28 March 2023
Employment and professional integration Gender

Gender equality in the media in Africa: how to fight against sexist stereotypes?

Actualité

Within the media in Sub-Saharan Africa, which practices are prevalent and what is required in in order to fight against sexist stereotypes?  To inform reflection on the design and implementation of projects supporting gender equality, CFI (Canal France International) commissioned a study from GRET entitled Gender equality in the media and in media content.

Conducted by Nicole Chavranski, Marie-Christine Lebret and Mélanie Canino, this study assesses the situation regarding gender equality in the media in four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa – Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger and Democratic Republic of Congo – and makes recommendations.

The report highlights a clear under-representation of women in media companies in the four countries, where they remain confined to certain professions (presenter, show host) or certain subjects (healthcare, family, celebrities).

Interviews conducted with journalists point to occurrences of harassment, discrimination and verbally, sometimes even physical, sexist violence. However, examination of legal frameworks highlighted disparate situations. In Niger, although the legal framework penalises sexist discrimination, the taboo around gender-based harassment and violence is such that possible appeals are not availed of.  On the contrary, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where legal systems addressing gender-based violence are less restrictive, these problems are more frequently denounced by women.

Based on the report’s assessment, the needs of women working in the media were highlighted and levers of action emerged. Women journalists were invited to open the debate on the gender-based discrimination they are subjected to. This enabled important, relevant and constructive accounts to be recorded, and led to the formulation of recommendations.

Read the study: Gender equality in the media and media content | CFI


About the authors

Nicole Chavranski is a journalist, independent consultant and a trainer/teacher of journalism. With 25 years of journalistic experience, mainly with American press agency Associated Press, she combines her indepth knowledge of the geopolitical context in Africa (particularly as a specialised journalist and head of AP-France’s foreign service) and her media expertise. Since 2012, she has been conducting training missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Chad on behalf of GRET.

Marie Christine Lebret has been working as a projects and programme manager at GRET for 14 years. Over this period, she has conducted numerous consulting missions, studies and evaluations with various partners from developing and developed countries. She has designed and monitored many development projects, particularly in the information and communication technologies sector for development. She was also involved in various GRET initiatives in the media sector, as project manager or via consulting missions (Democratic Republic of Congo and Chad).

Mélanie Canino has been working at GRET for six years, where she is currently gender project manager. She is conducting a gender-sensitive project in Vietnam, and provides her expertise to GRET projects and studies in South-East Asia, Madagascar and West Africa. She is also coordinating the development and implementation of gender action plans for GRET, and strengthening of the GRET teams’ capacities in terms of gender.

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