Gender and Media Handbook – Executive Summary

How the handbook came about

Hands up anyone reading this who is aware that 18 percent of members of parliament in Southern Africa are women and that this percentage is higher than in the United States and Europe? Ever heard any discussion of this in the media? Now imagine that an ethnic or racial group in any one of our countries represented 55 percent of the population, but only had 18 percent of the seats in parliament. Would that be the source of an outcry; an issue for the nation, for the media? Could the media make a difference? So why isn’t this flagrant violation of the most basic principle of democracy – government for the people, by the people; not for men, by men, not a topic of daily discussion and agitation in our media? Where has the media been in the discussion of gender equality that is gaining momentum in every other forum and institution?

Sexist attitudes and stereotypes remain one of the major impediments to the achievement of gender equality. Mass media plays a key role in shaping public attitudes. Studies show that the overwhelming majority of news sources are men. Women invariably feature either as sex objects or as victims of violence in the media. Ironically, although women constitute the majority of media consumers, little attention is paid to what they would be interested in knowing. Assumptions have been made about the closed-mindedness of men to progressive coverage on gender issues. Indeed, the burden of masculinity is one that is increasingly coming in for discussion and scrutiny. It needs to feature more in media debates.

Several manuals and guidelines have been developed for mainstreaming gender in government policies and programmes. Few such materials exist for the media. The development of a simple handbook for media practitioners on how to mainstream gender within their institutions and in their editorial products is an essential beginning.

The workshop to develop a handbook for mainstreaming gender in the media, held in Johannesburg from 21 – 24 February 2001 forms part of the two year work plan of GL, a Southern African gender training and research organisation with a strong focus on gender, media and development. GL is part of the GEM comprising IPS, the AWC and GL. This partnership seeks to promote the fair portrayal and equal representation of women in African media.

Among the most recent activities that the GEM partners have engaged in is the production of a training manual on covering violence against women that was tested at a media training workshop running parallel to a SADC conference on gender violence in Lesotho in December 2000. This led to the launch of a SADC Gender and Media network. Several members of this network participated in this initiative to develop a gender in media handbook.

The 25 participants from the region included media practitioners, regional networks and training institutions such as the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ); the SADC Gender Unit; the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA); NSJ in Maputo; as well as the Southern Africa Documentation and Research Centre (SARDC) and the African Federation of Media Women in Southern Africa (FEM SADC). GL’s GEM partners – IPS and AWC – also participated.

A full report of the workshop is available and should be read alongside the handbook. Keynote and research papers, presented during the first day and a half of the workshop, included a literature review on gender and media internationally, high-lighting lessons; a status report examining key issues in gender and media in the SADC region; and principles of gender mainstreaming and how these apply to the media. Participants prepared brief case studies and brought samples of coverage on gender issues from their countries.

IPS, which has developed and implemented a gender policy of its own, presented a case study as an example of what is possible (see Annex D). This was critiqued by a panel of participants including media managers from the region and the Deputy Managing Editor of the Daily Nation newspaper in Kenya, Lucy Oriang. All participants helped to develop the checklist that you find in this handbook during an intensive day and a half of group work. A small working group comprising of representatives of GL and its GEM partners finalized the handbook.

Who is the handbook for?

The handbook is primarily addressed to media institutions. However, for gender mainstreaming in the media to be effective, it has to occur across a range of related institutions as illustrated on the next page. Thus the handbook also addresses government, regulatory authorities, civil society and media training institutions.

The Johannesburg workshop mapped out a distribution strategy for the handbook that includes:

* launching the handbook at the Tenth Anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press in May 2001 and on strategic dates in member countries (for example, Women’s Day on 9 August in South Africa).
* distributing the handbook through members of the SADC GEM team and regional networks such as SADC and MISA.
* the GL and GEM websites.
* targeted mailing lists to managers and editors in the region; ministers of communication; regulatory authorities, training institutions and key civil society organisations.

The handbook will also be disseminated internationally, through multilateral organisations that have developed tools on gender mainstreaming in other areas, and have a keen interest in the development of such tools for the media.

Click here for the handbook