Women have made great strides in the media over the past several years, notably in broadcast media. In 2006, Katie Couric became the first female anchor to go solo on a weekday evening news network, paving the way for leading female anchors everywhere.

Today, over half of all news anchors are female, which should mean women are very fairly represented in news media. But, when I separate myself from the encouraging statistics and begin to analyze the actual content that is being displayed, I am left asking: “are we really?”

Google answered this question easily. A search for “female newscasters” brought up a disheartening list of websites including Maxim’s “12 Hottest News Anchors,” the Sports Bank’s “Top 10 most attractive female news anchors,”  a YouTube clip of “Sexy female newscasters,” and an article in The Standard Digital News about how female newscasters “distract” men from the content of the news.

I gave male newscasters the same test. Google seemed to want to make my day a little worse, however, and the list showed the drastic gender imbalance apparent in the news. On the male side, websites referenced “famous male news presenters,” “top American News Anchors of All Time,” and an article on how males fantasize about newscasters (interesting twist on what I actually searched for, Google).

Female newscasters, regardless of intellect and talent, are objectified and sexualized by the media to a far greater extent than their male counterparts. This fact is so inherent it can be proved simply by turning on any news channel. Appearance is noticeably more important in hiring female journalists than it is for male journalists.

“Sometimes I look on the cable news channels and I see women wearing very low-cut shirts and lots of makeup, and, you know, their hair is kind of tousled, and they look like they’re working as cocktail waitresses instead of newscasters,” Katie Couric explained in the movie Miss Representation.

Newscasters should be able to dress and look how they like. If the “cocktail waitress” look is how they choose to be represented, that is perfectly fine. However, I doubt that the entirety of the anchor world chooses to look and act in the exact same way on-air. Who is telling them how to dress, you ask? The producers. And, who are the producers? — (predominantly) men who believe wholeheartedly in the philosophy that “sex sells.”

I understand the slogan “sex sells” and, though I am not a proponent of ever using this theory, journalism is the last place I want to see it applied. Anyone who is tuning into the news to see a hot girl is doing so for the wrong reason, and any popularity a network may gain from such viewers destroys the integrity of both the channel and of journalism itself.

Though it is treated as such, the news is not a product that needs to be sold; it is a source of information responsible for creating an informed populace which is so necessary in a democratic society.

“I thought it was an important message, that a woman could be as competent as a man in an important, powerful role,” Katie Couric has said about her groundbreaking career as a female anchor.

Anchoring is an important, powerful role. Half of the responsibility to create an informed public lies in the hands of women. But, their power is chipped away every time Katie Couric’s legs are discussed instead of her content.

Viewers look to the news to form opinions. So, when a woman on the news is asked to dress provocatively or put up with blatant sexist commentary, every viewer is sent the message that women are incapable of being respectable newscasters. And, equally as devastating to female progress, female viewers around the country are receiving the message that even when women are positions of power, they have none.

Refusing to comply with producers could cost reporters their jobs, so ultimately the responsibility lies in the hands of the consumer, you.

What can you do? Refuse. Refuse to talk about reporters’ appearances. Refuse to watch news programs that have forced their reporters to dress or behave in a certain way. Tell the networks that you refuse. Tell your friends you refuse, and that they should too. Most importantly, don’t accept that the media “is the way it is.”