Mumbai: Women form a large part of the human resources workforce in print media and advertising, but are found in fewer numbers in broadcast media organisations, a study on ‘Media: How Gender Sensitive, How Inclusive’ has revealed. It found that the presence of women camerapersons, photographers, and women in technical sections to be dismal across all media.
The study, conducted by Population First, a communication and advocacy initiative working towards gender sensitivity, in collaboration with Gender Issues Cell of K.C. College, Mumbai, was released on Friday.
It sheds light on reporting beats being highly gendered, the state of awareness about prevention of sexual harassment of women in the workplace, and said that demands of work and family life were a major hindrance for women media professionals.
The study was headed by Dr. Leena Pujari, convenor, Gender Issues Cell, K.C. College. A team of 15 students and four teachers interviewed 87 respondents drawn from 36 Hindi, English and Marathi media organisations across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
The report mapped gender distribution, recruitment and promotion, equity policies, proactive measures and sexual harassment.
“It appears as though gender has become irrelevant in today’s post-globalised era; performance of individuals is now distinguished by professionalism rather than gender. But there is a need for the media organisations to introspect on the stereotypes and gendered assumptions that are still pervasive in these organisations. We have thrown a light on aspects of gender distribution, recruitment and promotion policies and provided recommendations to formulate a more gender-inclusive and sensitive society,” Dr. Pujari said.
Dr. A.L. Sharada, director, Population First, said the study was conducted with support from the United Nations Population Fund. “The conclusions were derived from the rich data gathered from interviews with media personnel and from review of previous research studies and literature on the subject. Data on gender distribution at different levels within media houses has clearly reflected gender disparity. Board members, founder members and CEOs are predominantly men,” Dr. Sharada said.
The event was followed by a panel discussion with experts including Dr. Sharda; Kalpana Sharma, columnist and former deputy editor, The Hindu; K.V. Sridhar, founder, Hypercollective; and Devleena Majumder, president, People and Culture, Culture Machine.