used to roll their eyes at the entitlement of millennials, but we as women should have
been acting a lot more entitled this entire time.”
“There is a feminist case to be made for entitlement,” she continues. “I think that attitude
among younger women has helped push a lot of this forward, in the same way you see the
fearlessness of teenagers after Parkland and that refusal to sit quietly and grieve, instead owning
this willingness to be outraged.”
In the end, it’s this concept of female entitlement that will keep the movement alive, says
Leive. And as a leading female figure in the media industry, Leive emphasizes how essential it is
to make sure that the work being done now is not ephemeral: That a strong enough underpinning
17
is created that this moment will continue to effect legal, social, and systemic change, in the
media and beyond.
“Right now, what’s wonderful with all these young women who have joined Congress,
and with this next generation of female entrepreneurs too,” she says, “is they are saying, I’ve
seen the Hillarys of the world try to bend themselves into pretzel shapes to conform to someone
else’s idea of how women should act, and I’m just not going to do it. This fundamentally will
change our idea of what a leader is.”
And the media’s role, she says, is that the more you see women in Congress like
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – with her red lipstick and social media presence – or the more you
see women as chairs of the board, the more this idea of the female leader becomes both
normalized and demystified. Consequently, our notions of what a leader is, can be, and looks like
are reimagined.
“The genie cannot be fully put back in the bottle,” Leive concludes assuredly.
“Expectations will never be the same. I have a 16-year-old daughter, and her expectations of
what she deserves as an adult woman have been shaped by this moment in time. There’s no
going back.”

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Chapter 2: An Intersectional Future for Women Media Entrepreneurs
In Conversation with May Lee, Founder of Lotus Media House

