Community media by and for women—a
challenge to fulfill the promise*
By Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, AMARC Women’s International
Network and the International Women’s Tribune Centre
For more than three decades now, the
global women’s movement has confronted two key issues in the media: the negative
and stereotypical portrayal of women in the media and the lack of women’s
representation and participation in decision-making positions within media
organizations.
Community media, independent media,
radical media, participatory media, media libres, peoples’ media, grassroots
media, social movement media and all their different configurations are touted
to be the utmost instrument that women can use to reclaim their rightful spaces
within media systems and structures. However, research and anecdotal evidence
point out to the fact that this is not entirely the case. The discrimination
that women face within government and corporate media are sometimes also
reproduced in community media. This panel discussion seeks to find out not only
how gender inequalities in community media can be stopped but how to effectively
use this type of media as a tool in promoting women’s decision-making roles and
political participation.
While I am inclined
not to delve into how mainstream media marginalizes women because there is
already more than enough evidence to prove this, I cannot avoid citing two media
monitoring initiatives that to me reveal very interesting findings. These two
are the 2005 Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) coordinated by the World
Association for Christian Communication and the “Mirror on the Media, Who Talk
on Talk Shows” conducted by Gender Links and the Gender and Media Network in
Southern Africa (GEMSA) in 2006. Both studies found out that of all the media,
it is in radio where women and women’s issues are most underrepresented.
The GMMP which
analyzed media content in 76 countries revealed that women and women’s issues
make up only 17 percent of news subjects as opposed to 83 percent men as news
subjects in radio broadcasts. The Mirror on the Media project which monitored 11
radio talk shows in four Southern African countries –
The same project
showed that women only make up 25 percent of all callers to radio talk shows in
Why am I focusing on
radio when the situation in all other forms of media is just as bad? It is
because radio is said to be the women’s medium. It is accessible and affordable;
it transcends literacy barrier; it is the medium that has the broadest reach in
poor rural and urban areas where there is little media presence and media
access.
Radio therefore is a
potentially powerful tool in enabling women’s participation in decision-making
on matters that impact to their communities, on matters that impact to their
families and to them personally. Women’s participation in radio can potentially
lead to their broader political participation.
Let’s look at the
situation in community radio. In 2006, AMARC Asia-Pacific
and Isis
International-Manila conducted a survey of 23 community radio
stations and production groups in Asia-Pacific to examine women’s programming
and women’s participation in community radio.
The
survey brought the good news that almost all of the community radio stations
(21) have between one to five hours of weekly programs by and for women. These
programs cover issues such as women’s rights, health care, violence against
women, literacy, and success stories of women in society.
Now
the disappointing news: women make up only 28% of leadership positions—however,
this is
still comparatively better than in mainstream media
where women occupy only 3 to 5% of leadership positions, as reported by the
International Federation of Journalists in 2001. In technical positions, women make up only 28% as
well. Not surprisingly, there were considerably more women administrative staff
and producers at 44% each. Evidently, women are also stereotyped within
community radio. Women also lack access to
decision-making in the community radio sector.
A study of how gender issues are
played out in Indy Media Centers (IMC) conducted by Gabriele
Hadl and Lisa Brooten using the various list serves and discussion spaces within
the network showed similar patterns of gender-based
domination.
Some of these
are:
·
Work is
often distributed and valued along traditional lines of gender: e.g. technical
work is mostly reserved for men, and is valued more highly than other forms of
contributions, given priority in discussions, etc. (the tech-arrogance phenomenon)[1];
·
Meetings,
though at their best well-facilitated and democratic, were noted to be often
dominated by those who talk “long, loud[ly], first and often”[2].
Tallies from meetings showed that even if more women were present at a meeting,
men talked more.
·
A
rhetoric of harassment, a feature common in online communication, characterized
by flaming, trolling and cyber-stalking was reported as a normal part of
everyday life in certain IMC spaces, and even condoned in face-to-face
situations.
·
Lack of
diversity, time and energy: Even if a collective is aware of gender issues, it
may give addressing them a low priority. This is sometimes justified by the old
Marxist “revolution first, justice later” argument. Also, the precarity[3]of
most IMCs, with a small group of volunteers battling rightists, spammers, tech
problems, police surveillance, lack of funds and space, etc. exacerbates
existing inequalities.
