Remaking women’s role on the front page
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Ceylan Yeğinsu
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mayıs 25, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - Women do not have enough authority in the media and therefore female stereotypes continue to be the norm. A panel comprised of five leading journalists in Turkey, aims to raise awareness about the issue of gender equality and break the female stereotype that is cast through media
The media’s focus on women needs to shift from soft news stories featuring bikinis and skimpily-clad women to hard news, where female opinions on core issues count, according to a group of leading female journalists. The women were members of a panel held by the Turkish Journalists Association on Friday.
An awareness of gender issues has increased in Turkey Ğ a fact supported by all five of the journalists who spoke on the panel, aimed to highlight position of women in the media and bring attention to the lack of adequate representation of women in their professional capacity.
While Turkish organizations have launched new lobbying campaigns and mainstream newspapers have increased their coverage of gender equality issues, there is still much more that needs to be done in order to break the stereotypes that depict women as mere victims and fashion objects, said Today’s Zaman columnist Nicole Pope.
Figures published by the media surveillance group MEDİZ show that just 11 percent of guests in political discussion programs on television are women, while females are attributed for 18 percent of news sources. "As journalists it is our responsibility to question the status quo," said Pope, highlighting that aside from soft stories women’s optimal position in newspapers was in page three stories, where they are either photographed half naked or they are portrayed as victims of murder, rape and honor killings.
Pope underlined that page three stories in Turkish papers were also written without sensitivity to the victim. Pope criticized some traditional expressions such as "teslim etmek" (to hand over) is inappropriate when used in reference to a women being returned to her family by the police after escaping. " Language is used carelessly, you cannot hand over a grown women who has the right to freedom," Pope said.
Ferai Tinç, a columnist, said not enough women were in authority.
Tınç said not enough women in the media were in positions of authority to be able implement certain changes that would result in more female sources being used in stories. Figures from Mediz show that only 15 percent of media managers are women, while men account for 88 percent of columnists, and not one editor in chief is a woman. "Currently the majority of women in the media are reporters, they are underpaid and underutilized, if there were more women in positions of power, gender issues would be addressed to a greater scale," Tınç said, speaking at the panel Friday.
Internal monitoring
On the same topic, Pope highlighted that journalists could not claim to be objective if they did not respect diversity. "In order to achieve full coverage of diverse topics it is crucial to have an internal monitoring system which needs to be equal and can only be achieved by increasing the number of female journalists," Pope said.
With only a handful of men present for the panel, the speakers made a call to involve men on this issue. "This is an issue that applies to all of society and all of society can benefit from equal gender balance," Perihan Çakiroğlu from the daily Bugün said, adding that the topic would attract greater attention if men started writing about it.
An awareness of gender issues has increased in Turkey Ğ a fact supported by all five of the journalists who spoke on the panel, aimed to highlight position of women in the media and bring attention to the lack of adequate representation of women in their professional capacity.
While Turkish organizations have launched new lobbying campaigns and mainstream newspapers have increased their coverage of gender equality issues, there is still much more that needs to be done in order to break the stereotypes that depict women as mere victims and fashion objects, said Today’s Zaman columnist Nicole Pope.
Figures published by the media surveillance group MEDİZ show that just 11 percent of guests in political discussion programs on television are women, while females are attributed for 18 percent of news sources. "As journalists it is our responsibility to question the status quo," said Pope, highlighting that aside from soft stories women’s optimal position in newspapers was in page three stories, where they are either photographed half naked or they are portrayed as victims of murder, rape and honor killings.
Pope underlined that page three stories in Turkish papers were also written without sensitivity to the victim. Pope criticized some traditional expressions such as "teslim etmek" (to hand over) is inappropriate when used in reference to a women being returned to her family by the police after escaping. " Language is used carelessly, you cannot hand over a grown women who has the right to freedom," Pope said.
Ferai Tinç, a columnist, said not enough women were in authority.
Tınç said not enough women in the media were in positions of authority to be able implement certain changes that would result in more female sources being used in stories. Figures from Mediz show that only 15 percent of media managers are women, while men account for 88 percent of columnists, and not one editor in chief is a woman. "Currently the majority of women in the media are reporters, they are underpaid and underutilized, if there were more women in positions of power, gender issues would be addressed to a greater scale," Tınç said, speaking at the panel Friday.
Internal monitoring
On the same topic, Pope highlighted that journalists could not claim to be objective if they did not respect diversity. "In order to achieve full coverage of diverse topics it is crucial to have an internal monitoring system which needs to be equal and can only be achieved by increasing the number of female journalists," Pope said.
With only a handful of men present for the panel, the speakers made a call to involve men on this issue. "This is an issue that applies to all of society and all of society can benefit from equal gender balance," Perihan Çakiroğlu from the daily Bugün said, adding that the topic would attract greater attention if men started writing about it.