MISA stands up for women

Everybody stares while passing the woman in red, but few seem to grasp the intention that Pacific Storm intends to send to potential smokers.

This is just one of thousands of pictures where women are objectified in the media. But MISA Zimbabwe has made a stand on behalf of women, and declared that they are not objects and should not be depicted as such. Marking International Womens Day last week on the 8th, the media institute took special issue with an advert currently being flighted in local newspapers.

A classical example of the objectification of women is Delta Beverages-Redds cider advertisement placed in The Standard of 6-12 March 2011. The advert shows the posteriors of four women (they are definitely women evidenced by their physique and manicured fingers) clad in tight-fitting jeans. They each holding a bottle of Redds smacked on their posteriors. The advert reads: Have a great fun,” said MISA.

A young female activist, Rebecca Mamutse, said that the way in which the media portrayed women was archaic and had no place in today progressive society. The way women are portrayed in the media undermines our integrity. We have values and we are not objects. The media should stop adverts that portray women as objects, otherwise we will campaign against such media, she said.

To objectify someone, explains MISA, is to reduce someone exclusively to the level of an object. In Zimbabwe it is women that are mostly objectified in the media. The images that appear in several adverts tend to portray women as physical objects – simply to be admired, if not savoured. Such images negatively project women as having no other substantive attributes outside their physical and bodily make-up.

It remains to be seen whether adverts that negatively depict women will be pulled off the media and the giant billboards removed. Foster Dongozi, the Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, (ZUJ) said the media should rather focus on the achievements of women. We as journalists are to blame and we have to do something to stop the objectifying of women. When you read some newspapers, the stories often portray women in the negative. We subscribe to freedom of speech – but that has to be ethical, said Dongozi.

Deputy Minister of Womens Affairs, Jessie Majome, said the stereotyping of women as sexual objects was demeaning, regressive and had no place in a progressive society. The way that the media is depicting women is unacceptable. It has no place in modern society where men and women are all equal. The media should be gender sensitive and cover women as equal human beings, she said.

Majome added that the media should take notice of this years theme: Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women. We should stop abusing information technology, said Majome. The fight to stop the objectifying of women is only beginning. Last year ZUJ, in partnership with UNICEF, conducted several workshops on gender issues and according to Dongozi slowly journalists are improving.

We have trained journalists and have noticed more positive stories on women. The stories are also gender sensitive and we continue urging the media to be pro-active in empowering women, said Dongozi. They have a tough fight to wage in a country that is still largely patriarchal. Only nine percent of representatives in our Parliament are women and their voices, according to Majome, are yet to be heard.