Interview with Loughty Dube, Chair of the Media Institute of Southern Africa-Zimbabwe
BULAWAYO, Jun 24 (IPS) – For activists campaigning to put more women into Africa’s parliaments, the media has become a key battleground. All too often, female candidates are sidelined in election coverage, or reported on in a way that entrenches stereotypes of women rather than analysing the strength of their political and economic policies.
In a bid to address this situation, the Zimbabwean chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), a press watchdog, evaluated coverage of women candidates in the 2005 House of Assembly elections in Zimbabwe.
Its findings were set out in a subsequent report, ‘So Many Rivers to Cross: MISA-Zimbabwe Report on the Media Portrayal of Female Political Candidates in the Zimbabwe March 2005 Parliamentary Elections’, which also made recommendations on how inadequate coverage of female aspirants could be improved.
IPS reporter Ignatius Banda recently spoke to MISA-Zimbabwe chair Loughty Dube to find out whether improvements had, in fact, taken place ahead of the latest round of polls in the country. Elections for the presidency, upper and lower houses of parliament, and local councils took place Mar. 29.
IPS: Your study found that just nine percent of news items surveyed had female candidates “as centres of the story” — this despite the fact that 21 percent* of candidates running for the House of Assembly in 2005 were women. Did this year’s campaign see any improvement in the quantity of coverage given to female aspirants?
Loughty Dube: Nothing much changed in the coverage of women. If you look at all newspapers, females were not adequately covered as this election was not about policies but a mere contest between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai.
None of the newspapers in the country gave much space to female candidates and their campaigns thus suffered. In terms of actual stories, nothing happened but what we saw were some women-led NGOs coming forward to say women were capable candidates encouraging the electorate to vote for them. However this also fell still short in that this campaign was merely urging people to vote for women without any specific names being mentioned. The advert just put all women in one basket and this did not help the cause for the coverage of female candidates by the local media.
IPS: The 2005 study also noted that women covered in news items were more likely than male candidates to be identified as mothers or wives. For example the study noted that during the campaign period, the aspiring MDC candidate for Chimanimani Heather Bennet was identified by some newspapers as “Roy Bennet’s wife”. Would this attribution necessarily be a hindrance to female candidates?
LD: It sure was a hindrance as the attribution as someone’s wife trivialized her campaign. She was standing in that election in her own right as an MDC candidate and was not Bennet’s wife but a candidate aspiring as an MP. It limited her campaign as it meant the person is not herself but just an appendage of someone else.
It belittled her campaign because some people would say what new thing is she going to tell us as we have heard it all before from her husband. So by that reasoning she could say nothing more than Roy Bennet had already said.
IPS: The study highlighted the need for a programme to improve the way in which the media deal with gender. Was any such programme put in place after the study was issued?
LD: I think there is no strong gender policy in a single newsroom in the country which for example would say a certain percentage of news coverage is going to be dedicated to women.
Basically if there was, we would see more women coming up. In terms of women candidates, the coverage was still very minute, even those who were already ministers or holding public posts like (vice president Joice) Mujuru they did not get adequate coverage as they were only covered addressing rallies. Not much has changed.
Newspapers have a choice even if there is policy to that effect to cover women. But newspapers work on the issue of newsworthiness, if there a story from the female candidate then it would be pursued, but still you find that some newspapers are not interested.
IPS: Some people have opined that perhaps the women candidates have not marketed themselves as aggressively as their male counterparts and that could be the reason for their absence in the news.
LD: I think this goes back to cultural norms where men are seemingly always on the forefront. You get for example male candidates patronizing local press clubs where journalists meet, but you rarely get women.
I really don’t know what has to be done, but this seems to be tied to cultural sensitivities where our societies still remain patriarchal. But I still believe media organisations must come up with policies where they allocate equal space to women candidates as much as they do men.
IPS: Some people have also noted that perhaps the pushing to the periphery of women candidates in the news is tied to the absence of authoritative female sources in the form of economic and/or political analysts.
LD: I don’t know what the problem could be. I can’t name a single female economic or political analyst. They are there, but it could be that they do not want to come forward.
I think that while media space is important, what is happening is that these sources must be available around the clock as it has been fairly easy to engage male commentators like John Makumbe.
However it always appears to be a problem trying to talk to authoritative female voices who will not take calls anytime of the day perhaps because of personal reasons. I think we are still a rigid society, and this has had an impact on how women political candidates are provided with media space in their campaigns.
IPS: There were a significant number of problems surrounding this year’s general elections, ranging from intimidation of the opposition to allegations that food aid was being manipulated to keep the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front in power. Did these difficulties have the effect of pushing gender balance in coverage of candidates down the electoral agenda?
LD: Yes. For instance violence has been mainly a male domain thus male candidates seemed to dominate the news. Females are never known to perpetuate violence and this has had an effected on their campaign as it pushed them to oblivion than being in the forefront of news. But we also know women suffered a lot as they have to look after their families during these trying times.
IPS: And what of the larger social and economic reality in Zimbabwe at this time — the lack of basic goods, widespread unemployment and the like…Do these tend to relegate gender to the back burner amongst citizens who are pre-occupied with simply trying to keep their heads above water?
LD: We have seen women bear the brunt of the crisis as they have in many ways been victims of political violence where for example their husbands have escaped from the ruling party militias but with the militias turning on the wives killing and burning their homes. They have also been tending victims of political violence and have also been left to look after whole families after their spouses where killed or disappeared.
IPS: Your study noted that poor representation of women candidates in the 2005 polls took place within a legislative environment that was very repressive towards the media, overall — notably through the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Did you see any improvements on this front, ahead of the March 29 ballot?
LD: There were no notable improvements as the situation has gotten worse. We are compiling a report on the 2008 elections and it will analyse that aspect.
*Source: So Many Rivers to Cross: MISA-Zimbabwe Report on the Media Portrayal of Female Political Candidates in the Zimbabwe March 2005 Parliamentary Elections (END/2008)
