Inside Podcast Sexism: Why Female Hosts Struggle to Crack the Top 20 Charts

For a relatively new medium, podcasts seem to have fallen prey to the same old problems with dismal representation for female voices we see in more traditional media — and insiders point to pervasive sexism both within the industry as well as the audience for the gender imbalance. “Men early on were given the tools and occupying the space and monopolizing the dialogue around what podcasts were,” said Kristen Meinzer, co-host of the self-help sendup podcast “By the Book” and author of the 2019 book “So You Want to Start a Podcast.” “The people who have been writing about the space have historically been straight men, too. When it’s dominated by men and when the critics are men, you’re going to see men celebrated the most.” The results are hard to deny when looking at the podcasts with the biggest audiences. In an analysis of the top-charting shows across the four major podcast platforms over 31 days this summer, TheWrap found that nearly 80% had a male host. Just 23 of the 109 shows that appeared on one or more of the charts on Apple, Google, Stitcher and Spotify were hosted by women, while 15 had co-ed hosts. Female podcast...

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