THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN POLITICAL CARTOONS OF THE 1995 WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN

This study comprises an analysis of 48 editorial cartoons about the 19 95 World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China. Our analysis exa mines how political cartoonists represented conference issues, themes, and results, as well as how the women and men who populate the cartoo ns are represented both individually and in relationship to each other . We then situate our findings within the broader conceptual framework of the ''symbolic annihilation'' of women and women's issues in the m ass media. Our results show clearly that cartoonists virtually ignored the purposes and issues of the conference, focusing instead on China' s human rights record and its handling of the event. Conference attend ees were depicted primarily as mute, powerless victims and defined by their relationship to Chinese male authority figures. By ignoring the substantive purposes and accomplishments of the conference and trivial izing the participants as weak and ineffectual, political cartoonists contributed to the symbolic annihilation of women. (C) 1998 Elsevier S cience Ltd.