May Lee rightfully earned herself the nickname, “Asia’s Oprah Winfrey” (The New York
Times).
She is a maverick in the media world: After braving both racial and gendered prejudices
as a budding journalist, Lee became the first female Korean-American correspondent hired by
CNN. Her impressive track-record includes news anchor and reporter positions at titan-broadcast
networks CNBC Asia, CNN in Tokyo, CNN International in Hong Kong, and ABC New York
and Los Angeles.
In her decade-spanning career, Lee has also held the title of host innumerable times,
including for Oxygen Media’s two-hour flagship talk-show “Pure Oxygen”; for the travel
segment “Trippin’ Out with May Lee,” which took her on adventures to Mt. Everest, Patagonia,
and beyond; and even for “Squawk Box,” the “ultimate ‘pre-market’ morning news and talk
program,” on CNBC U.S. (Lotus Media House).
Lee’s sobriquet didn’t result from any of these particular achievements, though. It wasn’t
until the 53-year-old newscaster moved to Singapore in the early 2000’s that this endearing title
was dubbed, along with another: Lee officially became a media entrepreneur.
“This was my second ‘Tour of Duty’ in Asia, and what I really noticed was an evolution
of women in Asia,” says Lee. “I was fascinated by the fact that Asian women were starting to
find their voice, and sort of rising up and becoming very independent. I thought to myself, why
isn’t there some sort of media vehicle that can showcase what’s happening here?” (Lee 2018).
19
Lee was, in fact, keenly attuned to a major cultural occurrence slowly unfurling in Asia,
specifically in Singapore. According to The Straits Times: Singapore, the 2000’s bore witness to
the rise of Singapore as a hub for non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), with a flurry of
them dedicated specifically to the feminist agenda: Beautiful People, Daughters of Tomorrow,
Women on a Mission, and U.N. Women Singapore's Global Social Entrepreneurship
Competition were among those established.
Their aims ranged from securing women’s livelihoods, to improving education for young
girls, and enacting measures to further ensure women’s safety. This moment has been credited as
a catalyst of Singapore’s modern-day feminism, whose influence sweeps well-beyond
Singapore’s shores and is concerned not only with monetary and physical support for women,
but now, virtual support as well (The Straits Times: Singapore).
Lee ultimately took it upon herself to distill this feminist verve into a format and medium
accessible to a global audience, producing the first Pan-Asian women’s talk show. For her, the
show meant representing and celebrating the modern woman of Asia by “discussing the issues
women care about.” In conjunction with this new project, Lee founded her own media
production and consulting company, Lotus Media House, which she bluntly characterizes as the
most difficult thing she’s ever done.
“There’s that analogy, like you’re building the plane as it’s taking off?” she jokes. “That
is quite literally what it felt like for me.”
While Lee’s Winfrey-esque talk-show, suitably christened “The May Lee Show,” ran for
only one season due to a lack of funding, she perceives the show as an overall success.
“I was so motivated by trying to elevate women’s voices in Asia because I saw this
incredible movement there, and I wanted to use my media voice to create a kind of platform to
20
foster awareness for it,” she explains. “It was all about women for me – giving them a voice and
empowering them.”
But Lee is not naïve to the intrinsic, looming sexism that made it exceedingly difficult for
her to gain corporate financiers. In an interview for The Wall Street Journal: Asia Edition in
2007, Lee sighed, "If this were a men's show about cars, or whatever, I would easily get
sponsors" (Chosun Media).
In the 13 episodes of “The May Lee Show” that did air – in Singapore, Hong Kong,
Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines – Lee’s allegiance to women’s stories, specifically those
of Asian women, is palpable in many of her chosen subject matters. In one episode entitled
“Change Makers,” Lee spends time with an animal conservationist named Lek, and encourages
her to open up about her noble, albeit arduous, endeavor to institute a sanctuary for mistreated
elephants in Chiang-Mai, Thailand.
Another segment focuses on standards of beauty among Asian women; following a clip
from the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty in Singapore – which portrays young Asian women
feeling ashamed that they are overweight, have curly hair, or do not have “double eyelids” – Lee
discusses the effectiveness of these types of ads. Lee’s episode on sexuality features a small,
butterfly-shaped vibrator with antennae that “flutter,” and after her female guest jests that the
vibrator could even be suitable for the workplace, Lee playfully quips, “This would make sitting
behind a desk more interesting.”
“The May Lee Show” highlights universally resonant themes of feminism. With razor-
sharp precision, Lee illustrated the need for diverse perspectives in the media – namely, those of
empowered women leaders. But Lee’s talk show also demonstrates the specificity of feminism,
that certain feminist issues matter to distinct peoples and cultures around the world in varying
21
degrees. Today, Lee’s media conglomerate, in its dutiful focus on women of color, continues to
knit these two aspects of feminism – the universal and the specific – together. Her work models
an intersectional future for female media leaders, carving out a space for those like Lee who are
emboldened, not reluctant, to bring their own experiences to their coverage.
“I do these things because I want to project an image that people need to see, which is a
powerful, confident Korean-American woman who breaks the stereotypes,” says Lee. “Even in
groups of color, it's still men who typically get more of the attention than the women. For me, it's
very important to show that there are powerful women in this community stepping it up.”
In terms of the media and the movement coming together, Lee maintains a hopeful
outlook despite the personal setbacks she has faced. She believes that in regard to the #MeToo
and #TimesUp movements, along with opportunities social media presents, new terrain is being
tilled.
“There's power in numbers,” she says. “We’ve realized that this is a shared experience
that has really kept a lot of women down, and has obviously hurt not only their success, but also
just their own perceptions of themselves. I think this movement is a game changer, and has
changed the course [of the media].”
“Now, there's going to be a backlash saying the movement has gone too far,” Lee
continues. “But maybe every movement has to go too far, because then, even if it goes back just
a little bit, you've still gained something. You still move forward. I think every movement that is
going to really make change for the long term has to almost go to an extreme, in order for people
to finally sit up and be like, this is something we have to pay attention to. The Civil Rights
Movement did the same thing; it takes some dramatic action.”
22
May Lee has experienced first-hand the highs and lows of the media industry: the
potential it holds for women, and conversely, the countless obstacles awaiting women who
choose to enter it. She’s long-been an active agent of change for women in the media and the
epitome of resolve; she has overcome biases and become a successful female leader in spite of
systemic barriers, raising other women up along with her. Lee agrees that permanent change –
for both the media and the movement – is inevitable.
“There’s no going back,” she says.

