About the Book
These are not
the questions journalists usually ask when they set out to do their jobs as
reporters, sub-editors, photographers or editors. Yet, by not asking, are they
missing out on something, perhaps half the story? This is the question this
book, edited and written by journalists, for journalists and the lay public
interested in media, raises. Through examples from the media, and from their
own experience, the contributors explain the concept of gender- sensitive
journalism and look at a series of subjects that journalists have to cover -
sexual assault, environment, development, business, politics, health,
disasters, conflict - and set out a simple way of
integrating a gendered lens into day-to-day journalism. Written in a
non-academic, accessible style, this book is possibly the first of its kind in
India - one that attempts to inject a gender perspective into journalism.
About the Author
Kalpana Sharma is an
independent journalist, columnist and media consultant based in Mumbai. She
writes regularly for several newspapers and websites on a range of issues
including urban development, gender, contemporary politics and the media. She
was, until 2007, Deputy Editor and Chief of Bureau, The Hindu in Mumbai. Among her publications are:
Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories from Asia's
Largest Slum (2000), Terror Counter- Terror: Women Speak Out (2003) and Whose News? The
Media and Women's Issues (199412006), both co-edited with
Ammu Joseph.
She has also contributed chapters to several books and is a founder-member of
the Network of Women and Media, India.
Foreword
The idea
of a book on gender sensitive writing in journalism emerged from our constant
interaction with media leaders, working journalists, and students of journalism
and media studies through our Laadli media initiatives and our youth interventions under
project "Maadhyam-Youth for Change".
Whenever the subject of "Gender Sensitivity" was broached by us, we
received stock responses such as, "We cannot write from a gender
perspective considering the time, space and editorial policy constraints,"
''Writing from a gender perspective will make the article boring and
uninteresting", ''We are here to report and not to promote any ideology or
perspective." We would often draw on examples to support our point that
one can be gender sensitive in reporting without compromising on readability or
relevance. We also found that there was not much focus on gender in the
curriculum of journalism and media studies courses.
This book
was conceptualized to create, among working journalists, an understanding of
gender and what gender sensitive journalism can mean by bringing together a
number of articles written from such a perspective. Kalpana
Sharma, former Bureau Chief of The Hindu in Mumbai and
well known writer, responded promptly to our request to edit the book and
offered to enlarge the scope by including chapters that deal with the
conceptual framework for addressing various issues such as violence and
conflict, health and sanitation, sports, business, politics, economics and environment
including manmade and natural disasters - all from a gender perspective.
We are
grateful to Kalpana and to the other contributors, Ammu Joseph, Laxmi Murthy, Sameera Khan and Rajashri Dasgupta for making this book possible. We would also like to
acknowledge the Zubaan team for publishing the book.
There is
general elation at the prospect of India emerging as one of the economic super
powers of the world in the years to come. Yet, India is far behind when it
comes to human development and gender development indices. It is time we
focussed on these issues. We are convinced that media has a major role to play
in highlighting and pursuing gender and social development issues to ensure
that laws, policies and programmes are implemented with efficiency,
transparency and accountability. We are sure this book will be a useful
resource for media personnel and it is our hope that it will motivate them to
be more proactive in addressing gender issues, thus making gender sensitivity
an integral part of media reporting.
Introduction
Journalists
are journalists, but they are also rich or poor or middle class (probably the
majority), fat or thin, lower or upper caste, men or women, left wing or right wing
or neither. In other words, a journalist is not just a journalist. She or he
carries baggage, from earlier socialisation, from present day influences and
from realities about which they had no choice - such as gender or caste.
Objectivity
is the ideal all journalists strive for. We believe that our training equips us
to distance ourselves as we report on a whole range of situations and comment
on everything from films to fires to terrorism. Yet, scratch any journalist and
you will soon discover that this objectivity is precisely that - a desirable
norm that cannot be easily attained. Only the more honest will admit that there
can never be anything like "objective" journalism and that everything
that we write is ultimately mediated by our own hidden or open biases. The
choices we make in terms of what we include and what we leave out, the choices
we make about what we emphasise, the choices we make about who we speak to and
those we ignore, the choices we make about the stories we follow through and those
we drop - all these are not dictated by some absolute or objective norms.
