Karen Walter – Mauritius

This is how Karen Walter sums up what Gender Links (GL) has contributed to her life as a female journalist. Walter is a journalist at La ‘Santinelle’s daily paper L’Express in Mauritius. La’Santinelle group is one of Gender Links’ media Centres of Excellence for gender. When Walter attended a GL local government COE workshop in 2012, she had no idea that this would change her life forever. Since then, this journalist has started seeing things differently. She now ensures that she keeps gender firmly on her daily agenda.

The highlight of the workshop was an impromptu media monitoring exercise. Participants monitored the day’s papers for voices and images of women and men. It was in this exercise that Walter immediately became aware of how media often writes one-sided stories. She noted that women are grossly underrepresented as news sources but more prominent in images. She also noted that most stories are told from a male gaze and often lack an analysis of the differentiated impact of issues on women and men.
Walter, who has no formal training in journalism, has largely benefitted from on the job training and capacity building initiatives. She says she has always been passionate about writing and dreamt of being a journalist from an early age. As such, when an opportunity to work in the media arose, she grabbed it, signalling the start of a fulfilling career.

Walter first heard about Gender Links during her tenure at La Defi where there were constant engagements around gender mainstreaming. When she joined L’Express, she had the opportunity to work with Gender Links French Opinion and Commentary Editor, Marie Annick Saverepine who has been supportive in building Walter’s gender awareness.

When Walter started engaging with GL, she was not aware of the massive gender gaps in media reporting. She says for example, she had never heard about gender blind reporting. After spending a day with GL and Francophone Director Loga Virahsawmy, her eyes were opened. She particularly remembers interacting with survivors of gender based violence who related their experiences to her. This made her realise that media does not fully capture this reality in its reporting.

Now that she has continued to interact with GL, Walter understands the importance of balanced coverage of stories through including a diversity of voices. For example, she now ensures that she gives equal access to both women and men across topics. GL has made her realise that there are as many women experts as there are men. Now Walter realises that it is unprofessional to write gender blind stories.

When asked whether it is easy to achieve this balance, Walter says when one makes a conscious decision to include the voices of women and men, it becomes part of their work ethic. She says she has gotten to know women experts on different subjects, which makes it easy for her to source them for comments.

The highlight of Walter’s journey has been writing stories about women informal traders, hawkers. Based on her new understanding that poverty affects women and men differently, Walter appreciates how important it is for women to take control of their lives and seek to change their circumstances. In Mauritius, it has been particularly difficult for female vendors to find space to sell their wares. They are constantly involved in battles with law enforcement agents. Walter has found fulfilment in giving a voice and agency to this sector.

It is Walter’s belief that Mauritian journalists need training on gender to change their mind-sets. This, she says, will help build and enhance their understanding of gender as a concept as well as their skills to mainstream gender in their daily reporting and programming.

Walter is happy that she is making a difference in society by reaching people that were previously not accessed by the media. This includes women and other perceived minority groups. She believes that giving these groups a voice increases their agency and in some instances leads to healing.

Walter is now an avid opinion and commentary writer looking at a wide range of topics. Now that she understands the differential impact of socio-cultural and economic dynamics of Mauritius, she is able to tackle a wide range of topics from a gender angle. This she attributes to on-the-job training and support. Walter says she is grateful for the opportunities Gender Links continues to present, opportunities to meet and interact with different groups of people and grow as a journalist. She is hopeful that as she participates in the SADC gender-protocol training modules for media, her skills and capacity will grow from strength to strength.