| A considerable body of work on women's television careers exists in Europe and North America, but the English-speaking Caribbean countries have never been investigated for their regional practices. This dissertation fills this void by addressing three major themes: (a) the discrepancies between the high female labour force participation rates and their low representation in media management positions; (b) the role of Caribbean gender ideology and stereotypes in excluding females from the professions; and (c) the dearth of anti-discrimination and equity legislation in the region, their impact on female professional careers; and what can be done to ameliorate the working conditions of female broadcasters in the Caribbean.; Historically, there has always been a significant percentage of women in employment in the Caribbean: during slavery, women outnumbered male workers on the plantations. The last two decades have seen a marked movement of women out of agriculture and into the service sectors including tourism and banking; as well as communication and some of the professions. As elsewhere in the world, gender structures and fragments the contemporary Caribbean labour force; and the tendency for men and women to have access to qualitatively different types of jobs is a persistent feature of both professional and general employment patterns in the region.; This thesis investigates journalism as one of the prestige professions, which has attracted female personnel since the 1960s; and compares their access, promotion and remuneration to that of the male professionals. The thesis further uses Canadian and American findings to determine the informal barriers encountered by females in building their careers, as well as assesses the equity legislation and its impact on the region. Two comprehensive surveys covering all Television stations in the Anglophone Caribbean provide the data for the thesis; which are similar to those used by Robinson/St. Jean (1997) in Canada and Weaver/Wilhoit (1998) in the United States. The value of the findings are enhanced by this comparability. |
