Women in the
News: A Guide for Media Excerpted from the Preface "Unmasking Mainstream Media" by Mavic Cabrera Balleza, Project Coordinator The silencing of women’s voices is among the most insidious outcomes of “manstream” media (pun intended) evolution. Malecontrolled and dominated, the media in most Asian and Pacific societies has influenced the gathering and distribution of information from a perspective that is, naturally, predominantly male. Even the increasing number of women practitioners in journalism has not reversed the trend. Indeed, while the “all boys network” has grudgingly made space for them, women in the media are still subjected to second-class citizenry in the workplace – just as at home and in most spheres of public life. I believe a few (albeit too few to notice) improvements have been made in terms of content of media productions. The same thing with women’s status in some spheres of public life. The use of less definitive terms is an acknowledgement of those improvements. Key players in the field, together with media activists and
civil-society campaigners, have long searched for a concerted way of
redressing the inequality in treatment – both of women practitioners as
well as women’s concerns in news delivery. The global women’s movement has
been particularly concerned about the implications of failure to challenge
long-held gender-unfair practices in the newsroom. Since the Third World
Conference on Women in Nairobi in 1985, the issue of women and media has
been in the agenda of international governmental and non-governmental
conferences. Alongside this, women’s groups have continuously questioned
the patriarchal hierarchy of the mass media and sought to build more
democratic and participatory forms of communication. They have lobbied for
media, information and communication vehicles that are more reflective of
women’s needs and which empower women. Nowhere has this demand for a gender-fair media been better articulated
than at the “Women Empowering Communications Conference” that Isis
International-Manila co-organised in Bangkok in 1994. More than 400 women
communicators and media practitioners from around the world pushed for a
media that: ... This tool kit developed by Isis International-Manila from a project
initiated by the Asian Media Information and Communications Centre,
responds precisely to such requirements. It tackles the issues straight
from the shoulder in terminology that any media practitioner would
recognise, focuses on issues of gender inequality in a variety of familiar
situations, and examines the mindset from which the unfairness stems. It
is important to note, however, that the occurrence of gender-insensitive
incidents in newsrooms is but a reflection of that in the bigger society.
Reforming the media, therefore, is the “fast track” way of re-educating
the society that it serves. ... The kit explains the basis of newsroom decisions and reasons for double standards in gender equality, including the overt and covert messages the media sends out about women through its products. The material is mainly drawn from the direct experiences of women in the Asian and Pacific media. On a positive note, the kit leads media practitioners, campaigners and policy-makers toward ways to shape a balanced, fair and diversified image of women. A critique of news reports, headlines, photographs, graphics and advertisements is accompanied by suggestions for improvement – and this can be achieved if there is the will for it. Campaigners will find workable strategies in the Activities section, to flesh out their programme of reform and to keep the media and governments on their toes. The primary aim of the kit, though, is to gender-sensitise media practitioners by forcing them to revisit newsrooms policies and question the practices that define the construction of the news and other media productions. Trainers and lecturers in Mass Communications, journalism and related courses are encouraged to use the kit as a resource or reference book to bring students up to date with global developments in this field of reporting. We anticipate that the education authorities will find it equally valuable as a starting point to discuss curricula review at all levels, for the reeducation of society cannot be the responsibility of the media alone. |