Women Saving the World

Abstract

Abstract Radio has long been used as a tool for development—particularly when promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment—but far more attention has been paid to local community radio than to radio with a global reach. This chapter seeks to understand how a far-reaching global radio programme, the BBC’s 100 Women series, represents women from low and lower middle-income countries, and portrays their role in development. Narrative analysis reveals two prominent meta-narratives, or frames, in the series: one in which a woman is portrayed as a local phenomenon, and the other in which she is portrayed as a global success. Both frames reproduce a standard development trope, in which women are presented as ‘saviours’ driving development through their community mindedness and altruism, rather than as multifaceted human beings intrinsically entitled to equality.