23
Chapter 3: Changing the Context for Women in Media
In Conversation with Sarah Harden, CEO of Hello Sunshine

As CEO of actress Reese Witherspoon’s new female-centric media enterprise, Hello
Sunshine, Sarah Harden describes her position at the company as “the sort of day to day engine
room, making sure everything is running on time.” Her main responsibilities include articulating
a strong vision for Hello Sunshine, setting the intention of the company, and managing a “world
class” team, as she puts it. Harden, along with Charlotte Koh, the Head of Digital Marketing and
Programming, and Lauren Neustadter, Head of Film and Television, are emblematic of the senior
leadership at Hello Sunshine, which is almost exclusively female.
But Harden confesses that this sort of female-fueled business model isn’t typical of the
industry; in fact, it’s the diametrical opposite of the industry standard. “It’s funny, most of the
mentors I’ve had have been men,” says Harden. “Literally, this is the first time, in working with
Reese – I’ve never reported to a woman in 22 years” (Harden 2018).
Harden speaks with an eloquence and certainty that comes with extensive experience in
the business. She explains that her path to leading Hello Sunshine was paved some twenty years
ago, when she moved from Australia to the U.S. to attend Harvard business school. After
working at a series of companies that positioned her at the intersection of technology and media
– Fox Network, NewsCorp, and The Chernin Group, to name a few – she began running Otter
Media, a venture formed in 2014 to acquire, invest in and launch global media services.
This is where she met Witherspoon. “Reese came in to meet with us, and she had this
idea about this gap she saw in the marketplace,” says Harden. “We ended up partnering and
24
funding the start of Hello Sunshine, and then not long after that I ended up stepping in as full-
time CEO.”
Harden was the obvious choice for Witherspoon, who told Variety, “Sarah is a force of
nature. Not only does she believe that women should have every opportunity to succeed in
media, she actually makes it happen” (Variety).
Hello Sunshine is a media brand anchored in crafting and discovering content that
celebrates women. Harden defines it as a chance to change the way women walk through the
world, as being creatively brave and asking, “What is female identity?” Though the company
began primarily as a production entity, Hello Sunshine is expanding across nearly all media
channels —from podcasts to original series – and debuting on iPhone and film screens alike.
Harden’s characterizations mirror the overall message the brand maintains: That
women’s stories are just as powerful, and money-making, as men’s. This is evident with a quick
glance at the company’s webpage, which displays numerous teal and dandelion-colored text-
boxes showcasing stories by women, for women. “Hello Sunshine is on a mission to change the
narrative for women,” declares one; “Why my novel about a transgender child isn’t a memoir
about mine,” pronounces another, accompanied by an image of Laurie Frankel’s novel This is
How it Always Is, an official selection of Reese’s Book Club (Hello Sunshine).
Part of the company’s overriding mission is to dismantle detrimental assumptions that
projects with women at the helm are “public service projects,” or that women’s stories only serve
a “niche” audience. Fifty percent of the box office is women, after all; Hello Sunshine certainly
doesn’t see that as niche.
In fact, according to a 2018 study organized by Times Up that examined the top 350
grossing films released between 2014-2017, female-led films outperformed male-led titles at the
25
worldwide box office (USA Today). Incidentally, Witherspoon and Harden’s company is
responsible for producing some of the most acclaimed and beloved female-driven narratives
from the past few years, including the films “Wild” and “Gone Girl,” which rose to over half a
billion dollars world-wide.
But the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State
University also found that in 2017, women on screen accounted for less than 25% of protagonists
in the 100 top-grossing films in the U.S., and the percentage of women working behind the
camera was equally egregious (Lauzen 2019). This may be, at least in part, due to what Palmieri
