"Managing" Leadership: Gender and Media Representations during COVID-19

• In Event: Gender and the Pandemic: Attitudes, Policy Support, and Representation

Abstract

Women leaders have been widely perceived in the press to be better at tackling the COVID-19 crisis - including successful examples from New Zealand and Taiwan. While research (e.g. Piscopo 2020) has critiqued this assumed relationship, arguing that context matters more than leader gender in driving pandemic performance, the relationship between gender, media and representations of leadership requires further study. Looking at countries beyond the “usual suspects,” we draw on a comparative study of countries in the West and the East, we ask which bodies are included and excluded in the media representations of “capable leadership.” Using a media analysis of news coverage of both women and men leaders in Taiwan and the U.K. during the pandemic, we expect to find that the traditional notions of masculinity and femininity shape the way they are presented in the media. Also looking at how political leaders frame themselves, we examine how they reinforce or subvert ideas of gender and leadership. Taking a relational and contextual approach, our study shows the way the media, as well as leaders themselves masculinize and femininize their presence in the battle against COVID-19, expanding our current understanding of gender, leadership, and representation.

Authors

• Justin Chun-ting Ho, University of Amsterdam

• Shan-Jan Sarah Liu, University of Edinburgh

• Meryl Kenny, University of Edinburgh