This case study shows the results of media monitoring from a gender perspective in the South African elections of 2009. The monitoring was carried out, and reported on, before during and after the election.
Elections Through a Gender Lens: A South African Perspective
By
Colleen Lowe Morna and Deborah Walter
On 22 April 2009, South Africa went to the polls in hotly contested national elections. Jacob Zuma emerged as the country’s president, with the African National Congress (ANC) just narrowly missing a two-thirds majority.
On the gender front, South Africa soared from 17th to 3rd place in the global ranking of women in parliament, with an 11 per cent increase in women’s representation in the national assembly, rising from 34 to 43 per cent. Only Rwanda (56 per cent) and Sweden (47 per cent) are now ahead of South Africa.
Yet, while the elections and media coverage of them were, by and large, deemed free and fair, some bemoaned the lack of depth in media coverage. Media watchdogs such as the Freedom of Expression Institute raised concerns about the relative absence of serious coverage of the issues involved in the elections. This was also evident in media coverage of gender issues, which constituted a mere 2.4 per cent of election coverage.
For example, much of the media focus on President-elect Jacob Zuma’s polygamous life style centred on who would be the first lady and what it would cost tax payers to have such an extensive first family, rather than what this reflects about his views on the Constitution and women’s rights.
Starting from the premise that freedom of expression means that all views and voices are heard, formal censorship is only one way to silence certain voices. A far more pervasive and worrying form of silencing takes place when the views and voices of certain segments of society are persistently and systematically excluded from the media. That is more often than not the case with gender.
Gender Links (GL)1, in partnership with Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), monitored media leading up to, during, and following the elections, and conducted a televised debate on the findings with key editors and stakeholders.
On the plus side, while women constituted only 10 per cent of all sources in the 1994 elections, that figure had risen to 24 per cent in 2009. That is higher than the global average of 21 per cent women news sources in the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) of 2005. However, considering that women now constitute 43 per cent of members of parliament, and 52 per cent of society, the inescapable conclusion is that we are only half way to where we need to be.
The stock response from editors to these kinds of numbers is that they report what is newsworthy. Sure, most political parties are led by men. But South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance is led by Helen Zille. And the spokesperson of the ruling African National Congress, Jesse Duarte, is a woman.
What about the voters? How often did media reflect their views? According to Gender Links’ Deputy Director Kubi Rama, election media coverage was largely dominated by events, rather than issues. “The issues are what are important and the issues really didn’t get much play,” said Rama. “How are you going to have improved service delivery, what improvements are there going to be around health or welfare, without focusing on parties’ and candidates’ positions on such issues?” If hot button issues like poverty, education, crime, gender violence, HIV and AIDS had been covered with due seriousness, and if journalists had bothered to consult them on such matters of life and death, the voices of women would surely have rung loud and clear.
Qualitative analysis of election coverage conducted by GL also yielded several examples of blatant gender stereotypes. Among them were the prominent coverage given to Zille admitting that she used Botox (Sunday Times, 28 December), references to Zille as the “poster girl” and references to the wife of the leader of the relatively new political party, Congress of the People (COPE) – Wendy Luhabe – as the “Sugar behind Shikota” (Mail and Guardian, 31 October).
The male dominance of politics was underscored by several articles bearing the headline “All the President’s Men” (for example, the 28 August cover of Financial Times; and an article in The Star on 7 April). Several other articles bearing the title “All the President’s Women” – such as the Sunday Independent on 25 January and The Star on 26 January – referred to rumours and allegations concerning a young woman said to be carrying the baby of President Kgalema Motlanthe, who is separated from his wife.
However, there were some positive developments as well. For example, sexist comments like the offside by ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema on women who are raped not asking for taxi money in the morning prompted spirited discussion and a well- positioned piece in the Mail and Guardian (30 January). This, in turn, prompted a debate on whether or not the personal is political.
To its credit, the Mail and Guardian (M&G) also ran an opinion piece by GL on the subject, which prompted several on-line responses. In addition, the Mail and Guardian Critical Thinking Forum partnered with Gender Links, the Human Rights Commission and Constitution Hill in posing this question to a panel on which all the political parties were represented, providing the substance for an M&G special supplement on Gender and the Elections (20 March).
Similarly, South Africa’s public service broadcaster, SABC International, hosted a debate on the place of polygamy in Africa, with two speakers for and two against the practice. The debate took place in front of a regional audience, with questions phoned in by viewers across Africa. Throughout the election period GL ran Gender and Leadership debates that resulted in a checklist for transformative leadership.
Several South African newspapers also ran lengthy profiles of prominent women in politics, including new and emerging leaders in opposition parties. Examples include “Cope’s eager new girl on the block” (on Lynda Odendaal) in the Sunday Independent on 21 December; “Woman with her heels on the ground” (on Wendy Luhabe) in the Sunday Independent of 9 November; “The love of my country has guided me” (on COPE’s Lyndal Shope) in The Star 7 November; “On the campaign with superwoman” (on Helen Zille) in the Saturday Star of 18 April; and “Die-hard had to eat her words” (on former Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo- Ngcuka) in the Sunday Independent of 29 April.
While white male commentators and analysts predominated in all media, the Mail and Guardian frequently used black female experts and opinion shapers like Nikiwe Bikitsha and Phumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who shed refreshing views on the issues (like the Sunday lunch disputes in Bikitsha’s home over whether to vote for COPE or ANC).
The Mail and Guardian also consistently consulted “ordinary” women and men in equal numbers for their views on the elections. The newspaper’s election cover, showing Zuma and Zille, and flagging a supplement on women’s economic empowerment, is an example of the kind of gender balance that GL and media partners who promote gender equality in and through the media hope will be achieved in future coverage.
Although coverage often ignored the gender dimension, there is indication that there is a growing recognition within the media that addressing both sexes makes good business sense for media houses.
During the post-election debate, Nicholas Dawes, incoming editor of the Mail & Guardian, reflected on the print media’s coverage of the elections. “I think it’s a very mixed bag as far as gender goes,” he said. “There were instances where people made a real effort to try and make sure that women’s voices came through more strongly and that questions of gender, both at policy level and in terms of how they play out in our representation of leadership, were represented, but there were clearly other situations that weren’t so great.” Dawes also highlighted a particular approach that M&G used for a more human perspective on the elections. “One of our correspondents, Mandy Russo, went to the rural Eastern Cape, discussing with them what their choices were and why they’d made those choices,” explained Dawes. “We also had a series of profiles of ordinary South Africans, looking at the way they were approaching the elections. It was evenly split between men and women and, gender concerns came through there, implicitly or explicitly.”
Izak Minaar, Head of Research at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), pointed out during a televised debate that women constitute the majority in the country, and that it makes sense for the media to service all audiences, especially the majority. Media monitoring can play a role in helping newsrooms to do so.
“It’s really important that we have people watching over us, checking what we are doing and presenting us with a good analysis as to how we fare in the daily running of the newsroom,” said Minaar. “It’s sometimes difficult to achieve all the goals that you set yourself at the start and I think a regular, good look at how we are doing can help us do better.”
Unfortunately, progress to date continues to be slow, as Sandra Roberts of Media Monitoring Africa pointed out. “In 2009, women constituted 24 per cent of sources and five years ago they constituted 23 per cent. One per cent improvement over five years is not satisfactory at all.”
If women constitute half the population, it’s surely not too much to ask that they be equally seen and heard in the news - at all times but especially during the important process of elections in a democracy. spent some time with a poor family there, and particularly with the women in that household,
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