discusses in her book Dear Madam President, which, as aforementioned, is that, “All of our
models for a person in power… are based on men” (Palmieri 2018, 5). Men are traditionally
thought of as the heavy-hitters, the decision-makers and the risk-takers; i.e., the leaders.
On the flip side, women have been overwhelmingly portrayed as victims, while the
notion of the “high-achieving woman” has, until recent years, almost always been villainized or
satirized, especially in the media. In her 2015 speech at Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards,
Reese Witherspoon reflected on the issue herself, musing, “Why do people have prejudiced
opinions about women who accomplish things? Why is that perceived as a negative?”
(Glamour).
The goal for Sarah Harden and her team, then, is to model the kind of success that can be
borne from female leadership, and to give women their own platform in a world where men still,
by a vast majority, hold the power in the media – behind and in front of the camera. Harden
believes that the sexist context that organizes our cultural, economic and political spheres is at
fault for the societal preference of placing men in power, and for gendered biases against female
leaders.
26
“I see so many examples of women who are so qualified, and do not think they are,” she
tells me. “They have to be 105% qualified to put themselves up for something, versus a guy, who
is 75% qualified and will.” She pauses and laughs knowingly. “You can’t ignore the anecdotal
evidence, but do I think women are innately less confident? No, it’s because of the context
they’ve been working in since they were 18, the context in which they’re raised.”
“Leadership has its context in power structures, and if you’re talking about leadership in
careers, in these power structures women have been silenced and left out at so many levels of a
company,” she says. “And when you structurally silence women in all levels of a company,
you’re also missing huge business opportunities.”
Harden is ultimately trying to redefine this age-old context with the Hello Sunshine team.
“I think one of the narratives about female leadership has been about having a seat at the
table,” she says. “But it’s a table that’s been designed and architected within a patriarchal
workplace and system. I think one of the fundamental pieces of Hello Sunshine is, we are
creating our own table. We’re not asking for a seat at someone else’s table, we are basically
saying, if you want something done, do it yourself.”
Harden further speaks on the current relationship between the media and the movement.
She says that the broader movement’s most immediate focus has been supporting women in the
media industry and beyond by enabling women to step out and be vocal, which was “too risky”
for most women until now. As more women are encouraged to tell their stories with the tangible
resources and guidance Hello Sunshine and other organizations can provide, the result is
heightened visibility, which is a win for both companies and for the Women’s Movement.
“Hello Sunshine is women-led, and we get to author our future,” she says. “Authorship
doesn’t just mean in the stories we tell, but in how much equity is held by women, and in what
27
our boardroom and management teams look like. What’s happening now is not only a shift to a
more female driven history, but a more intersectional and inclusive one.”
In working at the center of Hello Sunshine, Sarah Harden is a key player in reclaiming
the media for women. She understands the ways the media can – and does – directly impact
society, in how we represent and perceive different groups of people. And though Harden
believes that women leaders are just as effective and qualified as male leaders, she also
recognizes the vulnerability of women in a sexist context, a context that has been built to put
marginalized groups at a disadvantage.
“What I hope Hello Sunshine is,” says Harden, “is that in a small way, we can pave a
course where it’s like, this is what happens when women have control of power, when women
get to tell their own stories in a context in which they define.”
When asked if she believes this movement is making real progress for women, Harden’s
answer is sure and simple. “I don’t think there’s any question,” she concludes. “We’re not going
back from here.”

