Impact: Women and Media

Reaching equality for all starts with increasing women’s participation, inclusion, and leadership in media and technology.

The Problem

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by information inequality. Often ignored or invisible in the media, with far less content featuring their expertise and views, women are vastly underrepresented in journalism and media leadership. Worldwide, women still lag behind men in access to the Internet, and when they do engage online, women and girls experience more intense harassment, including sexual harassment.

The Solution

Internews helps journalists – men and women – produce content that challenges stereotypes, highlights women as drivers of change, and covers critical issues for women and girls. We mentor women leaders in media and technology, design methods to help news outlets increase women as expert sources, and create custom trainings for women, including how to stay safe online. Our Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment Strategy drives our approach.

Women and Media: An Imbalance

Studies show that the disparate experiences between women and men in media is widespread and varied.

Infographic: 46% of news stories reinforce gender stereotypes, almost eight times higher than stories that challenge such stereotypes (6%) (48% were neutral). Globally women make up just 26% of news media leaders. More than 76% of women who said that they had experienced harassment online made changes to the way they use the platforms, including restricting what they post about.

Internews in Context: Addressing Sexual Harassment in the Media

To address the issue of women journalists who face sexual harassment, Internews in Tanzania produced this Public Service Announcement, based on a real incident of a woman journalist being harassed while interviewing a source:

Impact: Safe Sisters Navigate Women’s Lives Online

The unfortunately common, everyday challenges of navigating online spaces as women is the focus of Safe Sisters, a digital safety and empowerment program that has seen enormous success in increasing women’s ability to safeguard their privacy, protect their data, and, importantly, share their knowledge with women and girls in their communities.

"I can now recognize online violence for what it is and I have learned to choose which battles I fight and which ones I leave. It’s been interesting to see people within my close circles come to realize just how much they have either been victims or perpetrators of violence online and so it’s is an ongoing and evolving conversation.” —Safe Sister

United for News: Amplifying Women’s Voices

United for News is a non-profit, mission-driven global coalition of media, NGOs and private industry, founded by Internews in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. In this video, Director Jennifer Cobb talks about United for News' program to combat the lack of gender diversity in news reporting:

Impact: from Pakistan and Afghanistan, Two Women Making News

Saba Rehman is a photographer in Pakistan’s FATA region. She uses her camera to illuminate little-seen and misunderstood corners of her society. Since 2012, when she was one of 17 Pakistani young people selected by Internews to attend an intensive photography training, conducted in partnership with National Geographic Photo Camp, Rehman has been getting herself and her camera into the most unlikely of places.

"“I want to do each and every thing and if a boy can do so, why not I?"

Farida Rahim Azizi Farida Rahim Aziz established her radio station – Radio Saraish – in 2013 in Jowzjan, Afghanistan. Even though the years that followed were burdened with hardship and challenges, she has never looked back. Radio Saraish is one of 17 women-led radio stations in Afghanistan’s Salam Watandar Radio Network, launched and supported by Internews. These stations have produced and broadcast more than 400 radio reports and feature stories, covering topics that relate to women in local communities..

"In 2016, the Taliban threatened me and told me to stop broadcasting radio programs about women’s right issues, such as violence against women. I was forced to wear a burqa for my own safety and all our female employees left. But I did not give up."

Girl Power!

Girl Power: Little Stories of Big Acts features women from Ukraine's past and present. The book is targeted to children in Ukraine who have been affected by the ongoing conflict. In particular, girls who are especially affected because of their unequal status in society and their sex.

When women participate freely online, when women make the news, and when the voices of women and girls are heard, the information we all consume improves.

¹UNESCO: Re-Thinking Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality in 2015 and Beyond (A further 48% of news stories were evaluated as “neutral” on gender stereotypes.)
²Global Institute for Women’s Leadership
³Amnesty International

Four young Afghan women look at a cell phone in one of the girl's hands.

