VOL 120, ISSUE 16 - March 9th, 2023

02
THURSDAY
MAR 9,
2023
STAFF
SUBMISSION POLICY
The San Francisco Foghorn is the
official student newspaper of the
University of San Francisco and is
sponsored by the Associated Students
of the University of San Francisco
(ASUSF).
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SAN FRANCISCO
FOGHORN
Freedom and Fairness
Editor in Chief
ZOE BINDER
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News Editor
NIA RATLIFF
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Opinion Editor
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General Reporter
JORDAN DELFIUGO
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General Reporter
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STAFF EDITORIAL
WOMEN IN JOURNALISM
DESERVE OUR RESPECT
Journalism is
one of many industries
that has
historically excluded
women,
but gender diversity
in newsrooms
across the country
is on the rise.
With increased
diversity in newsrooms
comes increased
diversity
in stories, and a
healthier news
media overall.
Newsrooms are the most gender-diverse
they’ve ever been. Neiman Lab reported
that in 1971, women made up only 22%
of daily newspaper journalists, and 11% of
television journalists. But as of 2019, according
to the News Leaders Association’s
diversity survey, 41.8% of all newsroom
workers are women.
However, non-white women continue
to be underrepresented in newsrooms. In
a study conducted by the American Society
of News Editors across 661 newsrooms,
under 3% of their journalists were Black
women. Hispanic women and Asian women
both made up about 2%, and Native
American and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
women combined accounted for less than
1%. Although white women are a minority
compared to the men who dominate the
industry, they are better represented than
women of color.
While there has been an increase in female
journalists, there has not been an
increase in respect. In a 2022 study from
UNESCO, 73% of female journalists reported
receiving online harassment, and
25% received threats of physical violence.
Journalists who were women of color, or
LGBT identifying, experienced the highest
rates and most severe of online threats.
The lack of respect for female journalists
is so deeply imbued into our culture that it
has infiltrated popular media, which refuses
to take women in journalism seriously.
The clearest image some of our generation
might have of what it means to be a
female journalist comes from the poor caricatures
that plague Hollywood. Romantic
comedies like “How to Lose a Guy in Ten
Days” (2003) and “Trainwreck” (2015)
paint female journalists as fluffy writers
with little else to do than pursue a man
— who often ends up being their article’s
subject. As said in the Atlantic, sleeping
with sources is a tired trope that has been
hashed and rehashed ten times over. This
is especially egregious when real life journalists
are falsely portrayed this way, as the
late journalist Kathy Scruggs was in Clint
Eastwood’s 2019 film “Richard Jewell.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
It’s not that fluffy stories are inherently
bad, but they’re not all that female journalists
are capable of writing. Women have a
long history of making strides in journalism,
one that deserves a reputation beyond
Hollywood tropes.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a prominent
journalist in the late 19th century who
covered and spoke out about the horrible
lynchings Black Americans faced from their
white counterparts. Wells, who was born
into slavery, was one of the first journalists
to push back against white supremacy in
the press, which led to threats against her
life. She was a trailblazer, not only for women
but for her entire field, and was finally
honored by a Pulitzer prize posthumously
in 2020.
In 2017, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
of the New York Times wrote a story that
changed womens’ lives for the better. The
piece, which detailed the experiences of several
women who were sexually harassed by
(formally successful) Hollywood producer
Harvey Weinstein, sparked the #MeToo
movement.
Last year, Politico recapped tangible
changes the #MeToo movement made for
women and other vulnerable groups and
other vulnerable groups. They reported
that, “Between 2017 and 2021, states introduced
2,324 #MeToo-related bills and
passed 286,” including bills championing
anti-harassment practices and pay equity.
Increasing female representation in journalism
means that women, who make up
about half of the world’s population, can
tell their stories on their own terms. Journalists
cover stories that will eventually
be referred to in history books, and they
should reflect the nuanced identities of the
cultures they represent.
Although women still face challenges
in journalism, trailblazers like Wells, Kantor,
Twohey, and so many others have set
the precedent that female journalists can
do great things. As a primarily female-led
publication, the Foghorn will continue to
uphold the values of great female journalists
before us and continue to pave the way for
this change to occur.
WOMEN AND THE CLIMATE JUSTICE
MOVEMENT AT USF
JORDAN DELFIUGO
Staff Writer
Women, especially women of color, have historically played an instrumental
role in environmental activism. For Women’s History Month, the Foghorn is
reflecting on how women at USF are forging a better future through intersectional
environmental activism on campus and beyond.
