Preface:

2008

For completion of this study paper, I have sited various books and done research online, as well as spoken to some female journalists working at different magazines. List of sources: 1. Women in Journalism Making News; Ammu Joseph, ed 2000. Konark Publishers pvt ltd. 2. Essays sited from the site of SAFMA, Regional workshop, Gender and Media in South Asia. Katmandu, Nepal-2004 Gender and Media: Indian Perspective, Dr Reinuka Dagar Women Empowerment and Media: Bangladesh Perspective, Reita Rehman 3. www.WomenCometotheFront (Library of Congress Exhibition).mht

INTRODUCTION:
In my study paper I have focused on different aspects of being a woman in the field of journalism. My main area of concern is women in print journalism, writers, reporters etc, who have paved a way for themselves by debunking gender stereotypes and myths. I have quoted various women in the profession, their struggle and success. My paper also throws light on regional journalists, i.e. those in Bangladesh as well as World War 2, Americas. By doing this I have given a holistic view of the challenges faced by women in this field and how they overcome the same.

For this I did a thorough research via means of different libraries and use of the internet.

Focus On Various Issues and Women In The Field:

Social stereotyping in a society like ours remains a matter of concern as the modern day and age aims to look at equal representation of both genders. Be it women who have gone down in history who challenged authorities, resisted suppression and rose as heroes or the modern day woman beaming with confidence working both in front and behind the camera, women have instilled faith in their abilities and flouted norms. The responsiveness of the media to gender can be captured through indicators of gender diversity, gender portrayal and gender policies. Can numerical representation of women in the media become a critical mass to transform the terms of media representation of gender? Can gender portrayal exist independent of the market or the hierarchical socio-cultural realities? I. Gender Diversity: Case Studies in Indian Media a) Female representation Womens access within media has visibly enhanced in the past decades while the state agencies such as Prasar Bharti have stated policies for increasing womens presence following reports to promote gender equity. Private organizations do not have formalized guidelines yet they have a large number of women staff.

*One day the acting bureau chief of our paper asked me to cover the inauguration of a maternity hospital. He said he couldnt possibly assign a man to do it. I said Why not? Im not going to deliver a baby there! Ratnamala, Freelance Journalist, Hyderabad.

There are no advantages to being a woman in this profession. disadvantages.

There are only

Never once have I been treated better because I am a woman.

Nobody gives a damn. Seema Mustafa.1 Mustafa, now political editor, The Asian Age, New Delhi is far from a shrinking violet and not one to ask for special favours on account of gender. She arranged to be smuggled into Beirut so that she could report on the conflict there and braved death threats to continue reporting from Punjab at the height of the troubles in the state. She was one of the last journalists to go into Amritsar before the government launched Operation Bluestar, the storming of the Golden Temple by military forces.

But even she was unnerved by the treatment she and two colleagues, together with their driver, received at the hands of the Punjab police in the early 1980s. They had gone to the border areas of Punjab and Haryana to speak to local people about the controversial, religion-based census then being undertaken there. The police tried to stop them from entering Kandu Khera, a border village. She questioned their right to stop them from doing their legitimate work. A high-ranking police official on the spot signaled to his subordinates, who obeyed by attaching the journalists and their driver. All of them, including Mustafa, were beaten with rifle all bundled into a van and taken to a distant isolated place, where they were made to stand in the sun all day.

On the positive side, many see gender as an advantage in the field, if only or at least partly because of preconceived notions about women and feminine qualities. For

instance, they point out, women often have better access to sources of news and

. Women in Journalism Making News; Ammu Joseph ed 2000, pg no-70

information. They hasten to add that, contrary to what many men in the profession like to believe, this access has little to do with feminine charms and wiles.

Many women say they are also less likely than their male counterparts to be evicted from places where journalists are not particularly welcome. As Neerja Chowdhury

puts it, A woman journalist can walk into a collectors office or home, confront him and not risk getting thrown out, Similarly, male sources often find it difficult to fob off a female professional seeking an appointment. It is less easy for them to turn me down, says Sushila Ravindranath.

