CFI, the French media development agency, supports fair, well-balanced representation of gender in the media as well as the basic principle of freedom of expression. It hopes to develop new projects in Sub-Saharan Africa to support gender equality in the media and foster better representation of women as experts and agents of change, when all too often they have been under-represented or portrayed stereotypically in the media. Calling on women more as sources of opinion, expertise and leadership in the media is actually a great way of helping to achieve the fifth Sustainable Development Goal (“Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”).

Based on this premise, CFI commissioned an accurate, in-depth survey from GRET, to look at practices and needs with a view to fighting sexist stereotypes in media content and promoting gender equality in media outlets across Sub-Saharan Africa.

This survey had two main goals:
- Report on gender equality in the media in four countries across Sub-Saharan Africa: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Draw up a strategic document pinpointing the needs of industry players in these four countries, along with recommendations to inform the agency’s stance on designing and implementing new projects to support gender equality.

Legal framework and customary law

The four countries surveyed have all ratified international and Pan-African laws and conventions on gender equality and the promotion of women’s rights, specifically the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and the 2003 Maputo Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.

They mostly have national legislation that includes laws regarding parity and non-discrimination, especially in labour law, and some have planned to implement national gender schemes. However, customary law and religious restrictions still exist alongside this legislation and regulations, and are often in contradiction with it, curbing women’s rights and applicable laws on many issues (family, inheritance, access to land etc.).

Media regulation in terms of gender equality

Against this general backdrop, the specific issue of gender in the media is mostly not mentioned in legislation and regulations in general, nor in legislation relative to media regulation.

In 2015, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) voted in a law on parity, which brushed a very broad stroke and imposed few restrictions, as in the labour code, which fails to specify sanctions for discrimination. Furthermore, promoting and respecting gender equality does not fall within the remit of the High Audiovisual and Communications Council (CSAC), the Congolese body that regulates the media established in 2011. The country is still waiting for the legal framework applicable to the media to be reviewed. This framework is to prioritise the decriminalisation of press offences and the passing of a law on access to information that complies with international standards. Gender equality in the media seems however to have dropped off the reform agenda. The Congolese Union of Women in the Media (UCOFEM) had started planning a code of gender ethics with the CSAC’s predecessor, the High Media Authority (HAM), but this initiative seems to have come to a standstill, even while the media are increasingly adopting gender equality charters drawn up by organisations of women journalists.

Niger is reputed to be a model for its institutional media framework. In 2011, President Mahamadou Issoufou was the first African head of state to sign the Table Mountain declaration on the freedom of the press in Africa and the country recorded an encouraging drop in attacks on the freedom to inform over the past few years, even if many issues of concern remain valid according to the international NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Regarding gender equality, a charter to improve the image of women in the media was signed in 2012. It is included in official legislation, with access to press benefits hinging on compliance. Gender is also a priority highlighted by the High Council for Communication (CSC) driven by President Sani Kabir, who has demonstrated great commitment to the issue. He is specifically proud of applying parity within the CSC and across the civil service in general. However, in practice Nigerien society remains strongly patriarchal, and women remain noticeably absent from the media scene.

In Côte d’Ivoire, In Côte d’Ivoire, gender issues do not fall within the remit of either national media regulation body, namely the High Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HACA) and the National Press Authority (ANP). The latter does tend to respect parity in-house and has a Gender Issues Officer on the payroll. The Network of Women Journalists and Communication Professionals (ResFJPC) campaigned for its 2014 gender equality charter to be integrated into ANP regulations, with one significant improvement: compliance with the charter was included as a “favourable” point in the press benefits scheme. ResFJPC President Agnès Kraidy, also a consultant at the Ministry of Communication, hopes that the provisions in this charter may become law.

Ghana is reputed to be one of the most democratic countries in Africa, with media pluralism and independence being guaranteed by chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution. Nevertheless, penal law does still comprise clauses forbidding the media from disturbing the peace and fear-mongering, with little legislation specifying and ensuring compliance with constitutional provisions. In terms of gender equality, “national policy” adopted in 2015 is still suffering from weak institutional capacity and does not have a section devoted to the media. The regulatory body, the National Media Commission (NMC) focuses mainly on an initiative to eliminate legislation about offending good morals and ethical issues.

Second-class workers?

