Women in the News: A Guide for Media
A Gender Equality Toolkit

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:
-encourages dialogue and debate;
-advances women’s and people’s creativity;
-reaffirms women’s wisdom and knowledge;
-sees people as subjects rather than objects or targets of communication; and
-is responsive to people’s needs.

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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.

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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.