Why women in radio are starting to talk back

Published: Monday, October 31, 2011

It's silly to get upset about awards ceremonies, we all know that. Every award, from the Turner prize to the Oscars, is just the result of four or five people getting together in a room, eating curly sandwiches, disagreeing with each other about something, and then agreeing. If a different group of people were in that room, the award would go to someone else. Possibly if you had different sandwiches, the award would go to someone else. Awards are not entirely haphazard, but getting wound up about them is as clever as shouting at your horoscope.

So why did this year's Sony Radio Academy awards make me, and many others, so cross? "The year of the lad", it was deemed, with TalkSport winning station of the year, 5 Live's Fighting Talk bagging a gold and Absolute's celeb-jocks Ronnie Wood and Frank Skinner also winning big. Host Chris Evans displayed his familiar "chivalry" (can any woman feel comfortable when a man bangs on about how much he fancies her, to her face, in front of an audience?). Jenni Murray and Annie Nightingale won special awards: well deserved, but outside regular categories. And lots of great women got up on stage: Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Kirsty Wark, Mariella Frostrup, Moira Stuart. Unfortunately, they were there to hand over gongs, to men.

Click here to read the full article from the Guardian......