Linguistic sexism in the news coverage of women ministers from four Italian governments. An analysis from a social-psychological perspective

The study, a descriptive type, is focused on the role of language in confirming or changing stereotypical feminine representations through a linguistic analysis of Italian newspaper communication concerning women politicians. It explored sexism/nonsexism in political communication on 20 female ministers from four different Italian governments (2006, 2008, 2011, and 2013). It was conducted by textual analysis of 1,244 press headlines with the Spad-t statistical package. Results showed an overutilization of sexist language and variations in the degree of linguistic sexism with respect to different periods (less sexism in the headlines of the last two governments). In this way, findings underlined the conservative role of newspapers that eclipses women’s active contribution, maintains their secondary role, and preserves politics as essentially alien to the female universe. This trend appears sensitive to the cultural and political context showing an increase of linguistic nonsexism in the time paralleled to an increase in the number of women parliamentarians