To establish how women are portrayed in the press, the dissertation offers findings from a content analysis of 1,050 news accounts of women drawn from three Zambian newspapers in 1991, 1995 and 1999. These findings are supported by a textual reading of a smaller number of news accounts examining how media construct women in politics as they are representatives of other women in general. The dissertation concludes that news accounts of women in the Zambian press to some extent contribute to their continued marginalisation in society