A tabloid campaign to fight gender-based violence

The Gender Links 2008 research, Gender and tabloids in Southern Africa recommended that gender and media activists “conduct campaigns to publicise and devise strategies for increasing gender awareness and sensitivity in the tabloid industry”. This was after the research found out that women’s views are often ignored in tabloids and they further reinforce gender stereotypes in the roles that women and men are portrayed.

Nonhlanhla Dewa carried out research titled: An analysis of the Daily Sun’s “Charter for a Man” campaign. The study seeks to interrogate the gender constructions in the campaign which ran from 7 November to 7 December 2007. It coincided with the 16 Days of Activism against gender violence and was designed to lobby support for this campaign and discourage men from physically abusing women. The “Charter for a Man” listed nine principles that signatories were to abide by. It included a section to be signed by men to be submitted to and collected by the Daily Sun. The campaign was constructed as an intervention into the issue of gender violence. The news stories consisted of testimonies from abused women and some women abusers. In addition, celebrity signatories were selected to endorse the campaign and encourage other men to follow suit. In the editorials, the campaign was consistently flagged as a nation building initiative which all men were supposed to support. The study set out to establish the kinds of masculinities and femininities that were variously constituted in the campaign as well as the gender discourses that were privileged. It is informed by the theories of feminist poststructuralism and Foucault’s conceptualisation of discourse. As the campaign is the initiative of a tabloid newspaper, it is also considered within the framework of newspaper campaigns and arguments about tabloids and the public sphere.

Download : 12729_abstract_etc-1.pdf
Download : 12730_daily_sun__charter_for_a_man_campaign.pdf