A considerable body of work on women's television careers exists in Europe and North America, but the English-speaking Caribbean countries have never been investigated for their regional practices. This dissertation fills this void by addressing three major themes: a) the discrepancies between the high female labour force participation rates and their low representation in media management positions; b) the role of Caribbean gender ideology and stereotypes in excluding females from the professions; and c) the dearth of anti-discrimination and equity legislation in the region, their impact on female professional careers; and what can be done to ameliorate the working conditions of female broadcasters in the Caribbean. Historically, there has always been a significant percentage of women in employment in the Caribbean: during slavery, women outnumbered male workers on the plantations. The last two decades have seen a marked movement of women out of agriculture and into the service sectors including tourism and banking; as well as communication and some of the professions. As elsewhere in the world, gender structures and fragments the contemporary Caribbean labour force; and the tendency for men and women to have access to qualitatively different types of jobs is a persistent feature of both professional and general employment patterns in the region. This thesis investigates journalism as one of the prestige professions, which has attracted female personnel since the 1960s; and compares their access, promotion and remuneration to that of the male professionals. The thesis further uses Canadian and American findings to determine the informal barriers encountered by females in building their careers, as well as asesses the equity legislation and its impact on the region. Two comprehensive surveys covering all Television stations in the Anglophone Caribbean provide the data for the thesis; which are similar to those used by Robinson/St. Jean (1997) in Canada and Weaver / Il existe en Europe et en Amerique du nord de nombreuses etudes sur la vie professionnelle des femmes oeuvrant dans le domaine televisuel. Aux Caraibes Anglophones, par contre, il n'existe aucune etude de ce genre. Ce travail vise a combler ce vide en considerant le probleme sous trois angles principaux: a) les ecarts existant entre le taux eleve de la main-d'ceuvre feminine dans le domaine televisuel et la sous-representation des femmes parmi les cadres superieurs du secteur des medias b) le role de l'ideologie et des stereotypes de sexes aux Caraibes dans l'exclusion des femmes des postes de responsabilite au sein des entreprises mediatiques et de la penurie d'une politique de justice sociale et d'equite d'emploi dans la region et ses consequences sur les carrieres des femmes; et dans quelle mesure it serait possible d'ameliorer les conditions de travail des femmes dans le domaine de la telediffusion aux Caraibes. Historiquement les femmes des Caraibes ont toujours constitue un pourcentage important de la main-d'ceuvre: pendant l'esclavage, le nombre de femmes travaillant sur les plantations depassait celui d'ouvriers de sexe masculin. D'ailleurs, au cours des deux demieres decennies, les femmes ont de plus en plus abandonne le secteur de l'agriculture au profit de celui de services et de consommation, y compris le tourisme et les operations bancaires, la communication et certaines autres professions. Comme ailleurs dans le monde, l'appartenance sexuelle conditionne et influence le decoupage de l'effectif aux Caraibes contemporaines; la tendance selon laquelle les hommes et les femmes occupent des postes qualitativement differents est donc une caracteristique permanente des politiques d'emploi de la region. Cette these analyse le journalisme comme profession de prestige ayant attire les femmes depuis les annees 60 et compare leur acces au travail et a la promotion et leur remuneration a ceux de leurs homologues masculins. La these s'inspire des resultats d'etud
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.67482 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Quinn-Leandro, Jacqui C. |
| Contributors | Gertrude Robinson (Supervisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | French |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Art History and Communication Studies) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
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