‘I’m a woman, not a cup of tea!’

Women journalists share their experiences during a two-day National Media Conference, organised by CEJ, IBA, held recently in Karachi...

In the past, the field of journalism was considered a man’s domain but now we see that women are making their presence felt. Be it reporting, editing or anchoring, our women are not lagging behind. Keeping this in mind, recently, a conference, which was the first of its kind, was held in Karachi, where journalists from various countries participated. Many great sessions were held at the recently concluded two-day National Media Conference 2017 at the Centre of Excellence in Journalism (CEJ) in the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi.

One session that was attended by a large number of people including journalists and students of journalism was ‘Women in the Media’. The discussion was moderated by Elisa Tinsley, the Deputy Vice President Programs at International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) and the panel included journalists from all over Pakistan: Farzana Ali from Peshawar; Tanzila Mazhar from Islamabad; Razeshta Sethna, Najia Ashar and Imran Shirvanee from Karachi.

The discussion as expected was a powerful one as the panellists candidly spoke out about their experiences in the field and how they faced issues including harassment from male colleagues.

According to Farzana Ali from Peshawar, women who want to work in the media in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa usually join radio stations as they don’t like to show their faces or are not allowed by their family members to join electronic media. “But this hasn’t affected me and today I am working confidently for a TV channel.”

Regarding her on-field experience, she cited, “Once when I was covering the situation in Swat and Waziristan I was told, ‘Your work is good but you are not hot’, to which I replied, ‘I am a woman, not a cup of tea’.”

“The profession of journalism has no religion, borders or gender therefore a woman in the field should be treated like a journalist and professional and not a woman. However, women have to put extra efforts to make a mark. As for me, I have had to work way harder just to prove myself as I am working in a patriarchal environment,” she stated. She has apparently been quite successful in ‘proving herself’ and is now the bureau chief of Peshawar and continues to cover some of the most dangerous areas and has brought great stories from there.

Farzana Ali stressed that more women journalists need to open up and discuss issues that women in our country face on a regular basis. And avoid exaggeration and stereotypical news angles out of incidents like rape and ‘honour’ crimes.

On the other hand, Tanzila Mazhar revealed how she was victimized for speaking up about her harrowing experience of sexual harassment at the hands of a senior colleague. She said that her career was put at risk because she would not accept ‘favours’ from her boss at the time and later had to even leave her job as a consequence of speaking up. “When I tried talking about it, I was told to remain silent or I risked bringing myself disrepute,” shared Ms. Mazhar.

Another panellist Imran Shirvanee raised very important points that affect women journalists across the board - the problem of the glass ceiling. “Many women in the media are usually hired for their looks and are also paid less than men in the media,” pointed out Shirvanee.

The audience of the session ‘Women in Media’, expressed mixed reactions. Ali, a journalism student, thought it was unfair that the panellist only spoke against men in the media. “It seemed as if all men are bad and out to sexually harass women. I believe the panellist should have also given suggestions on how to deal with this situation in order to reduce sexual harassment at workplace,” urged Ali.

Another journalism student shared her views, “The participants of this session spoke well about the problems they faced as women journalists, especially Farzana Ali. But they didn’t give us - the younger women - who are going to join this field any tips on how to cope with harassment; who to turn to; and most importantly what harassment actually is.”

Regarding the conference, Director CEJ and Journalist, Kamal Siddiqi, informed, “The women’s panel was the most attended panel and drew a lot of interest. Panellists shared their unique stories which helped with understanding the level of challenges they face in different mediums. In some ways it was an eye-opener not only in terms of what they had to put up with but how they valiantly fought back.”

It would have been great if there was a balance of male and female panellists, as an interaction between the two would have helped resolve and highlight some important points that are either overlooked or misunderstood.

All in all, this was an interesting session since it allowed an insight to the world of women journalists and how they cope with the different pressures of the profession.