1 - 7 February 2001
Issue No.519
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 1 - 7 February 2001 Issue No.519 |
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Stop the press!
Participants in a National Council for Women (NCW) seminar last Thursday laid the blame for slow progress on women's issues with the Egyptian media, claiming that coverage of women's issues was at best erratic, and at worst coloured by cultural and gender bias. Participants said that coverage of women and progressive legislation comes in jumps and starts and often harms rather than helps the image of women in society.
Mervat Tellawi, general-secretary of the NCW, reminded the assembly of social organisation representatives, feminists and the press that half of Egypt's 30 million women are illiterate, making it extraordinarily difficult to fight for their rights. "Unless the press and other media outlets play an active role in changing this, half of the population will never be integrated in the process of development," Tellawi said. "That means 50 per cent of the nation's work force is marginalised."
Tellawi told the large collection of media representatives in attendence that it is their responsibility to promote a positive and progressive image of women to both the general public and society's decision-makers. Participants suggested that media coverage usually relies heavily on stereotypical images of women as homebound, dependent and unequal, saying that this kind of representation failed to champion the rights of women and hampered efforts to get legislation protecting women's rights passed.
The media was chastised for lagging behind in a growing interest shown by the government to take up women's causes. Rather than showing similar enthusiasm, the press all-too-often buries women's rights stories in inconspicuous corners of their pages, only giving them moderate prominence if an important event has taken place.
Media representatives at the seminar showed that they were eager to make amends, with some journalists and reporters urging the NCW to cooperate closely with them in shaping a more modern and empowered image for the Egyptian woman. Nahed El-Menshawi, of the newspaper Al-Gumhouria, conceded that editors of the paper's women's pages usually publish light stories about the latest fashions and makeup, noting that story ideas rarely delve deeper than issues of child-rearing. By failing to address the legal, social and political issues that concern women, the implication is that these matters are either trivial, or, even worse, not of interest to the paper's readers.
Speaking up in defence of the media, Nagwa Abul-Naga, head of the Al-Shabab Wal-Riyada (youth and sports) radio station, suggested that journalists are not solely to blame. Abul-Naga claimed that the media is often left in the dark about legislation in the works that tackles women's issues, perhaps because of the sensitive nature of some recent legal moves, like the revisions of the personal status law implemented last year. A lack of transparency, Abul-Naga said, has led to diluted coverage of explosive issues, opening the way for false information and incendiary views to make their way into the public consciousness. With the personal status law, the press was forced to pull together last-minute coverage after being kept at bay until the law was passed.
But women's rights representatives also turned their wrath on entertainment media, maintaining that films, television shows and soap operas routinely project a negative image of Egyptian women, particularly those who occupy high postions. Zeinab Radwan, a member of the NCW and People's Assembly, said that female characters who demand a divorce are often presented as wicked and conniving, and women who devote themselves to their job are often branded as responsible for the breakdown of their family. But Afaf Taballa, head of the Nile Drama channel, countered that the situation would be even worse if satellite channels were privatised.
Fatma Khafaghi, manager of UNICEF's Gender and Development Programme, commented, "We should be courageous enough to move against the current media culture that only addresses women's issues occasionally, when something important happens."
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