Sometimes they are dictated by the orientation of our particular publication or
media of women's perspective and not in the larger gender perspective that has
emerged over time. So what we are suggesting here, as a step beyond what was
suggested in Whose News? is the "genderisation"
of journalism if you will; something that applies to reporting, editing and
feature writing.
This book
has been an exciting collaborative effort, facilitated by the wonders of email
that allows instant communication even if we are based in different locations.
And indeed, we were. While Laxmi Murthy was in
Kathmandu, Rajashri Dasgupta
lives in Kolkata, Ammu Joseph in Bangalore and Sameera Khan and I are in Mumbai. Even as the book was
being conceived, five of us exchanged notes and points, based on our individual
experiences of reporting, editing and teaching, and jointly arrived at its
content. I might point out that this kind of collaboration between journalists,
who are not deprived in the ego department, is fairly rare. We were able to do
this because we have worked together for almost a decade to build and nurture a
network of women journalists across India- the Network of Women in Media, India
(www.nwmindia.org).This is also, probably, the first book of its kind by media
professionals in India that specifically addresses the aspect of gender in
journalistic writing.
Contents
Foreword |
vii |
Introduction |
ix |
Section One |
|
The Battle of the Sexes
and Other Myths |
3 |
Women, Men and the
Emerging Other |
23 |
Understanding Women's
Movements |
55 |
Gender Sensitivity on the
Run |
72 |
Section Two |
|
When Survivors Become
Victims |
83 |
Why Toilets and Forests
Matter to Women |
119 |
Disasters, Conflicts and Gender |
143 |
The Politics of
Invisibility |
166 |
Women are not a Disease |
188 |
Section Three |
|
Singur's Women: From Warriors to Women |
215 |
Sanitation in the Time of
Floods |
221 |
In Search of Water |
226 |
Women Farmers Ready to
Beat Climate Change |
236 |
Being Hillary |
240 |
The Caregiver's Burden |
244 |
Charting Their Own Course |
250 |
Uncovering Women's Work |
255 |
Reporting on Trafficking
in Women |
263 |
Information as Empowerment
|
272 |
Missing in Action |
276 |
Annexures |
|
Annexure
1 |
287 |
Annexure
2 |
290 |
Notes
on Contributors |
294 |
About the Book
These are not
the questions journalists usually ask when they set out to do their jobs as
reporters, sub-editors, photographers or editors. Yet, by not asking, are they
missing out on something, perhaps half the story? This is the question this
book, edited and written by journalists, for journalists and the lay public
interested in media, raises. Through examples from the media, and from their
own experience, the contributors explain the concept of gender- sensitive
journalism and look at a series of subjects that journalists have to cover -
sexual assault, environment, development, business, politics, health,
disasters, conflict - and set out a simple way of
integrating a gendered lens into day-to-day journalism. Written in a
non-academic, accessible style, this book is possibly the first of its kind in
India - one that attempts to inject a gender perspective into journalism.
About the Author
Kalpana Sharma is an
independent journalist, columnist and media consultant based in Mumbai. She
writes regularly for several newspapers and websites on a range of issues
including urban development, gender, contemporary politics and the media. She
was, until 2007, Deputy Editor and Chief of Bureau, The Hindu in Mumbai. Among her publications are:
Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories from Asia's
Largest Slum (2000), Terror Counter- Terror: Women Speak Out (2003) and Whose News? The
Media and Women's Issues (199412006), both co-edited with
Ammu Joseph.
She has also contributed chapters to several books and is a founder-member of
the Network of Women and Media, India.
Foreword
The idea
of a book on gender sensitive writing in journalism emerged from our constant
interaction with media leaders, working journalists, and students of journalism
and media studies through our Laadli media initiatives and our youth interventions under
project "Maadhyam-Youth for Change".
Whenever the subject of "Gender Sensitivity" was broached by us, we
received stock responses such as, "We cannot write from a gender
perspective considering the time, space and editorial policy constraints,"
''Writing from a gender perspective will make the article boring and
uninteresting", ''We are here to report and not to promote any ideology or
perspective." We would often draw on examples to support our point that
one can be gender sensitive in reporting without compromising on readability or
relevance. We also found that there was not much focus on gender in the
curriculum of journalism and media studies courses.
