Flanders, Laura 1962(?)-

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FLANDERS, Laura 1962(?)-

PERSONAL: Born c. 1962, in England; immigrated to United States, 1981; partner of Elizabeth Streb (a choreographer). Education: Graduate of Barnard College.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Feminist Press, 365 Fifth Ave., Ste. 5406, New York, NY 10016. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER: Writer, activist, documentary filmmaker, and talk-show host. Panelist on Fox News Watch, Fox, and To the Contrary, Public Broadcasting Service; host of Your Call (formerly Working Assets Radio), KALW, San Francisco, CA, and of The Laura Flanders Show, Air America Radio online. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), founder of women's desk and former host of CounterSpin (nationally syndicated radio show) on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; host of Crashing the Party television broadcasts, FreeSpeech TV, 2000. Television guest appearances include Washington Journal, The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, and Good Morning America. Speaker at Beijing International Women's Rights Conference, 1995.

WRITINGS:

Real Majority, Media Minority: The Costs of Sidelining Women in Reporting, Common Courage Press (Monroe, ME), 1997.

Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species, Verso (New York, NY), 2004.

(Editor) The W Effect: Bush's War on Women, Feminist Press at the City University of New York (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals and Web sites, including TomPaine.com, EXTRA!, Nation, Ms., San Francisco Chronicle, Znet, and Manchester Guardian.

SIDELIGHTS: Laura Flanders is an author and talk show host who was the founder of the women's desk of media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Flanders was also one of the first to produce a show for the groundbreaking Air America Radio, a liberal online network that by the close of 2004 had dozens of affiliates across the country and was also being broadcast via satellite. Although she has been cited for the left-leaning views that influence her reportage, as Flanders told San Francisco Chronicle contributor Edward Guthmann, "I think it's better to acknowledge your partiality than not. And I think a journalist who refuses to admit that they have their own view of affairs is more dangerous than one who won't say where they stand."

The British-born Flanders has written a number of books, including Real Majority, Media Minority: The Costs of Sidelining Women in Reporting. She first realized that women's stories were being left out of the news when, in Belfast, Ireland during the 1970s, she observed that all of the stories about the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were about and only included pictures of boys and men. What she learned was that a large number of women were being jailed and denied the label of political prisoner. Instead, they were considered criminals, and British authorities in Armagh, for example, denied them access to toilets. Flanders wanted to know why these stories were being withheld.

In Real Majority, Media Minority Flanders argues that the media fails to treat women either fairly or equally. Patricia Holt wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that Flanders "is both angry and entertaining as she hauls out evidence to show how the press tends to slot women in 'vamp or virgin' stereotypes (as seducer or victim in rape cases, for example) or, worse, the 'rhymes with witch' headline grabbers about women in powerful positions, from Hillary Clinton to Leona Helmsley." Flanders also argues that ownership of the media by large, male-dominated corporations, as well as an increasingly influential conservative political agenda, resulted in the exclusion of issues important to women. The book includes articles originally published in EXTRA!, the publication of FAIR, as well as transcripts of interviews she conducted with notable feminists on the organization's radio program, CounterSpin.

In an interview with Tara Malloy for Off Our Backs, Flanders noted that since men do most of the reporting, it is other men about whom they write. When they do write about women, such stories are usually relegated to the "human interest" section, indicating that they aren't important to everyone. She also maintained that both the media and the American government perceive peoples of other cultures as being male. In Somalia, for example, although women are central to food distribution, when the United States stepped in during a time of famine, they gave the food to a male network, which led to fighting over the food by warlords and the loss of lives, both Somali and American.

In Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species, Flanders skewers the notion that the women appointed to government posts by U.S. President George W. Bush "feminized" his administration. The women she profiles include then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Agriculture Secretary Anne Veneman, Communications Director Karen Hughes, First Lady Laura Bush, and Lynn Cheney. Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, was a founder of the Independent Women's Forum (IWF), which Flanders characterizes as the "Republican Right's Women's Auxiliary," noting that the organization was established in support of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill during his confirmation hearing.

Flanders writes that these women, all born between 1946 and 1956, have taken advantage of the gains made by the women's movement, but have not shaped their own policies accordingly. She notes that Rice, who is black, and Chao, who is Asian, "provide a shield that makes the party's anti-civil rights, antifeminist agenda acceptable." Flanders writes that these women who benefitted from the civil rights and women's movements, then, as Washington Post contributor Myra Macpherson explained, "cynically pulled the ladder up behind them." Flanders notes the backgrounds of Bush's female appointees, including the fact that Rice was a director of Chevron, and calls Laura Bush "cover art, used by the White House to reassure middle-of-the-road voters, while her husband curries favor with hardliners." A Publishers Weekly reviewer, who called Bushwomen "fierce, funny, and intelligent," commented that Flanders contends that the media has shown more interest in the family histories and clothes these women wear, "than in the jobs, lands, and freedoms they've eliminated during their tenure."

Continuing her efforts to inform the American public prior to the 2004 presidential elections, Flanders collected more than fifty essays, columns, speeches, and reports in The W Effect: Bush's War on Women. Contributors, who include Gloria Steinhem, Gail Sheehy, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Richard Goldstein, demonstrate how the Bush agenda widened the gap between rich and poor, impacting programs critical to women. Many of the essays included in the book originally appeared elsewhere; others, such as an account of increased domestic violence among military wives and a speech given by Lieutenant Brenda Berkman of the New York City Fire Department to the National Women's Law Center, appeared in print for the first time in Fletcher's book.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, June 16, 2004, Jacqueline Fitzgerald, "A Cynical Look at All the President's Women" (interview), p. 2.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2004, review of Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species, p. 23.

Library Journal, February 1, 2004, Jill Ortner, review of Bushwomen, p. 109; August, 2004, Jill Ortner, review of The W Effect: Bush's War on Women, p. 100.

Off Our Backs, August, 1997, Tara Malloy, "Laura Flanders: On a Media Mission," p. 10.

Progressive, July, 2004, Elizabeth DiNovella, review of Bushwomen, p. 45.

Publishers Weekly, December 22, 2003, review of Bushwomen, p. 48; June 21, 2004, review of The W Effect, p. 55.

San Francisco Chronicle, October 19, 1997, Patricia Holt, review of Real Majority, Media Minority: The Costs of Sidelining Women in Reporting, p. 2; June 8, 2004, Edward Guthmann, review of Bushwomen and interview with Flanders, p. E1.

Washington Post Book World, April 11, 2004, Myra MacPherson, review of Bushwomen, p. 4.

Women's Review of Books, December, 1997, Nina Siegal, review of Real Majority, Media Minority, p. 18.