Helping Pakistani Women Have Their Say

Disturbed by the negative portrayal of women in Pakistani media, journalist Tasneem Ahmar launched the Uks Research Center in 1997 to foster fair and sensitive reporting on women’s issues in Pakistan. Under Ahmar’s leadership, the Islamabad-based Uks Rsearch Center has worked tirelessly to promote gender equality through radio productions on women’s issues, research and publications, advocacy and media monitoring.

Ahmar established the Pakistani Women’s Media Network, the first ever network for Pakistani women working in the media to encourage more positive portrayals of women, increase female representation at all levels, and improve conditions for women working in media.

Internews will honor Tasneem Ahmar at the Internews Media Leadership Awards in Washington, DC on June 2 for her leadership in improving coverage of women’s issues and bringing women’s voices and perspectives to Pakistan’s media.

What personally inspired you to start working for more balanced and accurate coverage of women in Pakistan’s media?

The continued negative, sensational and derogatory portrayal of women in the media was the driving force behind my starting Uks, which means “reflection” in Urdu. I wanted to reach out to Pakistan’s media managers—all male—and take up the case of gender sensitivity in the media.

My basic aim was to make the media realize that what they were doing—at times unthinkingly and unintentionally—was actually harming women’s development, as the news content was creating and strengthening the existing bias against women.

What are some examples of how Pakistani media currently portray women?

It is men who decide what news, views and visuals will be heard, read and seen. This male domination of our newsrooms becomes overwhelmingly in news coverage of violence against women.

The women in the cases of rape are the worst victims. A lot of newspapers report with a bias against these women and reinforce the existing unsupportive attitude of the society towards women. No wonder then that the official reaction to rape continues to be that of accusation towards the women.

In addition, women's magazines focus heavily on the domestic side of women, trying to prove that every woman needs to be a perfect cook, a tailor, and housekeeper and also be beautiful. The intellectual qualities of women are mentioned nowhere. Their abilities as equal partners in development are lost.

There is lots of hypocrisy in the media in Pakistan—it has no problem highlighting women’s physical and sexual features but is reluctant to bring forward issues of HIV/AIDS, sexual harassment, the sex trade, and trafficking on the pretext that such coverage would be obscene.

source : www.internews.or