Since the 1970s, environmental researchers have recognized a coinciding
relationship between society’s exploitation of women and its exploitation of
the environment. In the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
a 17 item plan that outlines necessary steps for a more sustainable
future, gender equality is named as a “necessary foundation for a peaceful,
prosperous, and sustainable world.”
Media studies professor Dorothy Kidd has been involved in this movement
for most of her life, first participating in youth activism and research
in the 1970s. “There was this idea in the 1970s that not only did we need to
be feminist to change the world, but we needed to have an understanding of
changing the environment,” said Kidd.
Kidd continues to advocate for environmental justice through her research
on extractivism, the removal of large quantities of natural materials
for export. In addition to her research, Kidd centers environmental issues and
communications in her teaching.
Adrienne Johnson, an environmental studies professor, also works to
incorporate climate justice in her classes. “I’ve designed and taught a class
on gender and the environment and I really hope students take away that
environmental issues are highly political ones,” she said. “I employ an intersectional
lens, meaning I hope students walk away understanding how
your personal identity can shape to what extent you have access to a healthy
environment or not.”
Though climate change affects everyone, women are exceedingly vulnerable
to the effects of environmental destruction. Damage to the environment
puts women at an increased susceptibility to health ailments, such as malaria
and the Zika virus, which are linked to miscarriages and anemia in women.
Women are also spatially and socially affected by climate change. The
UN estimates that 80% of people displaced as a result of environmental destruction
are women. Additionally, a 2020 study published by the British
Medical Journal found that natural disasters increase the rate of gender-based
violence for women and girls. Johnson’s current research centers around missing
and murdered Indigenous women and girls and the oil extraction industry.
On campus, female students are also actively working to promote climate
justice. Hiveminders is a woman-led and BIPOC run environmental
student group that practices beekeeping on campus. Hiveminders President
and fourth-year environmental studies major Miya Stephanoff described the
Last semester’s Nature Immersion class at Point Reyes National Seashore. PHOTO COURTESY OF SARAH WHITWAM
club as a “safe space for queer BIPOC students.”
Stephanoff said that mindfulness plays a central role in the club’s operations.
“It is simply a joyous and wholesome time, which is something necessary
but not often found,” she said. “Our club focuses on making those
joyous moments happen which is its own form of climate activism.”
Current research suggests that the practice of mindfulness can serve as
a form of environmental activism. According to the American Psychological
Association, the practice can help facilitate a stronger connection to the environment
and subsequently promote more sustainable behaviors.
Another woman and non-binary led student organization on campus
is BIPOC for the Environment. The club was started at USF in 2018 after
its founder, USF class of 2020 alumna Darla Mariduena, identified a lack of
diversity in USF’s environmental departments. The club works to expand the
presence of people of color in the environmental programs on campus, as well
as in the movement as a whole.
“It’s important to be educated and involved in order to salvage our communities
and our homes,” said Beatrice Johnson-Drysdale, third-year engineering
major and the club’s director of operations. “Women have a nurturing
and empathetic gift that we need more of in environmental activism if we
want to make our earth a more sustainable place.”
Other environmental clubs at USF, like the Environmental Engineering
and Science Club, and Strategies for Ecology Education, Diversity, and Sustainability
(SEEDS), are also led by women.
Outside of campus clubs, students like Rachel Struer, a fourth-year environmental
studies major, are highly involved in environmental activism.
Struer works in the Office of Sustainability and previously worked as a teaching
assistant for nature immersion, a class that promotes deepening people’s
connection to nature through class trips in Northern California.
The class is taught by environmental studies professor Kim Carfore, who
specializes in the relationship between women and the environment. “[Carfore]
focuses a lot of her work and in our class on slowing down and pulling
ourselves out of all the little distractions and different tugs that our modern,
technological, capitalist world teases us with,” Struer said. “[We] just back
into ourselves and then out into the real, tangible, beautiful world.”
Stephanoff also expressed admiration for Carfore and the female faculty
in the environmental studies department. “Novella Carpenter and Kim
Carfore are two professors who have inspired me to live with climate justice
close to my heart,” she said. “They encouraged me to find and listen to my
intuition which has already led me to connect with so many powerful women
on campus who all care so deeply for the environment.”
The empathetic influence of women in environmental activism is something
Struer said she admires. “[Women] focus on the fact that this place is
our home and we are all connected together,” she said. “It’s empathy that will
move us forward.”
03
NEWS