Li Xing

Media must make gender equality a major issue

By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-12 06:38

Last Saturday, I accepted on behalf of my newspaper a shiny glass statue and a plate from a panel of media and communications experts, who honoured eight print and television media organizations as role models for promotion of gender equality in their news coverage.

The ceremony was simple, but the forum was enlightening. The participants pinpointed the disparity in media reporting as far as women are concerned.

In the general media, there has been constant neglect of women at best, and persistent enhancement of the traditional prejudice against women at worst.

A sample survey of broadcasts aired and newspapers printed on February 16, 2005 from 17 television and broadcast stations and eight newspapers in China revealed that men accounted for more than 90 per cent of the government official and business leader newsmakers.

Of the professional experts and public opinion representatives quoted by the media, nine out of 10 are men.

Media advertising is even worse as most promote the stereotype that a woman's place and duty is only at home.

The survey results are not surprising, as the media is out to reflect the social reality.

Pessimists, such as some colleagues of mine, point out that gender equality according to the United Nations meaning the absence of discrimination on the basis of a person's sex in opportunities, in the allocation of resources and benefits or in access to services simply does not exist.

On the political level, for instance, women account for only 20 per cent of the national legislature, the National People's Congress, 10 per cent short of the target set by the United Nations as the percentage enabling women to make a difference.

From the country's government organization chart, we see only two women out of more than 40 mug shots.

On the business and economics level, very few women have made it to the top.

But optimists can argue those figures already represent great progress China has made from its past, when Confucius placed women on the bottom rung of society.

Reality or not, newspapers and television stations have also been projecting themselves as upholders of social equity and justice.

But more often than not, the media has failed to look at events from the viewpoint of gender equity and to examine whether fairness and justice is achieved in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities between women and men.

Take for instance the lopsided ratio between male and female newborns in the country.

When the general news media made the problem their focus last July, many invariably highlighted the "gloomy" future in which tens of millions of men would have difficulties finding a wife and thus cause social disruptions.

While attending to the possible marriage crisis men are likely to suffer, the media not only overlooked the missing girls but also missed the fact that the root of the problem lies in the social, political and economic inequality between men and women.

Enabling every newborn girl to have the same opportunities as every newborn boy is the key to stopping the illegal practice of ultrasound sex screening, although as started on New Year Day, ultrasound sex screening is now illegal and punishable by law, according to the country's top family-planning officials.

But if even the media does not try to look at girls and at the issue of gender equality, it will be very difficult to promote social equality in the country.

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(China Daily 01/12/2006 page4)