Too good to last

Yesterday was an unusually good day for women on the op-ed pages. Especially at The Los Angeles Times, where all three op-ed contributors were women.

Sadly, yesterday’s apparent progress was too good to last. A day on which 100% of a mainstream paper’s op-ed contributors were women doesn’t seem to mark an aberration, but rather a trend: today, we’re back to the status quo, with almost no women on the nation’s op-ed pages. There are, in fact, no women to be found in any print papers. That’s no women at the NYT, LAT, WaPo or WSJ. It looks as though yesterday was a one-off, albeit a very exciting one. Salon’s op-ed page is 50% women today, though, with Rachel Maddow and Margaret Winter teaming up to write about prison HIV policies.

That said, the week is still young. Perhaps we’ll get another 100% day some say soon. I’m looking at you, Wednesday.

A week without women

Last week, I noted that The Wall Street Journal had, for four consecutive days, failed to publish any woman-penned op eds. Well, it seems that the paper continued the trend as the weekend approached: last week, the Journal didn’t publish a single woman-penned op ed. Not one. That’s pretty pathetic.

The Byline Survey officially started today, and I’ve been making my way around the op ed pages of about eight major outlets, including the Journal, to see how many women are published on each of them. Based on today’s numbers, I can only conclude that making a conclusion on a sample size of one is really bad research. My former statistics professor would not be impressed. Stay tuned for conclusions based on credible sample sizes!

While you’re waiting, check out this wonderful op ed by OEP alum Maria Cadenas.

Way to go, Wall Street Journal!

As you know, our official survey of the op-ed pages nation’s most influential print and online media outlets begins on Monday. But based on some preliminary findings, I wanted to note that today is the Wall Street Journal‘s fourth consecutive day of excluding 50% of the population from its debates on healthcare, foreign policy, the economy and all the other important issues facing our country.

For the fourth day in a row today, the Journal‘s op-ed page is entirely male-penned. Not a single woman’s voice to be found.

Women control 83% of household spending in this country, so why are their ideas 100% absent from the country’s most influential financial news source?

A taste of what’s to come

The survey for the OEP’s Byline Report officially starts next week, but in case you were wondering how some of the nation’s major print and online dailies did, say, yesterday, here are the numbers for a few of them.

New York Times: No women

Huffington Post: Eleven op-ed columns. One written by a woman.

Los Angeles Times: No women

Wall Street Journal: Absolutely, positively no women.

What a great way to start the week! Stay tuned- there are more numbers coming soon.