Bachi Karkaria is upbeat about the prospects for women in the profession. Women may have to try harder initially, she says, but that doesnt really hurt them because it ultimately makes them better professionals. Now, with so many women in the field, the old stereotypes and chauvinistic or patronizing attitudes are no longer so prevalent. Because the change has come about through evolution rather than revolution it is more stable and enduring.2

Women in Journalism Making News; Ammu Joseph ed 2000, pg no-77

Doordarshan Staff Related to News

Source: Joseph, Ammu (2002), Working, Watching and Waiting: Women and Issues of Access, Employment and Decision Making in the Media in India presented at Expert Group meeting on Participation and Access of Women to the Media, and the Impact of Media on and its use as an Instrument for the Advancement and Empowerment of Women Beirut, Lebanon 12 to 15 November 2002.
The vividly higher presence of women as broadcasters, anchors and soap artists than as journalists leads to the valid query whether the femininity product is not only being aided in its creation but is also being used by the media itself. While a number of studies have debated the use of the media, particularly in certain channels, constructing an image of a women as appealing to a male audience, to the extent of defining images through patriarchal discourse of nymphomia as ever-available object in an endlessly repetitive male adolescent fantasy world, the use of body politics by the dominant media cannot be overlooked.

Specific

problems

related

to

recruitment,

remuneration,

assignments

and

promotions, which women in the profession still encounter, are discussed in subsequent. A number of other problems identified by many women; the perennial issue of work and family, the recurring question of women and night work, and the persistence of negative attitudes towards women within the profession.

PATCHY HISTORY: Recruitment; Gender Stereotyping

The history of the recruitment of women into the commercial press in India (as apposed to small, non-commercial journals) is full of surprises. It is perhaps natural that Mumbai and Delhi were the first cities to witness the entry of women into the profession and today continue to be the leaders in the number of women working as journalists. Who would believe today that Tavleen Singh once worked as a secretary in the Ford Foundation in New Delhi. After a journalism course at the Thompson Institute and work experience in the Evening Mail, both in the U.K., she cam back to India in the mid-1970s to find that newspapers in the capital were not very keen to employ women. It was only a year after her return that she finally landed a job with The Statesman, Delhi.

It is not surprising, then, that in the late 1960s Gita Aravamudan found that there were no openings for women interested in journalism in Bangalore, her home-town. She moved to Delhi to try her luck and her well-connected aunt there managed to persuade the then editor of The Hindustan Times to let her work at the desk, initially without pay. Although she was keen on reporting, she was discouraged by her otherwise kind and avuncular seniors. For one, Prabha Behl (Later Dutt) was Besides, they

already a reporter in HT and they did not need another woman.

said, the life of a journalist is too hard for women: Why not try advertising? Slowly but surely she managed to insinuate herself into the writing stream, doing the few light features that were assigned to her and accompanying seniors on more serious reporting assignments. Although she was ultimately promised a proper job,

at least on the desk, it did not materialize because of a wage-related strike at the paper. Another area of concern, primarily social, which deters a womans professional life is her eventual role as a mother, wife etc. Family issues become a way of telling a woman she is not as well equipped a as a man since she has house-hold responsibilities to look after. Night duties are strictly confined as male territories. *Women were not allowed to work on night shift when I joined UNI as a sub editor in Bombay in 1980s. some of my ,ale colleagues protested when I volunteered for night duty. The news editor commented, so you dont mind being raped! Meena Menon A few pioneering women began working as journalists in metropolitan cities in the 1940s and 50s. Many of them owed their breaks to the liberal outlook and Many of

paternalistic approach of some of the senior (male) editors of the time.

these men may have been influenced by the new thinking on womens status and role in society fostered by the various movements for social and religious reform and freedom from colonial rule that moulded the thinking of many Indians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Seclusion From Male Territory Of Reporting: But Why?

Business was another area of journalism that was closed to women until recently, Sucheta Dalal, for example, got into the field in the mid-1980s through Fortune India, then a small, newsmagazine focusing on the stock markets. According to her, at that time there were no women in the business section of The Indian Express and The Financial Express seemed to have an unwritten rule against hiring women. Eventually she became the first woman to be hired in the Mumbai office of the ABPs business standard. Sharma is of the opinion that it has: Women have made a difference to the coverage of social issues in general, not just womens issues. They tend to speak out and write on them whatever the general policy of their publication may be. These are not easy subjects to write on but women are choosing to cover them despite the prevailing culture in the media, where taking the easy way out seems to be the norm.

