Gender mainstreaming and the role of the media

They are mostly attached to the fame or achievements of husbands, sons, fathers or their children instead of people with their own capacity, achievements or rights. Thus it is common to read them as Garba’s wife, Chuka’s daughter or Adelabu’s mother doing this or that. There is also lack of gender balance in many media […]

They are mostly attached to the fame or achievements of husbands, sons, fathers or their children instead of people with their own capacity, achievements or rights. Thus it is common to read them as Garba’s wife, Chuka’s daughter or Adelabu’s mother doing this or that.
There is also lack of gender balance in many media reports and when women in positions make mistakes or commit offences, the news is usually hyped beyond proportion in comparism to when men do same or even worse.
 However, the media as the fourth estate of the realm has a role in mainstreaming gender in the society.  They  should give men and women equal opportunity for their voices to be heard, and ensure that they are properly integrated into all areas of  national development.
Gender mainstreaming is the process of ensuring that gender is taken into account in all policies, processes and practices. It involves bringing into account the experiences, knowledge and interests of women and men to bear on programming in all areas and at all levels.
“It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concern’s and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated.” according to The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)  agreed conclusions of 1997/2.
Gender mainstreaming in the media is therefore the process of integrating gender equality perspectives into the media and producing sensitive stories.
Penultimate week the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) with support from the United  Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) organized a three-day capacity building programme on gender mainstreaming for the media in  Kaduna.
Speaking during the training programme , Director General of the centre , Lady Onyeka Onwenu advised journalists to give wider coverage to women issues as well as report their contributions in the country.
She said there is need for gender balance and positive reports instead of the stereotypes, prejudices, pull down syndrome for women in positions, and negative reports that have been the main stay of reporting women in the media.
“I am not saying women are perfect or should not be criticized but when it becomes such a concerted effort in bringing the women down then something is wrong ,” she said.
 The Director General  said the journalist’s role which  is tied with information  dissemination is very critical and important to the development of the society adding that moving from where we are to the ideal in reporting women issues is a personal decision, and also in seeing women as people with God given talents who need to be lifted up .
She said there is a whole lot more about reporting women than rape cases and there are a lot of positive impacts women are making in the nation’s development that should be reported like in the area of agriculture where women make up the bulk of farmers, and need productive information to help improve themselves.
Onwenu urged the journalists trained during the programme to imbibe the spirit of excellence, go the extra mile in order to attract the right kind of attention, with their media management and audience with their reports added with their individual contributions in improving the welfare of women.
Gender and Development Specialist, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Olasunbo Odebode said the mandate of her organization is the promotion and protection of the rights of women and children and there is need to work together with the media which brings issues like gender based violence, women trafficking, abduction of girls in the north-east and kidnapping among others to the public sphere.
She said that is why UNICEF is supporting the training to build the capacity of the media saying “without a clear understanding of gender based violence your reportage will be very flawed and the media should be able to report from an informed stand point in order to get the message across thus the need for the training.”
Quoting the National Gender Policy, 2006, a resource person, Halima Sarki said journalists need to view gender as a core value for transforming the Nigerian society and to have the political will to mainstream gender in the reporting process.
She said the media often makes the  mistake  that gender equals women and this leads to a new approach which focuses on women as isolated members of societies with specific needs and interests adding that while this is true due to women’s subordinate status in societies across the globe, this approach marginalizes women ‘s voices and boxes women’s portrayal in the media into stereotype roles.
Sarki said the media plays an important role in mainstreaming gender because media pervade our lives, the ways they misrepresent genders may distort how we see ourselves and what we perceive as normal and desirable for men and women.
Ngozichi  Okorie, another resource person said the repetitive use of notorious gender stereotypes such as showing women only as carers of the family or as sexual objects affects the public perception of reality.
She said for the media to avoid stereotypes; It should refrain from using descriptions of women that include physical, marital or family status unless it is essential to the story, be sure to give women their own title , name and voice and not the “Wife of Mr Smith”, and it is important to know who you want to target and make sure that a gender balance is respected in the choice of experts or witnesses to mention a few.
“ Strive to represent both sexes as a whole human beings and not limited to a set of pre-defined characteristics. In widening the debate as a whole and contributing to raising awareness of gender equality, it is essential to fight for equal coverage of real issues important to women in your area,” she advised.
Introducing the participants to international and regional gender instruments,  Director Training NCWD, Princess Jummai Idonije   said central to all gender instruments are elimination of discrimination against women and girls, empowerment of women, and achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.
She explained various UN conventions on women like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),  United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 popularly called UNSCR 1325 “women ,peace and security,” women decades and conferences ,  policies like the National Gender Policy 2006 , and the 12 critical concerns of the Beijing Platform for Action.
Speaking on the impact of the workshop on them, Toyin Adebayo of  Newswatch Times said that it has given her indepth knowledge and enhanced her capacity on how to report gender, adding that she is now going to report women, children and other vulnerable groups better.
 Joy Idam of the Gleaner newspaper said  her knowledge of gender concepts have been broadened by the capacity building program. “I learnt new terms on gender and how to mainstream gender in my reports. I have also learnt from here that women need to be given more voice,” she said.
Rose Obike of the Nation newspaper said it helped her acquire more knowledge, tools and new angles on writing on women and other marginalized groups in the society, in addition to how to overcome challenges and hinderances to reporting them.
Femi of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) said the training was an eye opener as prior to this time, he had stereotypes on women issues and his biases and prejudices have now been washed away.