Men are required to be professionally. It's done. We are also attracted.” These crude phrases have been released by the presenters and correspondents of the Spanish television companies who have participated in the doctoral thesis of Naiara Vink. Vink is a bilingual journalist who, through this research work, has shown what he has felt in the first person in his career: the heteropatriarchal aesthetic tyranny conditions the work development of female TV professionals.

The male bodies that appear in front of the screen are very varied. However, it is difficult to find women presenters who do not enter the canon of a thin young man. However, around this very obvious contrast to the public there is no great controversy within the television channels. “It’s a rule that’s not written, that everyone knows, but nobody mentions,” Vink explains. The interviewees state that inertia, deeply rooted in society, is immutable, but as they delve into the reflection, they recognize it as unfair, worrisome and frustrating.

In his conversation with the light, although Vink has recognized that the situation of ETB is more diffuse than that of La Sexta or that of Telecinco, he has highlighted that “television is an image” in the name of the mantra, in our case also the presenters appear very makeup, with high heel shoes and tight clothing in front of the camera. A ETB correspondent told him for his thesis that he was asked to iron his hair every day. “And the obese women who show up in front of the screen are doing humor sessions,” he added.

This pressure conditions women's job opportunities, even before they reach redactions. Vink surveyed journalism students from the University of the Basque Country. Among those who did not see themselves working on television, 100% of those who responded that they did not comply with the aesthetic canon when asking them why they were girls.

Slender trap

Estitxu Fernández Maritxalar was one of the most famous faces of ETB1 between 2000 and 2012. He jumped on television from Bertsolaris. Given the ease of communication shown in the plazas, in 1998 Tipi Tapa proposed to present information. The following year, he participated as a guest in the ETB1 Zuzenean programme and from that point on he completed a promising career as a television host.

“At first, at 22, I wasn’t very aware of what was going on with the image. As in Tipi Tapan I was seen above my waist, I wore under the table the cowboys and the usual boots. I felt the pressure when I started presenting local party shows and night shows like Sorginen Laratza. They chose clothes, very festive and elegant, sometimes with neckline, always with heels. I was very uncomfortable.”

Vink describes in his thesis the trap of beauty: beautiful girls will have the opportunity to work on television, but they will have to prove that they are more than a pretty face. “I’ve always heard that, with respect to other presenters, and it hurt me. "I didn't have the title of Journalism (I studied Psychology) and made journalism 'not serious'. The Iruzurti syndrome was huge,” explains Fernández. In recent years he had the task of presenting Kirolak, even if he was not an expert. “By then I had a lot of TV experience and got a place at EITB, but I felt smaller than ever.”

It has very fresh looks and comments of contempt and, above all, competition between women. “When I started, almost all of them were men. I thought I was better off with them, but it wasn't that, but pretty women were a threat to me and I, too, to other women. I have experienced violent persecution.”

Leire Madariaga [name invented at his request] is a Tertulian and political analyst from several EITB sessions. He has perceived side chains for complying with a sexist aesthetic canon: “Your opinions are worth less because Barbie is only blonde. You have to double to get the respect of others.” Remember a case of marginalization he has known in Spanish Television (TVE): the director of a magazine did not allow him to be tertulian to a brilliant senior analyst, hairdresser and creole. “Those who knew the capacity of this woman were engaged and the director had to recognize that it was an exceptional fichaje.” The people who have participated in the doctoral dissertation have reported the stories of women who have been assigned to writing tasks for not complying with a sexist canon and the wound that has left in their self-esteem.

Jasone Agirre has been a ETB news correspondent from 1991 until his election as a member of the Basque Parliament. He was one of the founders of the Editorial Board and a member of the Equality Commission. In his opinion, “it is known that having a good plant in the pre-chamber tests will give him more points. A handsome man also has advantages, but the scale is different.” However, he stressed that the demand for image goes beyond beauty and gender stereotypes. Remember that a “fight form” colleague was not renewed and learned that the reason was that. “He thought he wasn’t doing his job well.” A young woman with a “cheerful” aesthetic will be told the traffic or parties. “Non-slender men have been chosen to present time, but women must be beautiful and thin body.”

No one obliges you?

Journalist Ana Urrutia has been presenting Eguraldia since 1999, as well as many other entertainment programs. In addition, it is part of the feminist group of EITB, a lobby made up of editorial workers as well as producers' workers. “We continue like 20 years ago: a mature and coarse man can present a prime-time session, which in the case of a woman is unthinkable. The woman who presents the sport should be an expert in sports, but also nice, to attract the male audience. In time you also notice the theme of the sexy woman who moves between the maps”. Remember that a meterologist and an excellent communicator who presented for a casting was not chosen because they were not lean.

Vink's thesis insists that women have an expiration date in front of the camera. Urrutia is 49 years old and prefers to value the experience and safety that has given her age instead of feeling threatened by the young women she knows in the makeup room. “We have unique female professionals from 50 to 60 years who should be in the prime-time, but the direction has not made that wager.”

Presentative time has driven a small revolution within EITB: rejecting heels and appearing with tennis shoes or moccasins. “When you get to TV, the styling group will explain to you that heels improve the image, that your clothes will be better... When you are young, your body suffers, but then you feel physical damage, in your ankles, in your feet joints... In addition, people on the street don’t understand why we wear high heels.” He is proud because thanks to his struggle many other colleagues have begun to ask for flat shoes. The directors have not taken note of him and it seems to him that this is what proves that everyone has to do an internal job in order to break the unwritten rules.