Sharma believes that the content of publications run or controlled by women also tends to reflect the broader outlook of their female editors. Thanks to their coverage of a range of issues and the good mix of serious and light stories they offer to readers, they are able to cater to a wider audience, she says. According to her, the Mumbai Observer in Mumbai and the Sunday magazine of The Hindu are cases in point. However, she thinks the trend also has its downside, especially in a daily

newspaper, which can become too featurish and lifestyle-oriented at the cost of hardcore political coverage- especially of state, district and local politics.

The magazine boom of the 1980s provided a window of opportunity to many women. There were probably several reasons for the seemingly greater openness of the magazine world. First of all, it is possible that more openness of magazines cam into being. Also, many magazine companies were newly set up, had no hoary traditions to uphold and were run by a younger set of managers and editors who were possibly more flexible about gender roles, at least within the professional sphere.

The Hindu remained a totally male bastion until the late 1970s, when the then proprietor-editor finally caved into the entreaties of his highly qualified niece, Nirmal Lakshman, and reluctantly permitted her to join the staff. Even today, the paper

remains male-dominated in its Chennai Headquarters. This is despite the presence there of Lakshman and Malinit Parthasarathy, as joint editor and executive editor, respectively, and the fact that several senior women grace its staff in other cites, notably Delhi. However, winds of change are now blowing through the Kasturi

Estates in Chennai thanks, in part, to the induction of a number of women by the groups new daily, Business Line.

For instance, in many parts of the country, especially but not only in the vernacular press, the woman reporter is still a rare species. The desk is usually considered a more appropriate place for women in the profession; yet, even there, they are often sidelined.

The Hindustan Times (Chandigarh Edition)

However, a look at the disaggregate data reveals that women as broadcasters and on desk jobs have a higher representation than as correspondents. While Hindustan Times has only five female reporters out of 35, The Indian Express Chandigarh Edition has six out of a total of 23. The place of women in genuine journalistic role in Indian language newspapers according to Robin Jefferys was found wanting. Their numbers were scant, the jobs few and prejudices against them formidable. No doubt gender discrimination is rampant in the media, but given their increasing presence can women as a critical mass transform media portrayal of gender?3

What worries me is that so many women are coming into television as directors and writers and there is still no change (in the stereotyping of women in popular television serials) Shabana Azmi

According to many journalists, particularly those working in the Indian language press, women sub-editors still tend to be side-tracked into magazines. If they

manage to get into newspapers, they are usually assigned to the womens pages (if any), other features pages, or the low priority mofussil, district of regional pages or editions. Sometimes they are accommodated on the business desk. Rarely do they get to handle national or international news. In fact, in many organizations, Gender and Media: Indian Perspective, Dr Reinuka Dagar

the general desk - where the real news is handled is still off limits for women. Even when they are posted there, women are often left to handle the weather reports, city engagements, entertainment listings and other such routine, virtually clerical work.

The preponderance of female reports in cities like Delhi and Mumbai today obscures the fact that pioneering women there, too, had to jump many hurdles to get into reporting. It also masks the reality that aspiring journalists in some other parts of the country still face real obstacles if they wish to become reporters.

Dina Vakil returned to India in the early 1970s armed with a masters degree in journalism from Columbia University and a six-month stint in the United Nations Office of Public Information in New York. When she tried to get a job as a reporter in the paper she now edits, she was categorically told that the TOI did not hire women as reporters. She was advised to join the groups womens magazine, Femina, and try moving into reporting later. That, it turned out, was easier said then done; she remained in Femina for several years.

BANGLADESH:
Although, mainstreaming women in national life is a coveted agenda, the media in Bangladesh are still conquered by male. Men occupy positions, and at all levels. Yet a recent trend of more women making a career out of journalism also indicates that the profession requires a serious gender balance in the age of information revolution. What is particularly encouraging is that they are proving their worth in this challenging profession. Although media organizations are increasingly opening up to them, an ideal gender balance is yet to be reached.

