adminStatistics show that there are often more female than male students at journalism training institutions across the country, yet that figure is not reflected in the number of female journalists in local newsrooms.
Although newsrooms are getting younger in terms of those at the helm and reporters in newsrooms, the attitudes of the older crop of journalists that felt that the place for a woman was in the kitchen still flickers here and there.
These attitudes have caused female journalists who come for internship to change career paths and move to public relations or marketing instead. The country is full of such women who have come for work experience and see the trouble other trained female journalists face and decide they will not come back.
I have seen young girls who come to the newsroom and not last a week. This is because they find the environment hostile. The profession is not for the meek and those that have low self-esteem; it’s for those who are made of sterner stuff.
Unfortunately those that are assertive and stand their own ground in the male-dominated profession are labelled mostly with unsavoury tags.
These tactics, whether deliberate or not, are meant to cow them and elbow them out of the way.
However, the challenges that female journalists face are not only professional but also social. The long hours of work that characterise journalism are a veritable challenge for married female journalists.
Our culture says it’s a principal responsibility of a woman to provide domestic care in the home. As a result one has to juggle work and home responsibilities and be good at both. This is an uphill task that female journalists have to face.
To juggle these two one has to wake up at least by 4am to cook the day’s meals, make breakfast for the family, bath and dress the children for school.
While domestic help is required, female journalists strive to be like their counterparts who do the eight to nine jobs who are able to cook for their spouses and monitor their children’s homework.
A number of men out there prefer to eat meals that are made by their wives. As a result women journalists are constantly walking the tightrope, that of meeting their husbands’ demands and those of their deadline-oriented office work.
In-laws, especially from a different era, are appalled by a woman who comes home late in the night and is constantly on the road. Even those that have husbands who understand the nature of their jobs end up succumbing to pressures from their relatives who accuse them of ukubuswa ngumfazi or ukudliswa.
Many female journalists have found themselves battling, albeit failing to keep their marriages intact, after crumbling under constant pressures from meddlesome relatives.
As a result a good number of women in this profession are unmarried, not because they do not want to or that they are of questionable morals, but simply because they chose a profession that is misunderstood. To circumvent this hurdle, a number of female journalists have started “fishing from the fish pond”, hoping that husbands who are within their industry understand what is expected of them in the newsroom since they also work the long hours and do the constant trips.
As alluded to before, the problems that female journalists face are multifaceted, even the male sources have not made working in the industry easier.
There are some sources who mistake the persistence for getting a story as a “come on come on” when in fact it’s a quest to get a scoop and beat the deadline.
Some of them will act busy and request a cellular phone number so that they can call you later with the details only to use that number for sinister purposes. These sources do not act the same towards male journalists as they give them any information off-the-cuff, at anytime without resorting to “I-am-not-at-the-office-call-me-later” mantra.
Another challenge most female journalists have to contend with is that they are often not assigned any important news beats like crime or serious political issues.
If a woman comes up with such a diary item, as if a favour is being done for them, the news idea is given to a male reporter and she is reassigned to lesser issues like covering donation hand-overs.
As a result many female reporters feature less on their newspapers’ front pages and their stories do not make leads on news bulletins.
Ultimately male reporters gain prominence and it becomes easy for them to bargain for a salary increase from the employers. As a result female reporters might find out that they are in the same grade with colleagues, yet they earn far less.
Many studies have found that even if the principle of equal pay is enshrined in law, in practice women tend to earn less than men for doing the same job. This is not also alien to the journalism profession.
In 1951 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) adopted the Equal Remuneration Convention (No 100), which is one of the fundamental ILO conventions. As of May 2011, the convention had been ratified by 168 out of ILO 183 members. Zimbabwe is among the 168 members that have ratified the convention.
ILO conventions are international treaties and once a country ratifies a convention it is obliged to implement it in national law and practice.
The convention sets out that male and female workers must receive equal remuneration for work of equal value without discrimination based on sex.
Studies by Gender Links also show that there are more women than men in media studies but many more male than female lecturers.
In Southern Africa, the studies show, women constitute 41 percent of media employees. The figure drops to 32 percent if South Africa is excluded.
The Sadc Protocol on Gender and Development enjoins the media and media-related bodies to mainstream gender in their codes of conduct, policies and procedures and adopt and implement gender awareness ethical principles.
Article 12.1 provides for the equal representation of women in the ownership and decision-making positions of the media by 2015.
Media houses need to genuinely commit themselves to improving the status of women and creating opportunities for them to be the best they can be in line with such regional commitments.
Though government is making strides in the recognition of women in all spheres of the society more needs to be done.
To be effective, and be in sync with government efforts, media organisations need to broaden their gender parity efforts so that they take into account a range of measures, among them creating a conducive environment, mentorship and training for the next generation of women leaders.
Men who wield power to make a change and give women a chance sure know that if they pave the way for one woman they are creating a future where girls, their sisters and female offspring included, feel empowered to join the profession.
Online Reporter