If media has the power to shape our worldview, whose version are we getting?

In Part 1 of this series, we explore how media, from films and podcasts to books and advertising, quietly shape our ideas about power, authority, and whose voices hold value.

The reality? Men still dominate the narratives, both on-screen and behind the scenes, framing male perspectives as the default and setting the tone for what we see as credible, influential, and true.

But that’s only one version of the world, not the full picture.

This episode is a call to pause and question what you’re consuming. Get curious. Ask who’s creating what you watch, read, and listen to, and whose perspective might be missing. Because media doesn’t just reflect our world, it decides who gets to define it.

Resources: Gender and media - GSDRC, Gender Bias in Advertising: Research, Trends and New Visual Language, Online images may be turning back the clock on gender bias, research finds - Haas News, USC Annenberg releases a new study exploring the gender and race/ethnicity of hosts and guests of popular podcasts, Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, Half the world, only a quarter of the news: Women appear or are heard in just 26 per cent of all broadcast, radio and print clips, Get the Facts About Women in the Arts | NMWA, Revolutionary Art: Gender and Racial Inequality in the Art World, The Surprising Source Of Gender Bias In Theater : NPR, Through Women's Eyes

This episode explores how gender sits at the center of a cultural moment where identity, power, and politics are deeply intertwined. Why are traditional gender roles resurfacing? Why is there such intense backlash? And how did something so personal become such a powerful political tool?

As conversations about gender grow louder, more polarized, and increasingly weaponized, we ask a deeper question: who wrote the rules and do they still serve us?

From patriarchy and power structures to LGBTQ+ identity, reproductive rights, and resistance to social change, this episode unpacks the roles we’ve inherited and what happens when we begin to challenge and rewrite them.

Resources: Autocracy and patriarchy are surging worldwide—but women are pushing back | Harvard Kennedy School, Gender Ideology, the Far Right, and LGBTQ Politics | PS: Political Science & Politics | Cambridge Core, America's 'Marriage Material' Shortage