Dr. Erika Falk made a stop at the Clinton School Thursday night to talk about her new book, "Women for President, Media Bias in Eight Campaigns."

     As the title suggests, she follows eight female candidates as they blaze a trail toward the Whitehouse, but she says the media doesn't give those campaigns equal time.

     Almost everything in Erika Falk's new book is done by the numbers.

     Here’s an example she gave at Thursday night's lecture.

     Using the 6 highest circulating newspapers in the country, Falk counted the number of times a candidate was "title dropped," meaning a professional title like Senator gave way to Mr. or Mrs. 

     Her research showed that for male candidates, it happens 11% of the time. for female candidates, "Mrs." appears 32% of the time. 

     And that isn't the only disparity she noted.

     "Men who poled about the same and who had the same kind of experience as women still get twice as much coverage as the average woman, says Dr. Erica Falk.

     Falk followed 8 female campaigns, from Victoria Woodhull in 1872 to Carol Moseley Braun in 2004. And she has found that things are nearly the same now as they were then, and Arkansans aren’t surprised.

     "There's some indication of improvement, but there were also some indications of the same old story, Falk says.

     "I really think that we have not come as far in dealing with sexism probably as we have with racism,” says Arkansan Dorothy Stuck.

     And that includes recent Whitehouse contender, Hillary Clinton.

     Falk's research shows that Clinton is getting more media coverage than past female candidates, but not as much as her male counterparts.

     Even so, some Arkansans are pleased with her progress.

     "Hillary was in Arkansas for so long, I think that she's definitely a strong woman, and shown with everything that she's been through in her past that she definitely can do the job and I'm excited to see that she's made it so far,” says Raelee Toye who attended today’s lecture.

     But to truly make progress, Falk says women must run and run often for public office.

     Falk says media bias isn't the result of reporters conspiring to be unfair, she says society as a whole puts more emphasis on male candidates, and journalists are simply part of society.

     She also says in smaller scale elections, women do win as frequently as men, something that should encourage women to run.