Cultural Shift: Media Campaigns Promote Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

The media of today—both internet and conventional legacy media—continues to have a significant impact on our conceptions of what it means for women and girls to function in society. Unfortunately, up until now, gender inequity has been consistently reinforced by the media. Studies reveal that children are impacted by the gendered stereotypes that they are exposed to in the media from an early age.

Studies have indicated that exposure to overt gender representations and overt gender segregation is associated with the following: (a) preferences for toys, games, and activities that are deemed ‘gender appropriate’; (b) traditional views of gender roles, occupations, and personality traits; and (c) attitudes towards expectations and aspirations for two different future trajectories of life.

We are concerned that the media’s critical role in promoting gender equality is not mentioned in the most recent Secretary General report that suggests priority topics to the Commission on the Status of Women. This is a tremendously missed chance. Only 24% of the people heard, read about, or pictured in newspaper, television, and radio news are women, according to the statistics we have. Even worse: just 4% of news items explicitly question gender stereotypes, but 46% of stories blatantly support them.

Women make up one in five specialists questioned by the media. In the cinema and advertising industries, women are often depicted in hypersexualized and stereotyped roles, which has long-term social repercussions. Additionally, men hold 73% of management positions, while women hold 27% of these positions.

We firmly think that the media can significantly impact society in the direction of gender equality. by dispelling gender preconceptions and producing content that is gender-transformative and compassionate. by questioning long-standing social and cultural beliefs and conventions around gender representation in media, both in terms of content and media organisations. By showcasing women as leaders and subject matter experts on a range of subjects on a regular basis, rather than as an anomaly.

Women are not educated to ask questions or participate in public discourse, and their perspectives are often disregarded in various nations across the globe. Without information, women are unable to question prevailing conventions and preconceptions and are unaware of their rights to property, pensions, education, and other benefits. Due to this, the inclusive societies that the Global Development Agenda seeks to establish are not achievable. Women who have access to information are better able to assert their rights and make informed decisions.

It is imperative to incentivize the media sector to generate gender-transformative material and establish self-regulatory equality policies that encompass decision-making positions. It is necessary to establish methods for monitoring and evaluating the sector’s progress. resulting in the creation of gender equality in management, content, and the workplace.

Assaults on female media professionals

Gender equality in the media has been further impeded by the safety of female media workers, which has become a prominent problem in recent years. Most female media professionals encounter abuse based on their gender from within their companies, from the outside, and increasingly on the internet.

Digital and physical forms of gender-based violence (GBV) threaten people’s ability to express themselves freely and obtain information. Since it causes women to self-censor as a result of being harassed, silencing female journalists is tantamount to an attack on democracy itself. A significant portion of female journalists contemplate quitting their careers due to the harassment, threats, and assaults they face. For the same reason, almost a third of female journalists refrained from covering specific stories. Nearly 50% of female journalists encounter harassment on the internet. Even while social media is an essential component of their jobs, many of them say the harassment has made them less or even non-active on the platform. The workplace is an unsafe place for women because of the frequent, sexual, and racist threats that are directed at the individual rather than the content. This results in even fewer female voices in the male-dominated media industry.

We think it is the media industry’s duty to create GBV prevention measures and ensure a safe workplace for all employees. Media companies must put procedures in place to guarantee that individuals who have been subjected to gender-based violence in the workplace receive the help they need whether working remotely or through digital platforms.