Negative Coverage by the Bangladeshi Media Degrades Women

(from the International Journalists' Network newsletter, Issue #233, 24 November 2003. www.ijnet.org)

Over 70 women journalists, representatives of government and nongovernmental organizations, and researchers heard speakers at a recent seminar deplore the depiction of women in Bangladeshi newspapers and electronic media as negative, gender insensitive and degrading.

In her presentation, Arifa S. Sharmin, manager for external relations of Care-Bangladesh, said that negative portrayals of women in newspapers degrade the image of women within society. She explained that women only make news in categories, such as rape, love and affection, and repression. In such reports, writers use derogatory language that presents women as sex objects. Sharmin urged journalists to be more careful and conscious of the words and illustrations they use in their articles.

“Women have been rendered a commodity in the world market as a result of capitalism,“ Shaheen Rahman, coordinator of Steps Towards Development, told the seminar. Rahman expressed his disdain for newspapers using images of beautiful women to sell more copies. He asked media professionals to abandon such practices.

Fowzia Khondker Eva, deputy director of Proshika, said that women are not portrayed as human beings in the media. She blamed this prejudice on the patriarchal society of Bangladesh. society, she said, degrades the value of women by allowing newspaper writers to think that it is appropriate to use derogatory language towards women in order to sell more papers.

Participants discussed how most newspapers – and also electonic media - are unwilling to portray women as independent, confident, and main contributors to society.

The seminar on November 13 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, entitled “Gender Insensitive Language: portrayal and presentation of women in the newspaper,” was organized by the Bangladesh Center for Development, Journalism and Communication (BCDJC), and supported by the Royal Danish Embassy in Dhaka.

BCDJC reported that the seminar concluded by agreeing that newspapers must act more responsibly, and that guidelines need to be established to help writers avoid sexist language