In Ghana, gender inequality especially translates into the hyper-sexualisation of women in TV and radio. The phenomenon has affected both TV and radio since the advent of online broadcasting, pairing sound with footage. In many respects, their ensuing star status is apparently exploited by media directors. Shamima Muslim, a former radio journalist with star status and founder of the Association for Women in Media Africa (AWMA) stated that young girls dreamt as much of becoming journalists as actors or supermodels. Women in media are expected to have very smart clothing, sophisticated hairdos and expertly-manicured nails, yet are not allocated any funds for the costs such high-maintenance grooming entails. They actually earn less than their male colleagues, who are generally subjected to far less pressure regarding their outward appearance.

This exploitation of women’s sexuality has also been observed in Democratic Republic of Congo. A manager at Radio Okapi, one of the most popular media outlets nationwide, summed the situation up with the ironic: “People getting up in the morning prefer to hear the voice of a pretty woman on the radio.”

“I have to produce three or four times as much as the men if I want to get noticed.”

In Democratic Republic of Congo as in the other three countries covered by the survey, women in media are mostly restricted to subordinate roles and soft news, and are kept away from important subjects, a prime example being politics. It is an important subject, and furthermore, reporters covering politics are better paid. Most media outlets operate on tight budgets, and pay their reporters a mere pittance, if at all in certain cases. Reporters thus mainly live off the money paid to them by the organisations and individuals who invite them to cover their news. The money paid via such schemes is given various names, such as “coupage” (cut), “per diem”, “travelling expenses” etc. Among reporters scrambling for payment, women are greatly penalised, since they are prevented from covering the best-paid news.

“I have to produce three or four times as much as the men if I want to get noticed.” To shut down prejudice about their perceived lack of skills, women journalists feel obliged to work more than their male colleagues. “We need to go the extra mile” was a recurring statement at the brainstorming group organised with women journalists in Ghana. Women are also frequently reproached for absenteeism for family reasons or health issues. While it is true that they are often absent for such reasons, this is because the fathers of their children are rarely involved in childcare and a lack of decent sanitary facilities means that media outlets fail to cater to the minimum comfort and intimacy requirements of women on their period for example.

Sexual harassment

In all the countries being surveyed, sexual harassment is rarely reported to upper management or legal authorities, whether occurring in the newsroom or out in the field working with sources of information. It is thus notoriously difficult to assess and quantify, but all those consulted for the survey stated that it is very common. They contended that it is one of the main reasons why many women journalists abandon their career (alongside a lack of opportunities for greater pay or responsibility). Newsrooms have no in-house schemes to fight harassment. At the rare media outlets that do have one, staff rarely even know of its existence.

Brainstorming groups have helped to confirm that all forms of harassment were a core issue. Many accounts were given and the subject was long discussed. Harassment is “an ordeal for women journalist” (Côte d’Ivoire), who constantly have to ward off “indecent proposals”. Sexual blackmail is very common, cropping up in instances of hiring, or promotion, and even demanded in return for sharing information: “Some give in to it, others don’t.” (Democratic Republic of Congo). “Some women think sleeping your way to the top is the only way up.” (Ghana).

Harassment is “an ordeal for women journalist” , who constantly have to ward off “indecent proposals”

Women in media have no recourse when up against such practices. The only weapons at their disposal are “strength of character” (to reject the proposal) or “being crafty” (going to an appointment with a male colleague, lying by saying their husband is coming to take them home, etc.). In the newsroom, these situations are mostly “resolved” by the departure of the disappointed female journalist than by reporting or writing up the perpetrator of harassment.

Cyber-harassment, violence and macho behavior online

As public personalities henceforth with an online presence, women journalists are disproportionately targeted in social media. Macho comments along the lines of “she should be making babies for her husband” and criticism of their physical appearance are recurrent, and can scale up to hate campaigns and even, in some cases, threats of murder, rape and violence. In Ghana, cyber-criminality is extremely common and phenomena like revenge porn and sexual deep-fakes affect women journalists more than their male colleagues who suffer far less.

After graduation, where do the women go?

“When they leave, we don’t know where they go. They are certainly not very prominent in the media,” noted Agnès Kraidy, first female Chief Editor of the state-owned daily newspaper in Côte d’Ivoire Fraternité-Matin who founded ResFJPC in 2014. In the countries being surveyed, as in the west, there are now more women than men studying in schools of journalism. In Côte d’Ivoire, this proportion among students is not reflected in newsrooms.

