Rättviseförmedlingen spokeswoman Seher Yilmaz. Photo: Maja Suslin/TT

The Swedish media has been slow in moving toward gender equality, a new report from the group Rättviseförmedlingen reveals.

For the fourth year in a row, Rättviseförmedlingen took a close look at who is given a voice within the Swedish media. The results showed a clear overrepresentation of men.

Only 32.1 percent of those who are heard from in the media are women. Thats just a 1.6 percent improvement over last years study.

“Even though we have had the most intense discussions on gender equality that Ive witnessed in my lifetime thanks to #metoo, women have not gained any ground within the Swedish news media. Its like time stands still within the media,” Rättviseförmedlingen spokeswoman Seher Yilmaz said via a press release.

The proportion of female voices within the national media has remained relatively constant since 2000 when the organization Who began conducting an annual survey similar to the one now carried out by Rättviseförmedlingen.

The gender imbalance is most prevalent when the media contacts experts or representatives of organizations relevant to a particular news story.

“If every day we see men making up the majority of who is given a voice in the news we eventually come to believe that men are more capable of speaking out than women,” Yilmaz said.

The gender report was created by looking at online articles from eleven different Swedish news organizations: Aftonbladet, Dagens Industri, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Göteborgs-Posten, Metro, Nyheter 24, Svenska Dagbladet, Sveriges Radio, Sveriges Television and Sydsvenskan.

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