This week some Melbourne residents have been up in arms with the prospect of losing their beloved MTR radio station. If you are one of these people, let’s look at whose opinion it is that you’ll be missing on a weekday:

    

 

On Saturdays:

And Sundays:

When the radio station first formed it didn’t go unnoticed that there was a lack of female presenters. At that stage it was only Deborah Thomas, editor of The Australian’s Women’s Weekly. Some detailed articles came out about the lack of female presenters, by people including Catherine Deveny in her article Knob Radio, and by Andrew Crook in Crikeywho called it a ‘bloke fest’.

Then there is the treatment of female guests, you can hear Melinda Tankard Reist’s interview here.

If you look at the list of presenters on today you’ll find 2 women – Sandra and Linda Ross in the gardening show, in a weekend timeslot, co-anchored by men. There is also Dr Katrina Warren who also has 2 male co-hosts.

When did we all become so complacent?

And I bet if you mentioned this to the average listener they wouldn’t even notice the lack of female voices. Not because they are ignorant, just because they are used to it.