The latest Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP 2025) shows that women, who make up half of humanity, remain strikingly underrepresented in news content worldwide
Nilambar Rath
Despite thirty years of commitments, declarations, and campaigns since the Beijing Platform for Action, women’s presence in global news media remains startlingly low. The latest findings of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP 2025), launched by UN Women and WACC, paint a sobering picture: only 26% of people seen, heard, or quoted in the news are women.
For a world where women make up half of humanity, the fact that they appear in barely a quarter of news content is not just an imbalance—it is a crisis of representation. The media, often hailed as the “fourth estate” and guardian of democracy, continues to reproduce entrenched inequalities rather than dismantling them.
As per available data, when the GMMP began in 1995, women accounted for only 17% of people featured in news. Over the next 15 years, progress was slow but visible. By 2010, women had reached 24%. But then the curve flattened. From 2010 to 2025, visibility crawled up by a mere two points, settling at 26% today.
The GMMP report highlights that while men dominate across decades, women’s representation rises only fractionally and stagnates in the past fifteen years. UN Women warns that progress is not just stalling; it risks backsliding if systemic interventions are not made.
One of the report’s most shocking revelations is the near invisibility of gender-based violence (GBV) in news coverage. Despite affecting half the world’s population in direct and indirect ways, GBV stories account for less than 2% of global news items.
The report says that, even when such stories make it to print or broadcast, the framing is often narrow—focusing on sensationalized accounts of rape, murder, or trafficking, while neglecting systemic and structural contexts. “Over one-third of GBV stories revolve around sexual assault and harassment, while emerging issues like technology-facilitated violence receive barely 9% coverage”, it highlights.
This silence is not accidental; it reflects editorial choices that minimize women’s realities. The cost is severe: by sidelining GBV, media not only denies visibility but also weakens the momentum for policy and justice reform.
Where Women Appear: Margins, Not Mainstream
The GMMP findings emphasize a disturbing trend: when women are visible, they are often framed in ordinary roles—eyewitnesses, vox pop contributors, or “ordinary citizens.” Three decades after Beijing’s call to recognize women’s expertise, their presence as experts, analysts, or decision-makers remains minimal.
“While women are somewhat present as subjects or opinion providers, their roles as spokespersons or experts remain far behind men. Instead, their voices are disproportionately boxed into personal or popular opinion rather than professional authority” adds the report.
This trend reinforces stereotypes, sending a damaging signal: that women are passive observers rather than active shapers of politics, economy, or science.
Regional Realities: A World of Contrasts
Representation differs starkly across regions. According to the data underscored in the report, North America is closest to parity, with women making up about 40% of people in news. Latin America and Europe fare better than average, while Asia and the Middle East lag far behind at only 19%.
Such disparities reflect not just media systems but also broader cultural, political, and social constraints. In Asia, where patriarchal structures often dominate both politics and pressrooms, women’s voices remain systematically sidelined. In contrast, grassroots feminist movements in Latin America have pushed harder for visibility, yielding better results in numbers, though not necessarily in content quality.
The Gender Gap in the Newsroom
If the content is skewed, so is the production. Globally, women account for 41% of news reporters in traditional media, up from 28% in 1995.
Digital platforms initially seemed promising, with women’s share of online news reporting surging from 25% in 2015 to 42% in 2020. But the latest findings show stagnation: in 2025, women’s share has edged up by only one point, reaching 43%.
The optimism that digital journalism would be a gender equalizer is fading. Instead, as the report says, women’s share in online reporting has declined in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. What seemed like a breakthrough is now another plateau.
Entrenched Stereotypes: The Stickiest Barrier
Perhaps the most disheartening insight is the persistence of gender stereotypes. Thirty years after the Beijing Platform demanded non-stereotyped portrayals, the GMMP finds that only 2% of stories globally challenge gender stereotypes.
This is the lowest point in three decades of monitoring. Newsrooms not only fail to dismantle stereotypes but often reinforce them—through biased framing of women leaders, unequal coverage of women in sports, or shallow profiling of women in science and technology.
In an era when the UN’s Pact for the Future (2024) calls for dismantling structural barriers, the media remains one of the strongest “sticky floors” holding back equality.
News media does not just mirror society—it moulds it. When women are absent or stereotyped, their exclusion reverberates in politics, economics, and culture. Research shows that representation influences public perceptions, policy priorities, and even women’s aspirations to leadership.
As the GMMP reminds us, media equality is not a “women’s issue.” It is a democratic imperative. Gender imbalance in news undermines media’s role as a watchdog and weakens its credibility as a voice of all people.
The GMMP 2025 report does not stop at diagnosis. It issues urgent recommendations. Highlights:
- Treat gender equality in media as national security, economic stability, and democratic necessity.
- Shift responsibility inward. News organizations must lead reforms instead of leaving the burden to civil society.
- Build the business case. Gender equality should be seen as an industry advantage, not a charity cause.
- Mainstream women’s voices. Instead of building isolated women-centric platforms, integrate gender inclusion into mainstream editorial and decision-making.
- Implement the UN Pact for the Future’s Digital Compact. Align media practices with global commitments on gender justice.
These are not optional add-ons—they are survival strategies for media in a world demanding accountability.
A Crossroads Moment
The release of GMMP 2025 coincides with the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, making this both a moment of reckoning and renewal. The numbers are sobering, but they are also a wake-up call.
Media has transformed technologically, but its gender dynamics remain stuck in old ruts. Unless newsrooms confront the inertia, half the world will continue to remain invisible in headlines, soundbites, and bylines.
As a journalist and development communication specialist, I see this not just as a gender issue but as a media survival issue. In an era of misinformation, declining trust, and fractured audiences, the credibility of news depends on inclusivity. A media that excludes half its population cannot claim to speak truth to power.
The choice is clear: continue along the plateau of token progress, or reset radically towards equality. The credibility of journalism, the health of democracy, and the dignity of women worldwide depend on it.
(Nilambar Rath is a senior journalist and development communication specialist with over three decades of experience in print, broadcast, and digital media. Known for his in-depth analysis of gender, governance, and social change, he has reported extensively on issues of democracy, human rights, and sustainable development. As a digital media expert, he advocates for inclusive communication strategies that amplify marginalized voices and strengthen media’s role as a pillar of accountability in society. Views expressed are personal.)