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Zimbabwean women have a right to be heard
Sharon Tapfumaneyi, MISA-Zimbabwe
Extracted from Monthly Alerts Digest- July 2005
August 11, 2005

As more women continue to break new ground by entering into previously male-dominated professions, the Zimbabwean media continues to pay scant regard on the imperative need to respect and highlight the rights of women as equals to men.

This omission on the part of the media is most glaring when viewed against the backdrop of the Declaration on Gender and Development signed by SADC member states including Zimbabwe, on 8 September 1997.

Despite the increasing number of women entering politics, journalism and making their mark in business and other professions, the coverage of women or gender issues is still viewed from a male perspective.

This comes in the face of the signing of the Declaration on Gender and Development by SADC leaders with the explicit pledge to eradicate all forms of gender inequalities in the region.

The Declaration in question was given greater impetus in 2004 when the SADC leaders came up with the SADC Guidelines and Principles on the conduct of democratic elections which stress among other fundamentals, equal access to the state media by all political parties.

Equal access by all political parties means female candidates also have the right to free and fair access to the state media.

Sadly, the media, which is a critical tool in facilitating this process, does not seem to be paying critical attention on the need to reflect the giant strides that women have made in closing the gender disparities between women and men.

It is against that background that MISA- Zimbabwe conducted its own monitoring of the media in the run-up to the 2005 parliamentary elections as part of efforts to encourage the mass media to disseminate information in respect of the rights of women and children.

This initiative culminated in the production of a report on the coverage of female candidates by the media as captured in the MISA-Zimbabwe publication, So Many Rivers to Cross.

During the 30-day monitoring period, The Chronicle, The Daily Mirror, The Herald and the Zimbabwe Television’s 8pm bulletin, were monitored to ascertain and discern the trends pertaining to the coverage of female candidates during the election campaign period.

The voices of female MPs are still a minority in the media: Of the 403 stories monitored, women constituted 17% of the voices used as news sources.

This low figure of 17% not only suggests but also reinforces the notion that the Zimbabwean media is still unjustly pro-male and at worst, promotes gender inequality in its coverage of events in the country.

This unfortunately reinforces the reality that Zimbabwe is still a patriarchal society, dominated by the male voice.

Could this be the result of the fact that male journalists continue to hold senior positions in the media and retain sole decisions at the end of the day decide on what is newsworthy.

There is, therefore, need for efforts to placed on the implementation of the Zimbabwe Government’s Gender policy which among other things calls for the need to:

• Train Media personnel to be gender sensitive.
• Ensure the inclusion of a gender media module at media training institutions.
• Facilitate the positive portrayal of women by the media.
• Allocate a quota system in frequencies for production of women’s information and use it for the dissemination of the National Gender Policy.
• Come up with affirmative action for the advancement of female media practitioners.
• Fight negative cultural traditions in order to enhance equality among women and men.

The results of the monitoring place a big workload on Zimbabwean women pressure groups. Enough noise has to be made to be heard. Whatever the pros and cons for this disparity in the coverage of women, there is need for self-introspection on the part of media practitioners as well.

This self-introspection should be accompanied by requisite gender policy implementation in order to give meaning and effect to the Declaration on Gender and Development and the SADC quota system on 30 percent female representation in the region’s parliaments.

Zimbabwean women, you have a right to be heard!

*Sharon Tapfumaneyi is Assistant Information and Advocacy Officer

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