Harriet Harman, the longest continuously serving female MP, has called on the media regulator, Ofcom, to publish data on the gender of older broadcasters to highlight the “double discrimination” facing senior female presenters on TV and radio. In an opinion piece in this week’s Radio Times, Harman complained of a “cull” of women over the age of 50 in broadcasting that she said meant they were now “as rare as hen’s teeth”. She suggested media companies would be more open to prosecution under the Equality Act if official data was available about the scarcity of older women in broadcasting and the widening pay gap between male and female broadcasters as they age. She wrote: “It’s telling that while Ofcom publishes the data on the percentage of men and women at each level of broadcasting, and that of older broadcasters, they don’t publish the data on older men compared to older women. They should, as it would show that women are pushed out when they are over 50.” Harman, a former deputy leader of the Labour party and now the mother of the House of Commons, added: “The provisions in the 2010 Equality Act that allow for claims on the grounds of ‘double discrimination’ have lain dormant on the statute book. They should be brought into effect now.” She said there were sexist double standards operating in broadcasting under which older men were seen as mature “but somehow the public needs to be protected from hearing, let alone seeing, an older woman”. She added: “There are young (usually glamorous) women in broadcasting, but they face a cull at 50.”
Recently a number of high-profile senior female broadcasters have departed BBC programmes, including Sue Barker from A Question of Sport and Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey from Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. Last month Libby Purves accused the the corporation of “lookism” in relation to older women. Harman, a guest during Murray’s final appearance on Woman’s Hour this month, said in the Radio Times that she was already missing hearing her on the long-running show. She said Murray was the voice of a generation of women who rejected having to choose between motherhood and a career. She said Murray demonstrated that bringing up children made her better at her job, and that “shamefully” this point was “lost on the world of broadcasting”. Vikki Cook, Ofcom’s director of broadcasting policy and diversity and inclusion, said: “We agree that the TV and radio industry needs to better understand how the diversity characteristics of their employees overlap and intersect. That’s why we’re working closely with broadcasters to explore how data collection can be improved, and ensure that meaningful comparisons can be made across the industry.”