“You need to just do one thing every day,” she told the audience. “Just one thing . . . yell: ‘Where the hell are the women?’ ”

Ms Gome was a panellist in the New News “Women and the Media” session. She was joined by New Matilda contributing editor Wendy Bacon and Domestic Violence Victoria’s media projects manager, Vanessa Born.   The panel, which was moderated by the Centre for Advancing Journalism’s Gael Jennings, looked at the dominance of men in newsrooms and how society’s attitudes to women more generally were reflected in news coverage.   Dr Jennings said Australian media had a “culture of blokiness” and claimed that studies had shown that female journalists were sexually harassed at twice the rate of women in workplaces more generally.   On the issue of gender imbalance more broadly, Vanessa Born, the media projects manager for Domestic Violence Victoria, said journalists were simply replicating structures they had inherited. She said just one of every 50 articles about violence against women included information on victim support, with journalists overly reliant on police and criminal justice systems as sources. She also said articles about such violence rarely made the front page.   A United Nations study of 56 countries has found that where gender equality is greater, incidents of violence against women are lower. A study by VicHealth came to the same conclusions: the main causes of violence against women included rigid beliefs in gender roles and tepid support for equality.   Every week in Australia a woman is killed by a partner or ex-partner. One-in-three women have been victims of physical violence. Last year, Victoria Police reported 60,000 cases of domestic violence – 1000 incidences per week.   “People tend to understand the links between racism and race-related violence, between homophobia and homophobic-related violence,” explained Ms Born. “People don’t necessarily understand the links between sexism and violence against women.”   Despite the grim figures, Ms Born was optimistic, referring to projects such as the Eliminating Violence Against Women Media Awards (EVAs), which were increasing awareness and encouraging better media practice. “We are in a really great position to lead global change on [the issue of] women and the media,” she added.   New Matilda contributing editor Wendy Bacon presented more sobering statistics. During the lead up to International Women’s Day in March, her team of researchers combed through Australian newspapers counting bylines and appraising the contribution of women. The research discovered just one woman chief executive among 24 media CEOs. There were more women in middle-ranking executive positions, but still just one-in-five, and around one-in-three women editing newspaper titles. Inside the papers, men dominated bylines and opinion pieces.   The former journalism professor wondered how this would impact on aspiring journalists. “They’re going to think: ‘It’s going to be a problem if I’m a woman’.”   She added: “This is a really serious situation for the representation of women in Australia in our daily life.”   After presentations by the panellists, one man asked: “Do you think to be successful, you need to be more like a man?”   While Ms Gome essentially agreed, claiming women had to learn how to play the game to get on, Ms Born expanded on the point, drawing loud applause: “It’s not just about gender inequality. It’s about class, race and global environmental sustainability … This is how the game’s played now but I’m going to play it and then affect change.”