Women in media hot topic

Women are primarily featured in stories involving entertainment and receive negligible attention in hard news stories such as politics and economics, she said.

Rather than reflecting reality the media in fact, renders a large portion of womens experiences invisible. Sexualised images of women are rife and women tend to be defined in terms of their physical appearance and not ability. When they are not being portrayed as sex objects, women are most often shown as victims of violence and homemakers.

Majome said women in media were also faced with daunting sexist attitudes, sexual harassment, pay inequalities, discrimination in assignments and promotions and inflexible work environment.

While the number of women in the media is increasing, few women are advancing to senior positions or management levels giving them limited control over how new is defined, she said.

The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) secretary general, Foster Dongozi, said there were escalating reports of female journalists being harassed on the job, especially at the state broadcaster where bosses where allegedly sexually harassing female reporters for roles as news readers.

A female journalist recently reported to ZUJ of sexual harassment of female journalists by senior government officials and top brass in the newsroom, he said.

This prompted us to craft this years World Press Freedom Day commemorations theme as pursuing a free and safe media environment in Zimbabwe.

A report by Gender Links found in Zimbabwe media, a lowly 13 percent of the employees are women and only 10 percent were in senior management positions.