Progress, stagnation, regression?

“Thirty years on, we get the impression that we have really stagnated, or even regressed,” deplored Agnès Kraidy. “Côte d’Ivoire is very backward in terms of women’s and gender issues, whereas on paper, it looks like a modern country.” She contends that public decision-makers have shown very little commitment to resolving gender issues, which does not help to change mentalities. In Ghana, career breaks for maternity leave seem generally well accepted, and given that society is generally maternity-friendly, the introduction of flexi-time is mostly easy to obtain. However women are still hampered by the various difficulties of juggling children and career. The recent AWMA report notes that 94% of media outlets do not have specific facilities for young mothers: only 6% have a breastfeeding mothers’ room, and even fewer (2%) have childcare facilities.

Another observation from organisations that promote gender equality: women who have been promoted to positions of responsibility at media outlets in the past 20 years are from the first generation of activists. They often show little empathy for their young female colleagues, accusing them of lacking that famous “strength of character”.

“We belittle ourselves,” observed Marie-Laure Zakry, the head of the Women & Media Observatory in Côte d’Ivoire. This institution was set up by the Women: Occupy the Media! project from the Institut PANOS Institute West Africa (IPAO/PIWA). Facing up to these various difficulties, many women reporters are discouraged from heading out into the field, and thus prefer to remain in the newsroom, in less prestigious positions with much less exposure. These elements may also explain the fact that there are more women working as anchors or hosting TV programmes, where they are reduced to introducing reports produced by men.

“Having a daughter working as a reporter is now a source of “pride” in families, and they have increasingly gained respect as professionals alongside their male colleagues.”

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the social image of women journalists is nevertheless tending to improve. While previously they were seen to be “everyman’s woman”, according to Anna Mayimona, president of Ucofem, having a daughter working as a reporter is now a source of “pride” in families, and they have increasingly gained respect as professionals alongside their male colleagues.

In an interview with Free Press Unlimited (FPU) in late February 2021, Head Coordinator of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) Sarah Macharia reported “small steps in the right direction” over the past five years. “Change is slight, but there is change.”

Invisible women, silent women

In patriarchal societies, women are prohibited from speaking out publicly, or are otherwise frowned upon. Media outlets who want to explore women’s issues are greatly hindered by the sheer weight of the culture.
In Ghana, female politicians are often mere tokens; their presence is tolerated simply as “proof” of catering to gender equality in social groups and political organisations. A respondent from also highlighted “the intimidating environment of male dominance” in TV studios and the aggressive nature of questions asked by men hosting programmes: “This often discourages women from participating in these programmes or giving interviews.”

Similar phenomena have been observed in the other countries covered by the survey and survey participants all insisted on the necessity of leading initiatives at media outlets jointly with activist organisations working to empower women in society in general.

They also emphasised the importance of training women slated for interviews to take the floor and adopt a leadership stance. They also propound the creation of directories of female experts, such as that created by Ucofem in Democratic Republic of Congo. These directories help media outlets find female experts more easily, in whatever field, and thus ensure greater parity in the choice of guests invited to comment on or illustrate the news.

Stereotypes, taboos and self-censorship in content

For women interviewed in the Côte d’Ivoire press, their marital status is often specified alongside their name, which is never the case for men unless they specifically demand it. Women themselves often introduce themselves as “the wife of”, even activist feminists. A woman is only considered a “real woman” if she is a wife and mother, which adds another layer of difficulty for single young journalists, as deplored by one of the participants in the brainstorming group in Niger.
Furthermore, journalists felt some reticence in tackling taboo subjects in society. In Democratic Republic of Congo, they might expose themselves to the risk of being frowned upon in if they talk of sexual and reproductive health, while in Côte d’Ivoire, homosexuality and abortion are subjects that nobody talks about. Genital mutilation and female sexuality are seldom addressed in Ghana, where sexual taboo is particularly strong, and women in the brainstorming groups in Niger showed great reticence in discussing religion.

“Generally speaking, traditional media outlets in the four countries covered by the survey took little interest in concerns specific to women.”

