Op-ed writing wants to keep marginalized voices out. Let’s change that.

When I returned to my home city, Denver, for winter break last year, I wrote an op-ed on the old-fashioned traditions of the local Debutante Ball that was published in The Denver Post. It felt wrong that the progressive city I had grown up in was celebrating an event that was elitist and heteronormative, and had no people of color as debutantes. I hoped to shift the conversation from the society pages to the opinion pages, and highlight a glaring anachronistic ritual celebrated in our community. 

In the following days, the response I received ranged from letters from readers thanking me, to furious emails in my inbox. But I didn’t mind the backlash because I believe op-ed writing is an integral part of the democratic process. The Denver Post gave my voice a platform and, by doing so, validated it. The only credentials I needed to be heard were my commitment to justice. 

Unfortunately, this opportunity where I was allowed to share my voice is quite contrary to the journalistic landscape we live in. Women, mostly, are not encouraged in society to share their opinion. In 2012, the Columbia Journalism Review published an article in which they revealed that women only wrote 20 percent of op-eds in the nation’s leading newspapers. Men disproportionately submit more op-eds than women; in 2008, Autumn Brewington, The Washington Post’s op-ed editor, estimated the rate was nine to one. 

The trend continues, exacerbating inequalities. In 2018, FPI Interrupted discovered that concerning foreign policy pieces—one of many categories we could do empirical research on and study—some significant statistics. Women over the past ten years spanning from 1996 to 2016 had only written 15% of op-eds for the New York Times and 13% of op-eds for the LA Times.

“I’m troubled that in 2019, The New York Times struggles to find women’s letters that are worthy of publication,” reader Kimberly Probulous wrote in January. The Times is simply one of several prominent publications that have failed to achieve gender parity in their letters to the editors. This inequity is part of a much broader trend in which female voices are primarily sidelined. Each year, women represent two-thirds of grads with degrees in journalism, yet the media industry is only one-third women—and even lower for women of color. 

Why is this case? I believe it’s because of how women are conditioned to be quiet, as well as the immense backlash we receive when we do speak out. 

In her study about litigation, political science professor Kristin Bumiller writes that victims of discrimination are always expected to provide the evidence that proves they have been wronged, which is an unfair burden. While Bumiller’s work pertains to the law, this idea is still relevant here: Sexism permeates so deeply within societal structures as to be immeasurable. It’s not that women don’t want to rise to the occasion to speak out— it’s that when we do, we are so frequently doubted. We are told we are wrong or are expected to explain and justify our opinions to a level of scrutiny men are rarely held. This is not conducive to a healthy culture of representative op-ed writing.

So, what do we do about it? Even if young women like myself wanted to change the system from the inside, the chances of our ability to do so is are grim. As a 2019 AAJA article entitled “How America’s top newsrooms recruit interns from a small circle of colleges,” revealed, two out of three interns from the top seven newsrooms came from the most selective colleges in the country. Seventy-five percent of the New York Times interns came from intensively selective universities, as did 70 percent of Washington Post interns. 

These statistics may seem unrelated to discussions about the lack of female op-ed writers, but they are inextricably linked. They show that these newsrooms are not setting up future generations of journalists up for success, or trying to make their publications ones in which all voices are valued. 

Ultimately, journalistic institutions are supposed to be democratic, a place for equal thought and representation. But the research shows that they fail to publish female voices and reflect diversity in their newsrooms, and journalism suffers without diversity. We need to hold these accredited yet elitist institutions accountable for the views they share and who they bring into their staff rooms. They may not listen to us, but at least we won’t be complicit in what they want.