The lack of security impedes the full participation of women in this profession. The threats that journalists working in certain sensitive areas face - when exposed - only dampen the enthusiasm of media women to take up more challenging journalistic reporting and investigations. Yet some have already stood up to the challenges and one may appreciate their very successful presence in the electronic media. The difference in the success of women in the electronic media as opposed to print is due to the fact that the reporters of the TV channels are always accompanied by a cameraman and vehicle, but a reporter working for newspapers is unaccompanied no vehicle, no company they thus hesitate to be on their own. When I try to interview someone during my assignments, I find them not cooperative in most cases rather they discourage me for taking up reporting as a career.. I think it is also the attitude that discourages women, said Eline Anjum one of two women reporters working for the daily New Age.
4

Women Empowerment and Media: Bangladesh Perspective, Reita Rehman

AMERICAS: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

For female journalists, World War II offered new professional opportunities. Talented and determined, dozens of women fought for--and won--the right to cover the biggest story of their lives. By war's end, at least 127 American women had secured official military accreditation as war correspondents, if not actual front-line assignments. Other women journalists remained on the home front to document the ways in which the country changed dramatically under wartime conditions.

Women Come to the Front: Journalists, Photographers and Broadcasters of World War II spotlights eight women who succeeded in "coming to the front" during the war--Therese Bonney, Toni Frissell, Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, Clare Boothe Luce, Janet Flanner, Esther Bubley, Dorothea Lange, and May Craig. Their stories-drawn from private papers and photographs primarily in Library of Congress collections--open a window on a generation of women who changed American society forever by securing a place for themselves in the workplace, in the newsroom, and on the battlefield.

TWO CENTURIES OF AMERICAN WOMEN JOURNALISTS:

The women journalists, photographers, and broadcasters of World War II followed two centuries of trailblazers. During the 1700s, Mary Katherine Goddard, Anne Royall, and other women ran family printing and newspaper businesses along the East Coast. By the late 1800s, the growth of higher education for women had spawned a new market--and jobs--for writers of "women's news."

At the turn of the twentieth century, the woman's suffrage movement opened opportunities for female reporters to cut their teeth on national politics under the guise of women's news. However, female reporters often worked without permanent office space, salaries, or access to the social clubs and backrooms where men conducted business. In response, women began their own professional associations, such as the Women's National Press Club, founded on September 27, 1919, by a group of Washington newswomen. The organization eventually merged with the National Press Club after it admitted women in 1971.

When the Great Depression threatened the tenuous foothold of women on newspaper staffs, Eleanor Roosevelt instituted a weekly women-only press conference to force news organizations to employ at least one female reporter. During World War II, many of the newswomen in the First Lady's circle served as war correspondents.

Those who did get to the war front followed a path begun a century earlier by pioneers such as Margaret Fuller (the New York Herald Tribune's European correspondent in the 1840s), Jane Swisshelm (Civil War), Anna Benjamin (SpanishAmerican War), and Dorothy Thompson (overseas correspondent in the 1930s), among others. One of the most important predecessors was Peggy Hull, who on September, 17, 1918, won accreditation from the War Department to become the first official American female war correspondent and who went on to serve as a correspondent during World War II.

Whatever route led them to the hospitals, battlefields, and concentration camps, female reporters found that the war offered an unanticipated opportunity. Politicalreporter-turned-war correspondent May Craig best summed up their achievements in a 1944 speech at the Women's National Press Club: "The war has given women a chance to show what they can do in the news world, and they have done well."

CONCLUSION:
Charting the trends and developments, made by women in the field of journalism, I can conclude that no profession can function on division of gender. An individuals capability as an efficient worker should be kept in mind rather than his/her gender. Women have and will continue to prove themselves in their field, irrespective of how society burdens them with notions or stereotypical outlooks.

Reading and researching on this project, I have come across some very talented and capable women journalists, who have set forth an example by venturing on their own and debunking installed myths. They provide inspiration to the future of women journalists.