In this respect, the issue of marital rape led to a fairly tense debate: one of the participants holding very firm opinions on the subject was at odds with several of her female colleagues who deemed that the very concept of marital rape was incompatible with Islam, since wives were obliged to always be available according to their husbands’ whims. The rest of the group considered that marital rape is a fact of society that should be highlighted.
Generally speaking, traditional media outlets in the four countries covered by the survey took little interest in concerns specific to women. Several directors of newspapers in Niger and DRC stated that their newspapers merely covered activities in connection with the International Day for Women’s Rights on 8 March, along with conferences and workshops on gender organised by international development partners. In Ghana, where ratings are all, chief editors truly failed to understand the point of covering certain women’s issues. According to the journalists from the brainstorming group in Accra: “it doesn’t make the front page, it’s not a matter of universal concern.”

Some TV channels, specifically the state-owned channel RTI2 in Côte d’Ivoire, make an exception and broadcast programmes produced by and for women. These programmes highlight women’s achievements and cover subjects of special interest for women, sometimes attacking sexist stereotypes head on.
New media outlets are more inclined to handle these subjects, even those which were not created by and for women and which have an editorial line focusing on the women’s issues. In Côte d’Ivoire, Félix Bony, director of Abidjan.net and the group Weblogy (which publishes the women’s website Africawoman.com), introduces himself as a “promoter for gender”, hired for women, and practising in-house parity. In Democratic Republic of Congo, the nation’s key pure player, News.cd, set up a “gender issues desk”, covering many subjects in a gender-sensitive manner.

The main needs expressed by women in media

Women in all four countries unanimously cited changing practices and mentalities of media outlet directors – the vast majority being men – as an aspiration, referring to harassment from directors, directors being incapable of dealing with others harassing women, professional disdain and denial of competence, lack of confidence in women and their capacities, prejudice etc. “They are the main obstacle,” according to most people consulted during the survey. So media directors and chief editors need urgently to be initiated into gender-sensitive management and the means that can be implemented to fight harassment, facilitate giving greater responsibilities to women and avoid stereotyping men and women during news coverage.

The brainstorming groups also pointed out that there are chief editors working in a spirit of solidarity and empathy towards their female journalists and that, conversely, when a woman takes a position of responsibility at a media outlet, she doesn’t necessarily display any more empathy towards other female professionals (the term “torturer” was used in Côte d’Ivoire). In Niger, participants recounted the experience of woman-towoman mentorships in media outlets set up by the APAC (Association for Professional African Women in Communication). According to them, this system whereby senior workers help newcomers to the profession, can be effective to fight intergenerational rivalry in the newsroom.

Another need expressed almost unanimously is that of personal development, for women journalists and their contacts, especially experts and members of civil society. This echoes women’s awareness of interiorising an inferiority complex imposed by their society, and which prevents them from speaking up and means they belittle themselves. Workshops to foster self-confidence and reinforce their leadership skills, and training courses to learn to communicate with media outlets, thus seem indispensable to drive change.

“[…]This echoes women’s awareness of interiorising an inferiority complex imposed by their society, and which prevents them from speaking up and means they belittle themselves.”
The need for better training in techniques and tools for online media is a fourth important aspect emphasised, especially during the brainstorming group in Kinshasa. The creation of their own online media has become a way for women journalists to free themselves from the patriarchy that still prevails in established media outlets in Democratic Republic of Congo.
On the subject of training courses in gender-sensitive journalism, some needs mentioned are extremely precise: learning to address subjects that are taboo or delicate (sexuality, infertility, abortion, domestic violence, marital rape, child marriage etc.) without shocking or putting themselves at odds with society or “coming across as a slut”.

Generally speaking, participants underscored the need for more lasting initiatives from national and international operators and better selection of participants in training courses and workshops (“it’s always the same people who go”). They deplored a lack of reporting back by people who have been trained, as well as a mismatch with realities in the field, when allocating benefits for the production of content, for example, and careless selection of beneficiaries.

Other proposais put forward by women in media

- A “hotline” to report harassment.
- Discussion groups on harassment for women working in media.
- Training schemes on rights for women journalists.
- Proposals for legal solutions.
- Publications and the vulgarisation of studies conducted on harassment in the media.
- An “I speak up, I exist” campaign, to raise awareness among women as to the importance of speaking up.
- Awareness-raising operations on the importance and the role of women within society to stamp out prejudice.
- The development of fiction to address taboo subjects without shocking.