How to address discrimination
against women in community media
Participants in IMC gender debates
have suggested ways the issues can be tackled, which Hadl and
Brooten summarized as
follows:
·
Acknowledging existing hierarchies:
The inequalities in the wider culture do not of their own accord stop at the
door of IMCs -- this is nothing to be ashamed of. Rather than trying to deny
them, they should be seen as an opportunity for dissecting and moving beyond
them;
·
Creating
a safe and welcoming environment, if possible from the get-go, as it is harder
to change engrained structures later– e.g. inviting more women to join a
long-established all-male collective or changing an aggressive communication
culture to a less combative one;
·
Improving
meetings by providing attentive and fair facilitation, outreach and encouraging
different kinds of communication modes. One example of this is the traditional
practice in some African tribes where a baton is passed around and whoever holds
the baton gets the chance to speak;
·
Rethinking the value certain kinds
of work are assigned according to the gender traditionally associated with
them.
In
AMARC, we’re planning to conduct a comprehensive gender audit among our members
to examine the nature and extent of women’s involvement in programming and
management of community radio. At the same time, we also hope to come up with
models of organizational structures that would best guarantee women’s meaningful
participation in community radio.
We will also identify areas for capacity building. The AMARC Asia-Pacific
survey, for example, indicates that women want to be trained in technical areas
of radio production. AMARC is committed to responding to this expressed need but
we also want to underscore that in addressing the gender inequalities through
training or capacity building, we will be training the men as well. Such
training efforts will focus on sensitizing them on women’s issues and how and
why such issues also impact on men; how men are also stereotyped like women; the
gender-based power relations and the ways by which such power relations play out
in the operations of community radio as well as in their programming. In
addition, we hope to produce and distribute creative and visual tools such as a
checklist for gender-sensitive programming, score cards that illustrate women’s
participation in decision-making, and other visual indicators.
We
do know that men in supposedly progressive sectors like community media are
aware of gender inequalities and gender injustices. Why this awareness has not
changed their everyday political practice—the way they conduct themselves and
carry out their work is mind-boggling for most of us. Many attribute it to the
socialization process we [women and men] undergo. Perhaps because we are just
beginning to address this issue more concretely and more systematically, we are
ready to accept the reasoning that not unlike the women, men are just as trapped
in a patriarchal and hierarchical socialization process. But we also need to
keep in mind that we need not go easy on our male comrades. We should demand the
same if not greater responsibility for them to monitor their own behavior. At
some point, we will have to say enough! The patriarchal and hierarchical
socialization process is no longer an acceptable excuse. We are aware of the
problem, we know what to do with the problem—all we have to do is operationalize
the solution.
We
also need to realize that women also need sensitizing. I don’t want to sound
preachy –especially to sisters in the women’s movement and the community media
sector but as community media practitioners, we have a greater responsibility to
break the boundaries set by our socio-political and cultural contexts. If we are
to equate community media and women’s media with women’s progress, we need to go
out of our way and take extra effort so that community media will truly become
an instrument that allows, encourages and empowers women to speak in their own
authentic voice.
References
Global Media
Monitoring Project. 2005.. World Association for Christian Communications.
on
Hadl,
G and Brooten, S. 2007. Talking Gender at Indymedia. Gender
and Hierarchy: A case study of the Independent Media Center Network.
Miglioretto,
B. 2006.
Mirror on the Media,
Who Talk on Talk Shows. 2006. Gender Links and the Gender and Media Network in
* A paper presented by Mavic
Cabrera-Balleza at the Our Media 6th International Conference;
[1] Though
this problem appears to have become less prevalent than it was in the 1999-2002
phase when many new IMCs were established.
[2]
Spalding, D. (2002, December 14). An open letter to other men in the movement.
Newswire posting to IMC-DC. Retrieved
[3] ‘Precarity’ is a neologism of an international movement around the working and living conditions created by neoliberalist policies. The term here emphasizes that the instability is at least partly caused by the enclosing social and political system