Women’s History Month 2024: US harps on Media Representation of Women in Leadership Positions in Nigeria.
By Edoamaowo Udeme
The United States Embassy Nigeria today commemorated 2024 Women’s History Month by bringing together the women in the media and civil societies organizations to brainstorm on way forward in media representation of women in leadership positions in the country.
Speaking at the event, the Acting Deputy Chief of Mission, Art Brown, said The U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Nigeria has a long-standing commitment to promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, so it is an honor to commemorate Women’s History Month and discuss a topic crucial to the empowerment of Nigerian women: the media’s depiction of women in leadership positions.
Some of the participants at the events with Gilbert Morton, the the US Embassy Nigeria Spokesperson.
“We recognize that the media plays a vital role in shaping public perceptions and influencing societal norms. That’s why this discussion today is so important”.
He noted that a recent report by the Nigerian non-governmental organization “Development Research and Projects Center” and the digital platform “ALIGN” has provided qualitative data on an issue that many previously had not understood that the Nigerian media often portray women in appointive government positions in a biased and often negative way.
“The study found that women are often depicted as weak, incompetent, and lacking credibility, while their male counterparts receive more neutral and factual coverage”.
Brown also stressed that this is not just a matter of fairness; it has real consequences for women’s participation in governance.
“In Nigeria, women represent less than six percent of elected and politically appointed officials”.
He noted that the media is not the sole contributing factor because when the media perpetuates stereotypes and undermines women’s leadership abilities, “it creates additional barriers for women seeking to enter and excel in the political sphere”.
While harping on finding to solutions to this, he added that the United States is committed to working with Nigerian partners to foster a more inclusive and equitable media landscape.
“We support initiatives that promote gender-sensitive reporting, challenge biases, and amplify the voices and achievements of women leaders through our public diplomacy programs, exchange opportunities, and partnerships with civil society organizations, we help empower women and girls,”
In her presentation, Dr Walker from Advancing Learning and Innovation on Gender Norms (ALiGN) presented a paper titled “Gender Norms, Media Narratives and Women in Appointive Positions in Nigeria”. Where she showed findings on gender norms for women.
She noted indicated that comments on women are usually judgmental, personality based, long narratives with interchangeable and multiple terms, scrutiny of private/public, historical life, history and contemporary, High degree of inference, male stakeholders instead of women, commentators and media interest, as against their male counterparts.
“Women who are disengaged from a national position often face media reports heavy with personal ascriptive content, they are presented as incompetent, unfit for the position, rude, disobedient, not humble, emotionally unstable, only appointed because of godfather, father or husband, scandalized, reported as insubordinate and majority of the majority of reporters are male”
Meanwhile, the male counterparts often have media reports on them straightforward, reporting the case for disengagement factually, explanations of disengagement in terms of political conflicts and not incompetence of the men, academic qualifications and professional history provided to show competence, more technical language used for men disengaged, More often reported as victimized and opportunity given for his point of view.
One of the panelists, Linda Nwabuwa Akhigbe, SSA to the President on Strategic Communications and Communications Adviser to the President of ECOWAS Commission, decrying the lack of more female voices in news reporting that deals with women, pointed out that some male journalists tend to trivialize gender issues in their coverage of these stories.
“The reaction to the appointment of the new Zenith bank’s CEO buttresses the findings in the report. Emphasis was placed on her marital status, lewd reports on how she rose to the top and her competence was questioned, fortunately there has been a lot of push back on social media”. Said Akhigbe
“There is an over representation of men’s voices in the media” .
Noting a huge difference in the number of male voices in news reports compared to women. Men’s opinions on issues and reactions to trending stories are more sought out than women, she emphasized on women in leadership positions being asked very trivial or banal questions during media interviews like;
“Do you still cook for your husband? How do you balance your career or aspirations with family life? and these questions are typically not asked men”.
Akhigbe noted that this research on gender reporting should be encouraged and widely disseminated to media organizations as a mirror to the media to confront the bias. while encouraging workshops and seminars targeting media practitioners should be organized periodically to discuss these issues and present the facts.
She also urged developments partners to collaborate with media unions and get their buy in to address these issues and get the buy in of media.
“Regulators like NBC to consistently prevail upon media houses to improve on gender reporting and get more voices of women in reports. The NBC can put together a policy on this”.
Akhigbe also stressed that the proposed legislation to guide the practice of journalists should include guidelines on reporting gender issues as well as make it mandatory for gender desks to be incorporated in news rooms while encouraging continuous training of journalists on gender sensitive reporting and trainings for women in middle to leadership positions on how to engage with the media.
One of the participants, Bassey ita ikpang, The Chairperson, National Association of Women Journalists, NAWOJ, FCT Chapter, said that the US Embassy in Nigerian has always been there for Nigeria in diverse ways.
She noted that their empowerment of women and intervention on children is worthy of emulation, and that they are always collaborating with Nigerian journalists on training, so the gathering of today to celebrate the International women’s history month to bridge the gap in gender based reporting is a good initiative.
She added that “It is only when Nigeria has women at decision table that we would be able to have policies that would affect them positively”
“It is our place as female journalists to continue to loud the voices of women in the media” .
She noted one of the panelists statement “we have talked to ourself for long so it is time for us to bring in men into our discussions, It doesn’t matter who brings solution to women issues”
“There is the need to come together to change the narrative that limit women in the society”. Ikpang added.
Another panelist, Inimfon Etuk
Founder, She Forum Africa, said the conversation today portrayed the various ways that women have been disadvantaged through stereotyped portrayals in the media.
“It is an unfortunate reality that the media is a microcosym of society and all the socio-economic structures that perpetuate patriarchy in our daily realities”.
Etuk noted that everyone has a role to play to balance the imbalances.
She encourages that people should recognize that gender is all about bringing on the face of humanity in ensuring equitable distribution of resources and opportunities regardless of whether one is male or female. It is about ensuring the principles of parity as they refer to human rights are observed in delivery of governance and development.
She stressed that a functional democracy requires gender equality. “We urge our media to not just aim to make news but re-embrace their primary goals of informing, educating and creating awareness”.
While urging balance reporting on gender Based stories, She encourages a balanced use of language in reporting
“Sensationalization must be avoided at all cost as it takes away focus on the issues and solutions and places same on individuals, further dehumanizing one who is already vulnerable, so attention should also be paid on editorial guidelines to ensure gender perspectives are observed and respected” she added
Ekemini Ladejobi a senior correspondent with the News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN), commented that the issues of women development is part of human development and should be accorded an unbiased attention.
“Women in leadership positions whether appointment or elective should not be scared to engage the media but in doing so they must be well equipped for the jobs and roles that they have given to serve”
“Publicity is business and so they should put in place a formidable media Team”.Ladejobi stressed
She urged the media owners must put in place a deliberate policy in the newsroom to project women in leadership in a positive light.
