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| Kathmandu, Tuesday December 17, 2002 Paush 02, 2059. |
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Women in and out of media
By SANGITA RAYAMAJHI
It has been over five years since we conducted a
survey on the use of language in Nepali print media in relation to the language used for
women. The seminar that we had organised to discuss the findings of the survey brought
together people from diverse interest groups. The heated debate conducted on 10 September
1999 was an eye opener to us because it brought up new issues in a still newer light. The
survey along with the report of the very important discussions from the participants is
published under the title Use of Language in Nepali Press (1999). The first thing we
learnt out of this was that there was a definite relationship between media and women and
that the media showed clear indications of their bias towards women in their reporting.
The second was that women did hold a desire to see the difference in all these matters,
either genuinely or for strategic reasons. Then was the time, when the image of women’s
representation in the media was much hyped about. Men and women, organizations and NGOs
openly argued for and against the images of women portrayed very flippantly in the media,
either as sex objects or appendages to the male.
But over the years what I have noticed is, as
the political crisis thickens women gradually seem to shy away from directly taking part
in the issues concerning women’s representation in the media. We could put this
statement in this manner — women’s invisibility becomes conspicuous at such
times because the reporting is almost always in matters of politics where Nepali women do
not seem to figure at all. The traditional forms of news that cover the diverse domains of
education, health, reproductive rights etc where women figure directly or indirectly came
out on a very low scale during these times. Women’s causes are considered secondary
in the present crisis. Moreover they are ‘given’ no position of importance and
not much role to play in the present context. And because of the political turmoil women
are not creating any overarching women’s organisations either.
Recently a woman became a victim of language
reporting in the Nepali print media. The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action included
"Violence Against Women" as one of the twelve critical areas of concern to be
addressed by respective governments and other agencies. Paragraph 236 of Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action reads, ‘Violent and degrading or pornographic
media products are… negatively affecting women and their participation in society.’
It had drawn the media dimensions of violence. Srisha Karki killed herself being unable to
face the onslaught of the print media. Questions were asked about her; interviews were
taken; ‘fictions and fabulations’ were made into facts; BBC picked up the issue
with interest in order to interview those related to the scam. Nobody stopped to think
what Shrisha Karki’s family was going through as her image was shuttle-corked between
the "yeh" and "nay" courts. The concerned media behaved as though
Shrisha Karki was the ‘violator’ of social norms by inviting the ‘innocent’
male. But they forgot to realize that they were disregarding the privacy of the victim,
publishing names and photographs, speculating on life-styles and past history and
indulging in biased commentary.
Five years ago we had mildly but surely reported
this trend of targeting women by depicting them in a negative manner, in our survey report
Use of Language in the Nepali Press. This method we understood then was simply a way of
getting directly to the market. The people savoured (still do) the loaded languages used
for women.
This year the world beauty selection and the
Nepali beauty selection coincidently fell on the same day, almost the same time on 7
December 2002. The world beauty contest came after it caused over 200 deaths in Nigeria
over one article written by a woman that seemed to offend the Muslim community. In Nepal
this time the debate about the beauty contest did not arise. I am not particularly
critical of the contest, but there are certain methods of reporting in the press and media
that make me feel that oh, yes women are still being reported in a manner that treats them
as special. The body of a woman as said by Haideh Moghissi, " is the site of struggle
between the proponents and opponents of modernity and is used as playing card between
imperial and anti-imperial political forces" (Feminism...1999) .
The colonisation hegemony of women’s body
is supported by the press by creating what we have said in our report the ‘flacks’
in the media. It is a way of creating hegemony or creating a condition of belief about
what they say about women. I am not a radical person, but I always look askance at the
media at the time beauty contests that get carried away by the condition of the beauty
contest drama.
But more seriously, the media report and the
sense of protecting women’s body has been making women victims in South Asia. For
example, as reported by the BBC over hundred and fifty, which is larger number compared to
last year, women were killed for family prestige in Pakistan. More women were subjected to
rape in cities of India especially in Delhi where reports of open gang rapes are reported.
Similarly, more deaths occurred in India for reasons related to woman’s body, beauty
and volatility this year. In Nepal more women were dubbed witches this year than in the
previous years, and the death of Shrisha Karki is gruesome twist of the biased male
reporting.
All these were reported in the media but what is
the pay-off then so far? Media reporting of women shows that most of these stories were
placed in insignificant slots, many a time in the miscellaneous column so that even the
readers are bound to take them as insignificant issues, especially more so because they
are not strengthened either by a background or a context. When women participate in media
works they are not considered the agencies of women’s causes. And that is true
because women do not hold the media, they become part of the system.
What comes out to be true is that in the media
it is futile to seek a different language for women. When women write they use the same
language. In media women do not want to use a different language and style than that of
male writers, but what they certainly want to see is that in the media reporting women are
not made targets, or singled out in ways that are volatile and sensitive.
The media reporting of women in the past few
weeks came during the beauty contest. The wounds that were inflicted through printed words
on women following Srisha Karki’s tragic case are far from healed. Therefore in the
media reporting of women’s body, their being made exclusive in the media should be
looked upon with alertness by women. The media either report in the name of sympathy the
cases of women being raped these days or wonder why women who are raped do not report at
all. In either case the media interest in this matter does not help. Has the media
front-paged the women’s causes in the past year, have women been glorified by the
media in the recent times, either the queen, or any female politician, or any other woman
of calibre? They only make women the highlights, the candidates for atrocities and
exploitation. The media has not been particularly very friendly to women in South Asia.
Women’s sugary Femina type media is more petulant and stereotypical than issue
oriented and academic.
There is no single conclusion that I could make
here. But nevertheless I can say that women and media have been uneasy bedfellows
especially this year for the simple reason that in intensively politically engaging
situation in the societies the media has a tendency to sideline women’s cases, but
not miss a chance to take it up when it comes to humiliating them. The bored male-centric
society harps more on the sadistic form of treatment of women in the media when the
situation becomes more complicated. So women should create strong, decent and academic
bases in the media at such times, and as French feminist Helen Cixous says, women should
not look at their bodies as vulnerable targets, but a power that nobody other than women
themselves should protect and accentuate with words—a truly strong female discourse.
A media alertness means not avoiding it but using it with force, dignity and vigilance.
And women should do it themselves.
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