Austerity measures are commonly adopted to address economic crises. Despite the particularly adverse effects that austerity have on women, these consequences are silenced to legitimise the austere project. This article examines variation in when and how the gendered effects of austerity are addressed in newspaper media, and by which actors. It draws on an original dataset of more than 9,000 newspaper articles published between 2010 and 2020 on the topic of austerity measures introduced by the Spanish government. I demonstrate that despite limited attention to gender perspectives in the news coverage of these austerity measures, there is significant variation in when, how and by whom the gendered effects of austerity are addressed when such considerations do appear in the media. The article proposes a theoretical framework for better understanding variation in how austerity becomes gendered in the public discourse.