Self-Reflection and Awareness: Hey Sri Lankan Mass Media, You Should Try Them Sometime

Tissa Karalliyadda, Minister of Child
Development and Women's Affairs

Speaking of paternal benevolence, a headline in the News Feature section of the Sunday Observer caught my eye: "Media Should Protect Women and Children --Tissa Karalliyadda." The article, which covered a workshop on media and women, was written by Mr. L. S. Ananda Wedaarachchi. The spread featured four pictures: the most prominent and largest picture was of Mr. Karalliyadda, the Minister of Child Development and Women's Affairs. Below him were two smaller pictures of women, both quoted in the article. A similarly sized picture was one of almost all women seated around tables, looking like they were attentively listening to a speaker. Before I started reading the article, the inset quote from the Minister also caught my eye: "The mass media plays a vital role in changing the social and updating knowledge [sic]. It makes a great impact on the society at all levels. Media personnel should use every opportunity to ensure the well-being of women and children" (emphasis mine).

First off, the author of the article, Wedaarachchi, was making a rather large leap by translating the Minister's call to action of ensuring the "well-being of women and children" to ensuring the protection of women and children, as stated by his headline. That in itself reveals the overarching social attitude towards women: that they need protection. Not just any protection either, but the protection equivalent to that of children. The very fact that Karalliyadda's job lumps women and children together further cements that social attitude towards women. While women's issues and children's issues can certainly intersect, especially when it comes to motherhood, they are large enough affairs on their own that they could at least merit two separate ministers. That is not, in any way, to diminish the importance of women as mothers. But the problem comes when women are defined only as mothers, and not as women who are also working professionals, athletes, politicians, scientists or doctors. Women being defined with and by their children can lead to the dangerous assumption that they require similar protection, and are thus also victims, rather than agents. It's unfortunate that Wedaarachchi, a participant in and perpetuator of the very "media" he referenced in his headline, couldn't see the irony in his call to "protect women and children." His own words quite succinctly revealed the very real need for better media coverage of women's issues.

Dr. Subangi Herath, senior lecturer
of sociology at Colombo University

To only add to the irony, the workshop about which he was writing concluded exactly that. The three women quoted in the article, all either education professionals or journalists, commented that within the media, women are continually marginalized and discriminated against. Dr. Subangi Herath, a senior lecturer of sociology at Colombo University, pointed out that when it comes to women, there are too many articles about cooking and cosmetics and not enough coverage of serious issues, such as "women empowerment, safeguarding women's rights and interests or improving the lot of womankind." Wedaarachchi certainly made an attempt at what he must have thought was "serious coverage," but the quality of his article fell far short. He spent far too much time quoting the Minister on the current status of women, and not enough time covering the actual resolutions that the workshop adopted. The one solution that he did talk about took up all of one sentence in the second to last paragraph of his article, and his paraphrasing of the resolution was vague at best: "Motivation and training of media personnel including decision-makers on women empowerment was one of the resolutions in the larger interests of womenkind [sic]." If the media and journalists like Wedaarachchi were actually serious about improving the status of women, they should try devoting more of their writing to real solutions that would serve to inform, educate and thus empower the public—women included.

Based on Wedaarachchi's coverage of Minister Karalliyadda, it seems like this politician, too, suffers from lack of personal reflection on his words and actions. One quote from the Minister highlighted the role that "terrorism" had played in overshadowing women's issues. Women in the northern regions were especially affected with "numerous problems" and Karalliyadda categorically stated that "as such, it is incumbent on the authorities to seek solutions for them." Wait—sorry, aren't you the Minister of Women's Affairs? Shouldn't you be the authority on the numerous problems that women are facing today, and what can be done to help them? What other authorities are you calling to action? Perhaps my ignorance about what is being done in the northern regions and what the Minister has contributed to the issues is showing here. But anything that has been done or is being done, Wedaarachchi apparently didn't think it was relevant, which makes me wonder what exactly Wedaarachchi does think is relevant when it comes to women. Oh wait, that's right: their protection.

Unfortunately, male journalists like Wedaarachchi aren't the only ones at fault in perpetuating the lack of media coverage on serious women's issues. Like Dr. Herath pointed out, articles written by, for and about women revolve around subjects like health and beauty, fashion, make-up, celebrities or gossip. Examples of these aren't difficult to find, like the Daily Mirror's Women at Work (W@W) insert. A short magazine with only a few pages, its target audience is obviously women. In one issue that I read, the articles generally reinforced issues that are considered "women's issues," as defined by its women authors. One article talked about the author’s befuddlement with technology and with the husband's obsession over it. She talks about their new, large TV, or the "ultimate, all time, masculine, state-of-the-art dream machine" as being a "woman's worst nightmare and a man's biggest daydream." Referring to the TV once as a "thingamajig," she rather blatantly perpetuates the stereotype of technology being a "man's" domain, as well as something that is somehow naturally beyond the comprehension of women. She talks despairingly of wires and cables and subwoofers and being in an "e-hell." Being extremely competent in technology myself, this whole article made me absolutely cringe in horror. The ability to understand technology is not bound by gender, and men have no biological advantage that allows them to "get it" while women don't. Technology is a clear example of the social engineering of gender and its associations. While I'm glad that this female writer has found work outside of her home doing something she seems to enjoy, the level of journalism is far, far below par. In fact, the entire magazine seems to project an attitude of careless indulgence about fairly trivial issues, with numerous spelling and grammatical errors throughout. The one serious article, "Mental Illness is Nothing to be Ashamed of," provided any woman who read it with a nice fat helping of guilt, placing the burden of erasing the "stigma attached to mental illness in this country" squarely on the shoulders of women. Yet again, this article emphasized the traditional role for women as primary caretakers of the family. With articles on health and nutrition and a feature on a woman who enjoys making miniature furniture models, "Women at Work" is just one example of women engaging in gender policing and refusing to engage in serious issues within journalism.

This very critical issue of women and the media was covered by the workshop in Mr. Wedaarachchi's article. Because the media has the power to influence so much of our daily lives, extra attention needs to be paid to it, especially when it comes to women's issues. Unfortunately, though his article was an attempt to provide women's issues with serious media coverage, the low-quality journalism that he engaged in merely served to exemplify the poor coverage that women receive. His article's headline reinforced the stereotype of women as victims who need the protection of not just the patriarchal state, but the media as well. It's also very curious to me that the Minister of Women's Affairs is a man. I don't, in any way, mean to engage in a reversal of the usual gender discrimination. Men are certainly not incapable of understanding the affairs of women, but I wonder if Karalliyadda is really qualified for the job—yes, simply because he is a man. When it comes to the specific affairs of a specific gender, one would think you would be at a disadvantage if you were of the opposite gender. What would the world think if the Minister of Men's Affairs was a woman? Speculations aside, gender role reinforcement in the media doesn't just come from males telling females how to be a woman, but from women telling women too. As I was browsing the newspapers, a picture on the front page with the word "Zonta" compelled me to flip to C3. Now here, I thought, was going to be some serious coverage of a woman's organization whose explicit mission is to advance the status of women. Disappointed was I when I saw the heading at the top of C3: "Society Life with Kirthi: Zonta Fun." The short verbiage lived up to its headline, talking about a celebration the club held that was an "entertaining and joyous evening." Coverage of women's issues in serious journalism is in a sad state if even an organization specifically for advancing the status of women is used to perpetuate the stereotype that women care more about social happenings than anything else. It’s just one more symptom in a long list. Perhaps if Mr. Wedaarachchi’s headline had been “Media Should Promote Women and Children,” I could have some hope for the current state of affairs. Unfortunately, it seems the media has a long a way to go.