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IFEX members mark International Women's Day
International
Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX)
March 09, 2006
http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/72669/
On 8 March,
International Women's Day, IFEX members around the world will be
celebrating the achievements of women journalists and calling for
more action to address gender inequality.
In Southern
Africa, the Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA), in partnership
with Gender Links and the Gender and Media Southern Africa Network
(GEMSA), has released a new study analysing media consumption patterns
in the region and public perceptions of the news.
Covering 13
Southern African countries, the Gender and Media Audience Study
is the first ever comprehensive regional study of how male and female
audiences view the news. It is a companion to the 2002 Gender and
Media Baseline Study, which provided statistical evidence that women
in Southern Africa are both under-represented and stereotypically
portrayed in the news.
In Europe, ARTICLE
19 and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) have partnered
with several organisations to launch the 2005 Global Media Monitoring
Project report. The report provides a snapshot of how women and
men were represented and portrayed in the news in 76 countries on
a single day in February.
The report indicates
that while women make up 52 per cent of the world's population,
they only represent 21 per cent of news subjects. It also shows
that women's points of views are rarely heard in the topics that
dominate the news agenda and women experts barely feature in news
stories.
The IFJ's Gender
Rights Campaign Officer, Pamela Morinière, says media organisations
and journalists' unions remain male dominated despite an increase
in the number of women joining the journalism profession. "One
cannot expect media to give a balanced picture of the world population
when half of it is subject to willful discrimination, stereotype
or institutional neglect," she says.
The IFJ says
journalists' unions have a key role to play in prioritising gender
representation in their agendas. "This subject should not be
seen as a female topic but rather form part of mainstream discussions
on quality journalism which involve both women and men," the
group argues.
The EFJ has
been working with other organisations to develop a video toolkit
about gender stereotypes of women politicians and experts on television.
The toolkit will be used by journalists' schools and in trainings
to educate journalists about the need to provide a more balanced
portrayal of women politicians in the news.
Meanwhile, Reporters
Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) is marking
International Women's Day by highlighting the plight of eight journalists
who are imprisoned in various countries.
They include Jill Carroll and Rim Zeid, who are being held hostage
in Iraq.
Since the start
of the war in Iraq in March 2003, eight women journalists have been
kidnapped, according to RSF. One of them, Raeda Wazzan, was killed
by her captors in February 2005.
RSF is paying
tribute to the family of Atwar Bahjat, a reporter for "Al-Arabiya"
who was murdered on 22 February 2006 in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
RSF also pays tribute to Lebanese journalist May Chidiac, who was
badly injured in a car bombing in Beirut in September 2005.
Globally, RSF
says 46 women journalists have been killed while doing their job
since 1992.
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