Lucy Turnbull says she is her own woman and she will not conform to stereotypes of what people think a leader's wife should be.

Racing Victoria's chief executive has sought a meeting with Michelle Payne, specifically to discuss her experience and impressions of sexism in horse racing.

Laura Jackson wants to prompt a conversation about sexual harassment, social media and the sexism that pervades our attitudes towards women's bodies, writes Zoya Patel.

Today's media landscape, particularly for women, is so focused on the glossy and the glamorous that they often eclipse and undermine everything else. I kid you not - even in preparing for this lecture, the most common question I was asked was not "What are you going to say?" but "What are you going to wear?".

Sexism, prejudice or discrimination based on sex or gender, especially against women and girls. Although its origin is unclear, the term sexism emerged from the so-called “second-wave” feminism of the 1960s through the ’80s and was most likely modeled on the civil rights movement’s term racism (prejudice or discrimination based on race). Sexism can be a belief that one sex is superior to or more valuable than another sex. It imposes limits on what men and boys can and should do and what women and girls can and should do. The concept of sexism was originally formulated to raise consciousness about the oppression of girls and women, although by the early 21st century it had sometimes been expanded to include the oppression of any sex, including men and boys, intersexual people, and transgender people.

Boys perform worse at school because they are constantly being told that girls are more intelligent, according to a new study.

On Thursday night, 240 years into an unbroken chain of all-male leadership, Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination for president. The country may be one hard-fought election away from a woman in charge, making a question that has always been abstract more concrete: How could having a woman as president alter the experience of being an American woman?

On June 24, 2010, Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, was sworn into office by Australia’s first female governor-general, Quentin Bryce. The iconic photographs of that day spoke of an occasion that was a long time coming.

In the three years to have passed since then, Gillard has been the victim of appalling levels of sexism not seen before in Australian public life. With some justification, therefore, she has made her gender a political issue. But has it been a proportional response to the misogynistic attacks meted out, or used simply for her own political gain?

This response to countering gender discrimination and negative gender stereotypes by the Director of the United Nation Women examines stereotypes on women, its impact and What needs to be done to counter stereotypes.

Three themes describe how media represent gender. First, women are underrepresented which falsely implies that men are the cultural standard and women are unimportant or invisible. Second, men and women are portrayed in stereotypical ways that reflect and sustain socially endorsed views of gender. Third, depictions of relationships between men and women emphasize traditional roles and normalize violence against women.