Does the glass ceiling remain?

As I was perusing the web for media stories, I found this article that caught my attention. It speaks of the writer, Caryl Rivers, who recently won the Society of Professional Journalists' Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rivers has quite a remarkable resume to boast about. She worked as a Washington correspondent for several newspapers, covered difficult subject matter, and authored 14 books. She currently blogs and contibutes to some of the nation's major newspapers, such as the Boston Globe and the LA Times.

The part of the article that caught my attention was this: that Rivers "is quick to acknowledge that the media have improved in their treatment of women, but she believes that the profession still has a glass ceiling. In a March 2008 Boston Globe article, 'The Double Standard,' Rivers accuses reporters of asking Barack Obama easy questions while directing the tougher ones to Hillary Clinton."

You can read her 'Double Standard' article here. In it, she vehemently defends Hilary Clinton from the harsh manner in which the media was treating her: "As Gloria Steinem noted in her much-discussed New York Times op-ed piece, what if Obama had been a woman, with the same resume? A female candidate with his resume would have been laughed at if she said she wanted to run for president."

In her first quote, she said that she thinks the "media have improved on their treatment of women," but that the infamous glass ceiling still remains. I think this is an interesting statement. It's definitely something that I haven't really given too much thought to in the context of journalism.

I wish I could speak with Ms. Rivers today, now that Palin has burst on to the political scene. If Ms. Rivers thought the media was treating Hilary, an influential political woman, badly THEN... what would she think NOW? Palin has been virtually ripped apart in every way - everything from whether or not her youngest son is really her child, to her personal family issues, to "whether she can be both a good parent and a good VP" (an incredibly sexist question, by the way) have been covered in extensive detail by the press.

Now, I'm not saying that all of Palin's press treatment is simply due to her gender, and I'm not saying Hilary's was either. But when we look at the way both of these ladies were treated, it does make you start to notice things a little better.

"The media coverage of the Clinton campaign will be, for years to come, a textbook case of how the coverage of female candidates differs from that of males. Women have to walk a very thin line when they run for high office," Rivers wrote.

The question that should be asked, then, is why? Why does the media report every detail about Palin's kids' lives, and yet we've heard virtually no news whatsoever about McCain's kids? I'm sure his kids are up to stuff, but no one cares to cover them or question McCain's involvement or parenting. In most households, both fathers and mothers are actively involved with their children. It seems like some media professionals forget that men are also parents, and they focus instead only the women.

The final topic to be brought up is in the journalism profession itself. Rivers said that when she was a young journalist, a woman would not typically be in journalistic leadership positions. Even today, you can take a look at the editors and managers of any major newspaper and rarely find even one woman. I do think that in the field of reporting, women writers and broadcasters are definitely gaining some incredible ground. But I still think that the media industry is, mostly, run, edited, and managed by men.

What do you all think? Does the media tend to treat women differently? Is this OK and reasonable, or is it not?