28
Conclusion
No Turning Back: The Fate of the Media and the Movement

Next year, 2020, marks the 100th anniversary of women gaining the constitutional right
to vote. The Women’s Movement has come a long way since suffragettes declared the then-
radical notion that women must be granted the same opportunities of citizenship as men, their
billowing tri-color sashes of purple, white and gold emblazoned with the creed “Votes for
Women.”
Though these ribbons have been replaced with cropped “nasty women” tees and pink
“pussyhats,” and the women of today can post beaming selfies together as they gather, women
are still marching, still fighting, still yearning to tell their individual and collective stories: of
femininity; of motherhood and sisterhood; of strength and survival.
The women of the past steered the way to our current moment, a moment of new,
extraordinary opportunities for women and the Women’s Movement. It seems we are closer to
merging the media and the movement than ever before. That’s not to say, however, that any and
all challenges have been swept away. Popular feminism has been critiqued as being a watered-
down, commodified version of feminism, problematic in its emphasis on commerciality and
geniality. And though the advances of the Women’s Movement have been substantial, they are
still tinged with hints of an ever-looming misogyny.
There is better representation for women in the media today, for instance, but gendered
language continues to tarnish even the best-intentioned stories and demean the best-intentioned
women. Social media is heightening consciousness of this feminist awakening and provoking
younger women to join the cause, but is also creating unrealistic expectations of beauty and
29
success for women to achieve, with others endorsing these fictionalities through comments,
likes, and shares. Women are now able to speak out against workplace injustices with stronger
protections in place, but men continue to outnumber and outrank women in newsrooms,
boardrooms, and the majority of other notable “rooms.” While the Harvey Weinstein’s of the
world are being outed at a breakneck pace, many once “canceled” figures are beginning to stage
comebacks, looking for redemption and expecting forgiveness. And though most men are
perhaps more mindful of their behavior in the workplace than in previous decades, abuses of
power and privilege continue to occur.
With each inch the movement takes forward, it seems that the forces working against it,
namely those that still exist in the media, drive it back ever so slightly, too, so that things remain
stagnant, unchanged. These juxtaposing forces prompt some of the most important questions: Is
popular feminism really changing the landscape for women? Or is it “trendy” to be a feminist in
our current moment? Is feminism merely a handy buzzword that companies revisit every few
decades in order to capitalize on a moment, profiting on women’s experiences by creating a
pseudo-sense of solidarity?
These questions are grim. But when examining the three interviews with the female
leaders with whom I spoke, I realized that each woman had come to the same conclusion with
clear, unwavering conviction: This moment is changing things – for women, for the media, and
beyond – and there’s absolutely no turning back from here.
Even with an impending backlash to this movement on our heels, such tangible strides
have been made by women like Leive, Lee and Harden that all such progress is simply
irreversible. Women today have higher standards of how they should be treated; the future of the
media is intersectional, multicultural and inclusive; the context is changing, so that there’s a big
30
enough table for all women to have a seat at it. These strides aren’t flimsy gestures, but real steps
towards real change, right now. And we owe it to these women to keep the momentum going.
In the past 100 years, women have gone from being able to vote in elections, to being
able to run and, depending how you perceive the results of the 2016 election, win. To borrow the
saying from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, “If she can see it, she can be it.”
Now that we’ve seen all that social media can do, we’ve seen a woman with the presidency so
close in her grasp, and we’ve seen the influence women in the media can have when they are
placed in the highest positions of leadership, can we fail to seize the moment – and the
movement?
Gloria Steinem asked this question nearly two decades ago. It’s time to answer it.

31
References and Resources

Aragon, Janni and Mariel Miller. “Chapter 10: Women and the Media.” In Global Women’s Issues:
Women in the World Today, Extended Version. British Columbia: BCcampus, 2012.
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Banet-Weiser, Sarah. Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny. North Carolina: Duke
University Press Books, 2018. 1-46.

