Women as heroes, partners - or at least, hard workers? Representations of gender in New Zealand’s Country Calendar, 1990–2015

Abstract

This article presents a longitudinal, multi-method gender analysis of one of New Zealand’s highest rating and longest running television programmes, Country Calendar. Content analysis findings show that over a 25-year period (1990–2015), women were much less likely to appear on or be quoted in Country Calendar, or to be the central focus of an individual episode. Yet interviews with production staff capture female directors’ commitment to “making women the heroes”, and a widespread belief that the show reflects the partnership approach of many farming families. Focus group data indicate that audiences perceive the show’s depictions of gender to be fair and representative, and that women are presented positively, as “hard workers”. This article interrogates these perceptions with reference to selected examples from Country Calendar, ideas of hegemonic masculinity and emphasised femininity, and work on subservient femininities and “real” farming women. The paper concludes with a consideration of why these tensions might still exist, some twenty years since they were previously documented, and calls for further research into this understudied area of feminist media inquiry.