JOURNALISM: WOMEN'S

CONTRIBUTIONS  

Myra Imran

Staff correspondent

The News

Journalism: Women's contributions  

Myra ImranStaff Reporter

The News

HISTORY In almost every part of the world, men

dominated the domain of journalism for a long time.

It was in the mid 20th century that some women ventured to be journalists in the western countries. But it was in the late 20th century that the number of female journalists increased considerably.

MUSLIM WOMEN JOURNALISTS IN THE SUBCONTINENT The situation was same in the

subcontinent where men dominated media and publication sector.

As education was highly discouraged for Muslim women, very few dared to be journalists before the emergence of Pakistan.

The first magazine (Urdu) meant for Muslim women was “Tahzeeb-e-Niswan” which was published in 1898 under the influence of Tahzeeb-ul-Akhlaq of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan.

A FEW NAMES OF MAGAZINES

1904 Parda Nasheen 1904 Khatoon 1908 Is mat Delhi 1909 Al-Hijab Bhopal 1909 Shareef Bibian 1909 Ustaani

1911 Tamadun 1913 Payaam-e-Umeed 1915 Saheli 1915 Al_Nisa 1922 Khadma 1925 Sir Taj 1926 Haram 1926 Noor Jahan

1926 Humjok 1928 Surraya 1929 Safeena-e-Niswan 1931 Merriam 1932 Muslama 1934 Zeb-Unisa 1936 Khatoon-e-Sarhad 1937 Khadim-e-Niswan 1937 Tanveer 1938 Hoor 1941 Sohag 1941 Sada-e-Niswn 1943 Zainab 1943 Johar-e-Niswan

THE JOURNEY STARED It was not a very good start from

feminists point of view but it indicated that much needed change started happening. Logic

The few names of women journalists of that time included Sughra Begum, Maryam Begum, Imtiaz Fatima, Begum Ghafoor, Salah Khatoon etc.

THE JOURNEY STARTED In 1948 Fatima Begum a worker of Pakistan movement

launched a daily Urdu paper “Khatoon” from Lahore. Women’s Page: In 1948 a daily newspaper Inqilab from

Lahore (1927) started publishing a page “women’s page” on daily basis. The main caption of the page was “Nisayat”. It contained articles relating to women’s development & welfare, recepies, information about knitting and stitching.

Women’s Edition: In 1949 daily Imroz started in match publishing a weakly women’s edition.

It’s sister publication “The Pakistan Times” also started “women’ section” which being appeared on Sunday.

Dawn also followed suit. Now about all English and Urdu dailies are publishing

weekly women’s editions under different names.

THE JOURNEY STARTED (1980S) Women started entering mainstream

journalism and challenged the norms. They became editors of newspapers and

political magazines like Razia Bhatti, Sherry Rehman and Maleeha Lodhi

Fauzia Shahid became the General Secretary of PFUJ.

There was Zahida Hina, Rubab Ayesha, Mariana Babar,

These women had expertise in current affairs, economics, foreign policy, human rights, good governance and conflict resolution.

THE CHANGE Female journalists started working as reporters

and sub-editors and features writer in They paved the way for the upcoming women

journalists by surviving and fighting with the odds in highly male dominated media industry-they entered the domain of hard news.

But, the number remained very thin. There was a huge retention issue that still exists.

Majority of women who joined at that time ultimately left media.

THE BOOM AFTER ELECTRONIC MEDIA With rapid boom in electronic media, a new breed

of women journalists emerged. Women journalists from Karachi to Peshawar

proved they have the ability to work and the willpower and conviction to do their work in a professional and meaningful way.

Furthermore, they demonstrated a unique adeptness towards political, economic and social issues and have successfully honed in on niches that had previously remained neglected.

They proved themselves with investigative, business, human interest and child-friendly stories through view points that male journalists had not touched upon.

CONTRIBUTIONS They highlighted the problems faced by

women. They represented women. They introduced gender aspect. They became role models for women. They highlighted social issue, an ignored

area, as never been covered before. They joined journalist unions and strived

to make media industry environment friendly for women.

They boosted the image of the country.

CHALLENGESDespite the progress and breakthroughs, working conditions in media organizations, electronic and print, remained discouraging, difficult and prejudiced for women. disparity in salaries as compared to male

colleagues stability and sustainability of employment lack of peer respect lack of basic gender sensitive facilities

and awareness and, worst of all varying types of harassment.

THE NUMBER The number of women journalists remained

extremely low. WJP data: In Rawalpindi and Islamabad, there are 68

women journalists, around 12 cover parliament with 5 mainly reporting on the women parliamentarians. Only one women journalist among these 12 covers foreign office, one covers Prime Minister and one covers political party (PML N).

Remaining 56 women journalists cover social issues mainly education, culture, women, youth, children, human rights, science and technology, social welfare and health.

Among total 68 women journalists, 13 are the members of National Press Club which means only a small percentage can vote or contest in the elections.

IN-HOUSE WORK CONDITIONS

For women journalists to have an impact and be productive the first issue that needs to be fixed is the work place and work atmosphere.

The work place has been a male-dominated domain for so long that male spoken and body language is frequently off-putting for females and little has been done to change this prevalent state of affairs.

Women journalists are forever on the guard and cannot relax for a moment. The anxiety resulting from such a work atmosphere affects their professional performance with the result that most women journalists never progress beyond their initial duties.

