I am in my final school year in Australia, completing a study on how female politicians are represented in the media, how this relates to their gender, and why they are portrayed in particular ways. As part of my research, I am attempting to locate previous studies on this topic, but this is proving to be a little difficult. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you, Appleonia

Thanks for your note to FEMINIST.COM. The short answer is that female representatives aren't fairly represented in the media. For instance, women have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. And the news attention that women get still insists on including references to their appearance and their families much more so than with men. What's wrong with this is that men don't get these same questions and, therefore, get painted in a much better light.

Now, for specific resources to help with your work. For starters, you might want to contact the National Women's Political Caucus. Though this will be only U.S. based, I hope they can help or direct you to someone who can. There are also polling places such as Celinda Lake & Co. (Though that's not the right name--I think it's Lake, Sossin, etc...). Anyway, they do Democratic/progressive polling and they might have information.

—Amy