This book
was conceptualized to create, among working journalists, an understanding of
gender and what gender sensitive journalism can mean by bringing together a
number of articles written from such a perspective. Kalpana
Sharma, former Bureau Chief of The Hindu in Mumbai and
well known writer, responded promptly to our request to edit the book and
offered to enlarge the scope by including chapters that deal with the
conceptual framework for addressing various issues such as violence and
conflict, health and sanitation, sports, business, politics, economics and environment
including manmade and natural disasters - all from a gender perspective.
We are
grateful to Kalpana and to the other contributors, Ammu Joseph, Laxmi Murthy, Sameera Khan and Rajashri Dasgupta for making this book possible. We would also like to
acknowledge the Zubaan team for publishing the book.
There is
general elation at the prospect of India emerging as one of the economic super
powers of the world in the years to come. Yet, India is far behind when it
comes to human development and gender development indices. It is time we
focussed on these issues. We are convinced that media has a major role to play
in highlighting and pursuing gender and social development issues to ensure
that laws, policies and programmes are implemented with efficiency,
transparency and accountability. We are sure this book will be a useful
resource for media personnel and it is our hope that it will motivate them to
be more proactive in addressing gender issues, thus making gender sensitivity
an integral part of media reporting.
Introduction
Journalists
are journalists, but they are also rich or poor or middle class (probably the
majority), fat or thin, lower or upper caste, men or women, left wing or right wing
or neither. In other words, a journalist is not just a journalist. She or he
carries baggage, from earlier socialisation, from present day influences and
from realities about which they had no choice - such as gender or caste.
Objectivity
is the ideal all journalists strive for. We believe that our training equips us
to distance ourselves as we report on a whole range of situations and comment
on everything from films to fires to terrorism. Yet, scratch any journalist and
you will soon discover that this objectivity is precisely that - a desirable
norm that cannot be easily attained. Only the more honest will admit that there
can never be anything like "objective" journalism and that everything
that we write is ultimately mediated by our own hidden or open biases. The
choices we make in terms of what we include and what we leave out, the choices
we make about what we emphasise, the choices we make about who we speak to and
those we ignore, the choices we make about the stories we follow through and those
we drop - all these are not dictated by some absolute or objective norms.
Sometimes they are dictated by the orientation of our particular publication or
media of women's perspective and not in the larger gender perspective that has
emerged over time. So what we are suggesting here, as a step beyond what was
suggested in Whose News? is the "genderisation"
of journalism if you will; something that applies to reporting, editing and
feature writing.
This book
has been an exciting collaborative effort, facilitated by the wonders of email
that allows instant communication even if we are based in different locations.
And indeed, we were. While Laxmi Murthy was in
Kathmandu, Rajashri Dasgupta
lives in Kolkata, Ammu Joseph in Bangalore and Sameera Khan and I are in Mumbai. Even as the book was
being conceived, five of us exchanged notes and points, based on our individual
experiences of reporting, editing and teaching, and jointly arrived at its
content. I might point out that this kind of collaboration between journalists,
who are not deprived in the ego department, is fairly rare. We were able to do
this because we have worked together for almost a decade to build and nurture a
network of women journalists across India- the Network of Women in Media, India
(www.nwmindia.org).This is also, probably, the first book of its kind by media
professionals in India that specifically addresses the aspect of gender in
journalistic writing.
Contents
Foreword |
vii |
Introduction |
ix |
Section One |
|
The Battle of the Sexes
and Other Myths |
3 |
Women, Men and the
Emerging Other |
23 |
Understanding Women's
Movements |
55 |
Gender Sensitivity on the
Run |
72 |
Section Two |
|
When Survivors Become
Victims |
83 |
Why Toilets and Forests
Matter to Women |
119 |
Disasters, Conflicts and Gender |
143 |
The Politics of
Invisibility |
166 |
Women are not a Disease |
188 |
Section Three |
|
Singur's Women: From Warriors to Women |
215 |
Sanitation in the Time of
Floods |
221 |
In Search of Water |
226 |
Women Farmers Ready to
Beat Climate Change |
236 |
Being Hillary |
240 |
The Caregiver's Burden |
244 |
Charting Their Own Course |
250 |
Uncovering Women's Work |
255 |
Reporting on Trafficking
in Women |
263 |
Information as Empowerment
|
272 |
Missing in Action |
276 |
Annexures |
|
Annexure
1 |
287 |
Annexure
2 |
290 |
Notes
on Contributors |
294 |