Many journalists interviewed by Naiara Vink claim to feel safer in front of the camera when wearing a heel and made makeup. An informant confesses that he does the winter direct without shelter, because he prefers to leave pretty even if it is cold. He uses the concept of “symbolic violence” by the sociologist Pierre Bordieu to explain that oppression does not come only from outside, but is accepted by oneself. This is what tertulia Leire Madariaga explains: “You seem to choose how to dress or diet. But it’s not a free choice: you know what the chain is looking for and you want to fulfill it.”

Urrutia has identified another trap: “The styling group does an unbeatable job to comb, make up and dress us. At first, seeing yourself beautiful and receiving blemishes gives you security. But you become a slave to that aesthetic. They transform us so much that then people on the street find it hard to meet us.” Once in a bar, after surfing, he heard someone tell his friend: “Is this Ana Urrutia? Nothing is worth face to face!” He has said that many colleagues do treatments like botox, but he prefers to “age with dignity” and also love the image that appears in front of the mirror.

Vink said that television journalists find it particularly frustrating to receive more comments on aesthetics than on their work. One commentator recounts that he once had to make a direct hard on the rape of groups in San Fermin. “The deputy director sent me a Whatsapp to criticize my coat.” He adds that in Galicia he reported a strong storm and that the Editor-in-Chief ordered him to release the braid through the earbud to see the effect of the wind. “I told him no, that I am not part of the props and that I want to do my job comfortably.”

Stitxu Fernandez Martitxalar and Leire Madariaga have been made very hard to hear these comments from others and from those closest to them: “I felt so bad, but I didn’t know what to answer,” says the first one. “Try to make us deaf ears, but it reinforces your insecurity,” second.

Lack of transparency and commitment

III Equality of Women and Men of the EITB Group. In the Plan (2019-2022) you can read: “The media are involved in building our identity and influencing our worldview and our deepest values. As for gender, they offer us ideas: what it is like to be a man and what it is like to be a woman, how to consume, dress, play, etc.” Naiara Vink underlines that the plan does not provide for any measures to meet this premise. Ana Urrutia denounces that the directors of Formation and Equality do not meet the demands of the feminist group: “They write the plans looking at the booth, but there’s no intention of changing the structures of television.”

The objectives of the Equality Plan also include the “conservation, consolidation and assurance of the non-discriminatory working environment”. On the contrary, journalists who have participated in the doctoral thesis indicate a situation contrary to this principle: that women have to spend much more time caring for their image. In the case of presenters, man is a quarter of an hour and women are more than an hour.

The informants take care of their stylism and pay with their salary clothes, makeup and aesthetic treatments. Jasone Agirre recalls this situation as a “burden”, although he added that he is currently also living in the political sphere. “Women’s clothing and makeup are more slave. Until recently, men simply put the tie in the pocket of the American jacket.”

Vink deduced in his thesis that esthetic pressure blurred as working conditions stabilized and all interviewees confirmed it. “When you’re young and you don’t have a job contract, you accept everything. I've heard a time presenter. ‘I live by my image’, says Agirre.

The new Equality Plan provides for the “incorporation of the gender perspective in the documents and contracts of agreements with supplier companies”, but with the excuse of the lack of resources, the workers of the producers do not participate in equality projects. Most journalists who have participated in the thesis and in this report are clear that this lack of control facilitates the maintenance of a sexist aesthetic tyranny in hiring and in everyday attitudes.

For Agirre, it is necessary to broaden the collective reflection to reflect transparently and without sexism on the importance that image should have in the recruitment processes of both writing and production. “What is the right aspect in a public media? Can betting on shoes reinforce freshness and identification? We have to move from unwritten rules to rules.” In the same vein, Vink points out the need for equality policies to address specific issues: “Why can a woman use only the powdered makeup of a man? Why do women have to be combing their hair while men do journalism?”

And in alternative televisions, what?

Ekhiñe Atorrasagasti is the host and responsible for the contents and communication of Hamaika TB. “We have broken many rules in this patriarchal field of play,” he said. All members of the work team have experience in front of and behind the screen, which has allowed them to break down hierarchies and promote the empowerment of women. Vink’s research raises a hypothesis he has confirmed. “I’m sure in the rest of the chains there are more men than presenters and editors. Reading in telepromter what was written by another is very different. I have had the opportunity to correct the contents, to give full development and to create working groups.”

Hamaika TB recognizes the freedom of journalists and collaborators to appear as they want: “Men throw some powders and it’s done. I just makeup my eyes, other women also my lips.” They don't have professional stylists, hairdressers or makeup artists because of lack of resources. “We manage these tasks. This has aroused interesting debates about whether it is possible to disguise by improving lighting, but also about the importance we must give to these invisible and feminized working sectors.”

However, it is difficult to completely liberate oneself from the tyranny of aesthetics: “When one looks in the mirror, according to the emotional state, some insecurities will appear. If you add to this the diffusion of television, the fears and the bad moments are multiplied. You've worked well on the content, but you're going to get uncomfortable because you've got hairs on your lip or you've gotten fatter." Another big headache is that this aesthetic pressure of television increases the difficulty of finding female collaborators.

“Misogyny is acid rain. We feel that we are protected by working in an alternative environment, but this Sirimiri has a great ability to smoke. A challenge is to guess how to care for the hangover that can let you act in front of the screen.”