In Study of Social Media in Afghanistan, Women Report Mixed Feelings

Wedding invitations in Afghanistan don’t bear the names of the women invited – they are only invited under the name of their husbands, or male relatives. In markets, women’s names are not spoken. Even on burial tombs, a woman may be referred to only as the wife or daughter of a man, not by her own name. With the hashtag #whereismyname, Tahmina Arian and a group of friends – young, newly graduated Afghan women – rallied attention to this common practice last summer on Facebook and Twitter, starting a conversation in the country and protesting the Afghan custom of erasing women's names. Social media is still in its infancy in Afghanistan, with a small and mostly homogenous user base of educated, relatively wealthy, predominately male users and only hundreds of Afghanistan-based public Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. But while small, it holds opportunity for engagement and expression. Without any trappings of traditional power or social capital, the group of young women started a public debate they would otherwise have no means to convene, without the platform offered by social media. These opportunities are among the findings revealed in a new report, Social Media in Afghanistan: Users and Engagement, prepared by Altai Consulting for Internews. By mapping Afghan influencers online and surveying users about their comfort with, reasons for, and use of social media, the report paints a picture and offers a deep repository of data on the changing nature of social media in Afghanistan and how it may shape public discourse in the future. Women’s Rights and Social Engagement Tahmina and the women behind #whereismyname are new to protests, but activists with years of experience have found similar power in expanding their advocacy online. Wazhma Frogh, a women’s rights activist, member of the High Peace Council, and the director of the Research Institute for Women, Peace and Security, uses Twitter not only to bring to light women’s rights issues in Afghanistan, but to share her views on other current events in the country with her 97,000 followers. She started using Twitter during 2013’s Open Jirga, when citizens could use their Facebook and Twitter platforms to submit questions for the televised debates. Wazhma said that in 2013 political representation was still scant on Twitter, but since then she notes that all relevant political stakeholders in Afghanistan have grown accustomed to using Twitter, an observation backed up in the report, which identifies Twitter as a more “official” channel dominated by politicians and media accounts. For Wazhma, this means that her words carry weight and legitimacy; other members of the peace council are aware of the reach of her voice on social media. It can be difficult to enumerate how social campaigns affect change directly, but they can create conversations that with momentum can translate to real life interactions. Indicative of the nascent relationship between online and traditional media in Afghanistan, Wazhma can point to TV and radio interviews that have resulted because of topics she’s posted about online. Harassment and Violence Online At the same time, the opportunities for women’s engagement online run parallel to a harsh reality for women in Afghanistan – intense harassment is prevalent for women, shapes their interactions online and offline, and shows little sign of abatement. Social media users in Afghanistan routinely make derogatory, discriminatory or even violent comments in reaction to certain content. Tahmina of the #whereismyname campaign receives lurid messages from strangers constantly and has been groped in the street. Wazhma regularly receives threats. They aren’t the only women to experience online harassment – it is so prevalent that women in universities do not share their real names in class, as they do not want men to harass them or find them again online, where social media is routinely used to question a woman’s integrity and respectability. And for the majority of women who are more private users of social media, using the platforms not for advocacy but for simple social interactions and information gathering, fears of public shaming or harassment, along with norms of Afghan society, shape their use. Indeed, almost 20% of female respondents declare being Friends only with same-sex relatives on Facebook – and 35% of female respondents declare only being Friends with relatives on Facebook. This reflects the well-documented wariness of Afghan women to interact with individuals beyond their direct family on social media, as they are targets of harassment. On the other hand, 67% of men declare being friends with a mixed-gender group of people that include both friends and family. The study’s findings suggest Afghan women have a complicated relationship with social media – they see the dangers, but also there is freedom for them on social media that simply isn’t available elsewhere. Social media is perceived to have had an overall positive effect on social issues by all private users surveyed, but perhaps surprisingly, women are more likely to perceive a positive effect than men. When it comes to privacy, 69% think it has had a positive effect on privacy, and again women are more likely to think so. This may be counterintuitive, as women are wary of having their information available online and feel vulnerable to harassment, but it also means there is an avenue for individuals to interact with people without the scrutiny of one’s family, for example. A Wider Snapshot of Social Media in Afghanistan Beyond gender dynamics, Social Media in Afghanistan: Users and Engagement is an unprecedented current examination of the development and influence of social media on open expression and social change in Afghan society. Findings, which can be explored more deeply in the report and accompanying data, include: Social media users are homogenous and concentrated on Facebook Users are predominantly young, urban and educated. Internet access remains the main barrier to social media access. 95% of social media users have a Facebook account. More than 80% of social media users access their accounts solely through their smartphone. Social media is filled with current affairs, but users would rather engage with entertainment and sports topics Media organizations have invested in social media enthusiastically as a new platform for their content, dominating the pages found online along with government, politics, and elections-related pages. The content that garners the most audience engagement, however, relates to sports, entertainment or national pride Social media is an extension of one’s private network first and a source of information second Interaction is primarily with existing family and friends, limiting direct engagement with individuals and ideas outside of established social networks. Awareness of content related to current affairs is high; mobilization through social media is much lower Mobilizing users through social media for a specific cause faces many hurdles, but the practice of reporting wrongdoing through social media is common and is the most direct impact social media has on Afghan society. For example, 62% surveyed believe social media has had a positive effect on corruption, which is frequently reported on social media. . . . Social Media in Afghanistan: Users and Engagement was produced by Altai Consulting for Internews, with support from Counterpart International under the USAID-funded Afghan Civic Engagement Program (ACEP). Laura Lindamood is Internews Director of Communications.