HARASSMENT One of the worst problems faced by women journalists is

professional and sexual harassment by colleagues, management, contacts and even government/semi-government officials.

If and when a complaint is made, it is treated with amusement, cynicism, indignity and anger. It is treated as an affront to the organization and considered an attempt to dishonor and disgrace the organization as well as the accused individual.

Harassment of female media persons comes in many forms within the office:

Frequently, female reporters/media persons find that it’s not just their colleagues that can be troublesome or the authors of harassment. In the line of their duty, while interviewing news makers, government officials and people of influence they often come across unreasonable demands. These usually include been asked out for lunch/dinner, asked for their telephone number, offers of marriage or ‘friendship’, offers of better jobs and even promises of foreign postings… all at a cost of course.

TYPES OF HARASSMENT Whispered innuendo every time a female media person passes by Deliberately walking or pushing past in close proximity Intruding on personal space while talking, rumors Discussions/jokes of unpleasant and unsavory nature within earshot of

females Asking women journalists/media workers for their telephone numbers Telephoning for reasons unrelated to work Familiarity where none is been encouraged Deliberately sending female media persons to places not required to go. Unsolicited invitations to lunch/dinner Deliberately spoiling/putting up hurdles, Deliberately downplaying good

work Deliberately intruding and interfering with official work Insults and sarcasm where none is needed Threatening termination of service if certain physical favors are not

provided Withholding salaries Withholding benefits

STABILITY & SUSTAINABILITY

Female media workers should have the comfort and confidence in their employers to provide stability and sustainability in employment. However, this is far from reality. Whenever a media house has financial difficulties or the management makes a decision to downsize, women media workers are the first to get the chop.

This lack of professional appreciation often leaves women media workers embittered and hampers their potential.

Women media workers need to be aware of their work rights. They have to have the confidence to be able to tell their male colleagues and bosses that they are serious contenders for the long term and are professionally up there with them and rather than letting gender decide matters.

LOW SALARIES & RETENTION Sadly enough female journalist/media persons, unless they

are TV anchors/hosts, get paid extremely poorly. Their salaries are almost always much lower than their male counterparts.

The salaries are so unattractive that many potential female journalists and media persons either get disheartened and quit or are encouraged to leave by their family and parents.

Parental, social and monetary compulsion finally take their toll as women leave media to join other more financially rewarding and stable jobs. This is regretful because ever so often a budding media person/journalist is lost before she’s even hit her stride.

With no realistic steps taken to ensure retaining and encouraging women in journalism, it comes as no surprise that the large influx of women that came into media three to four years back have quit and taken up other professions.

MOBILITY AND TRANSPORT Another major challenge they face is mobility One

of the first questions asked at interviews for media jobs is: “What mode of transport do you have?”

Despite this setback most women working in media houses use public transportation like buses, Suzukis, and wagons all of which are highly unfriendly. This makes access to various work-related areas and spots difficult for women.

Strangely enough a simple solution would be to provide female staff with office transport as do many other organizations in Pakistan. But this has not yet occurred to most media houses. Another solution would be to provide female journalists with soft loans to redress mobility issues.

LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM & MOTIVATION One of the biggest problems holding back the development of

women journalists and media persons is the lack of motivation and professionalism.

There is no formal in-house training process in any media house to guide and supervise new comers to media. This is because of lack of planning, lack of vision, lack of awareness and a ‘don’t care’ attitude which disncourages newcomers, especially women, to learn the dos and don’ts of the profession the hard way.

They are left at the mercies of whoever is available to show them bits and pieces of work and therefore are more likely to pick up bad habits and a non-professional approach towards work.

What is happening is that journalists, including female media persons, no longer have the patience to learn the skills and knowledge required to master the job.

Lack of professionalism also results in lack of motivation.

LACK OF BASIC FACILITIES & RIGHTS

Media houses and organizations purposely either side step or completely pretend that there is no need to provide women media workers with basic facilities and rights such as medical, transport and old age benefits.

Many media houses do not have the provision of allowing women a reasonable period of maternity leave. Although Pakistani laws permit a period of 12 weeks, most media houses want new mothers back by the end of the fourth week after delivery.

Although women workers with small children have taken up the issue many times, no provision is made for setting up an in-house day care centre.

DISCRIMINATION AT FORUM & CLUB LEVEL

Although Pakistan boasts a healthy number of media associations and press clubs, hardly a step has been taken by them to facilitate women journalists and media persons.

Indeed women journalists only have associate membership of the National Press Club. This is primarily because of the misplaced perception that women media persons do not last in their job long enough.

The same is the case with most press clubs and usually women are provided one unused room to carry out their professional and recreational activities.

LACK OF CAPACITY BUILDING & TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES Seminars, workshops, and courses

designed to improve the capacity and professional skills of journalists in Pakistan are rare events and are usually conducted by international donor agencies.

The concept of in-house capacity building usually never occurs and any such knowledge is passed on from senior sot juniors correctly on incorrectly.

Women rarely avail the opportunities of international courses, scholarships and workshops.

WHAT IS REQUIRED Training & Capacity Building Building a Vibrant & Responsible Network Cultivating & Grooming Effective Leaders Honoring Courage & Competence Awareness of Rights Better Workplace Facilities Better Salaries Accreditation, International Scholarships & Tours News and reporters rooms be made more gender friendly.

Gender-friendly behavioral code should be formulated an enforced.

All female media persons and their male colleagues must be aware of sexual harassment laws.

THANK YOUWish You A Wonderful Life