Blackman, Cally. “How the suffragettes used fashion to further their cause.” Stylist. 2018.
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Bennhold, Katrin. “Another Side of #MeToo: Male Managers Fearful of Mentoring Women.” The New
York Times. January 27, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/27/world/europe/metoo-
backlash-gender-equality-davos-men.html

Chipunza, Paidamoyo and Shamiso Yikoniko. “Just in: Media industry lags behind in gender equality.”
The Herald. May 9, 2018. https://www.herald.co.zw/just-in-media-industry-lags-behind-in-
gender-equality/

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Coyle, Jake. “Time’s Up study concludes female-led films do better than male ones at the box office.”
USA Today. December 11, 2018. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2018/12/11/times-up-
study-female-led-films-outperform-males-box-office/2279801002/

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique, 21. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1963.
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminars/tcentury/FeminineMystique.pdf

Kilday, Gregg. “Universal, MGM Studios Accept 4 Percent Challenge to Hire Women Directors.” The
Hollywood Reporter. January 29, 2019. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/universal-
becomes-first-studio-accept-4-percent-challenge-1180949

Kolesnikov-Jessop. “The ‘May Lee Show’ set to make a pan-Asian debut.” The New York Times. May
16, 2007. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/technology/16iht-maylee.1.5732758.html

Lauzen, Martha M. “It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World: Portrayals of Female Characters in the Top
Grossing Films of 2018,” 1. Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. 2019.
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content/uploads/2019/02/2018_Its_a_Mans_Celluloid_World_Report.pdf

Leive, Cindi. “Cindi Leive’s Brief but Spectacular Take on Female Rage.” PBS NewsHour, January 28,
2019, 3:37. https://www.pbs.org/video/cindi-leive-s-brief-but-spectacular-take-on-female-power-
1548719540/

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Liang-lin, Trina. “Let us not take gender equality for granted.” The Straits Times. March 11, 2014.
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Lotus Media House. “About: May Lee.” Accessed February 17, 2019.
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Moeslein, Anna. “Reese Witherspoon’s Moving Speech at Glamour’s 2015 Women of the Year Awards:
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Otterson, Joe. “Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Names Sarah Harden CEO.” Variety. January 26,
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1202678519/

Palmieri, Jennifer. Dear Madam President: An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World.
New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2018. 5-127.

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anniversary/index.html

35
Interviews

Interview: Harden, Sarah. (Chief Executive Officer of Hello Sunshine), in discussion with the author.
November 9, 2018.

Interview: Lee, May. (Journalist, Founder of Lotus Media House) in discussion with the author.
November 19, 2018.

Interview: Leive, Cindi. (Journalist, Former Editor-In-Chief of Glamour and Self), in discussion with the
author. February 15, 2019.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Drawing on the ideas set forth in Gloria Steinem’s piece, “The Media and the Movement: A User’s Guide,” the following series of interviews and essays aim to outline the current role of the media in the Women’s Rights Movement, and vice versa. Ultimately, this collection seeks to answer one central question: Will our current cultural moment, often called, “The #MeToo Era,” bring about real change for women in the media industry? The word “media” in this work is applied broadly—traditional print, broadcast, television, film, and the Internet all fall under this terminology, as each assist in creating and reflecting our culture. This piece traces a path through history, from the suffragette movement to present-day, in order to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the media industry’s enduring, evolving relationship with the Women’s Movement. At the core of this work is a succession of interviews with pioneering women media leaders, their dialogue meant to contribute context, depth, and diverse perspectives to the discussion. These three women share personal accounts of their own defining experiences, assess the state of the media industry today, and give predictions for its fate. In the end, each woman essentially comes to the same conclusion: Though there is still progress to be made in reconciling the media with the Women’s Movement, there’s no going back from this moment. However, these essays fundamentally argue that in order for this feminist momentum to sustain itself into the future, more women must be afforded positions of leadership in the media industry.

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Creator McDowell, Mirabella Caprice (author)

Core Title A moment, or a movement? Three women media leaders forecast the future of their industry in the #MeToo era

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Publication Date 08/14/2019

Defense Date 06/18/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag #MeToo,Entertainment,journalism,leadership,media,media industry,OAI-PMH Harvest,Women,Women's Movement

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Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Anawalt, Sasha (committee chair), Jutkowitz, Alexander (committee member), LeVeque, Matthew (committee member)

Creator Email mcdowellmirabella@gmail.com,mirabelm@usc.edu

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