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Chairperson of the SA Media Monitoring Project, Judith Smith,
Southern African Media and Gender Institute (SAMGI) Trustee, Chantall Rutter,
Director of the Global Media Monitoring Project, William Bird,
Chairperson of the Commission for Gender Equality, Joyce Seroke,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honour and privilege for me to be here with you today. This is especially so since tomorrow we will be celebrating the International Women’s Day. Moreover, 2006 also marks the 50th anniversary of the women’s march to Pretoria, that historic day which is celebrated nationally by the women of our country to honour the strength and courage of our women in the struggle for justice, equality and freedom.

At first glance 16 February 2005 was just another ordinary day around the world. What made it different was that thousands of people and hundreds of groups in 77 different countries across the world all sat down to monitor how women and men were seen, heard, and portrayed in newspapers, television, and radio.

What made it even more special was the fact that all of these groups and people spent many hours carefully scrutinising, analysing, and coding the stories in the media on that day. Everyone who took part in this global exercise did so voluntarily, which is admirable.

Participants in the third Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) had a simple question with a number of different answers. The question was: “Who makes the news?” This remains a relevant question and we appreciate your interest in the answers and what the answers tell us about women.

The organised civil society of South Africa, the South African government has been at the forefront of the struggle for gender equality. The rights to dignity, equality and non-sexism were the cornerstones of the Freedom Charter and were subsequently included as founding provisions in the South African Constitution; women’s rights are included in our Bill of Rights today. And they are decidedly not a matter of throwing the people a rope of sand.

During the struggle against racism in apartheid regime, it was victory for women and the liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC) in particular was uncompromising on highlighting the triple oppression of women: race, class and gender with black women likely to suffer all three as a result.

The South African government has also committed itself to realising and promoting gender equality through a variety of initiatives and gender progressive laws and policies. Much more work in education is needed to ensure that there is desired impact. As government we have committed ourselves to the 50/50 campaign, to increase the number of women in government. That will benefit us again only if we assist those women to perform better and if we collaborate with the media.

Government has also played a critical role in the adoption and promotion of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign. That campaign, by the way does not end on the 17th day: it goes on all year every year. Issues of violence against women and children have had to be raised to the top of the agenda not just in South Africa but in many countries as we have seen a very disturbing saga.

In spite of the numerous advances that we have made as a society, it is clear even from the results of the GMMP that high levels of inequality still prevail in our society.

Globally we have very poor representation of women in the media in spite of women comprising 52 percent of the population, their voices, perspectives, roles, occupations, and lives are often absent and marginalised in the media. Women reporters are few, except on “women’s interest beats”. And women executives in mainstream media are virtually non-existent.

The activities of women are relegated with little subtlety to the “social” or “women’s” pages in newspapers. Women in the media also sometimes trivialise women’s issues very slowly. This situation has been changing for instance with gender neutral “lifestyle sections” replacing women’s pages, but there is a long way to go and women and men should now fight jointly for media justice in every sense. These are not women’s only battles.

The South African report of the GMMP prepared by the Southern African Media and Gender Institute (SAMGI) which compares the South African media performance against the rest of the world mirrors many of the global trends.

Men’s voices still dominate in hard news stories and almost half of the men in the news are directly quoted, compared to only 28 percent of all women in the news. Both the South African and the global report are sobering reminders of the many challenges that we still need to overcome.

Interestingly also the South African GMMP report also shows us that South Africa is five percent higher than the global average for the number of women who speak in the news. This means that women make up over a quarter of all people in the news and we need to build on that to record the 50/50 representation in local government gives us an opportunity.

Women in the media in general have the answers and choices in their hands. They can choose to improve the portrayal of women as it is or they can choose to change this trend. We can build on the model now in progress observed by the media monitoring project’s research which indicates that this positive trend is on the horizon. It may be spurred on to greater heights.

I also want to congratulate South Africans who made today possible. We are proud of the fact that all the data from the 77 participating countries as well as all the information for the country reports was produced by a South African non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Media Monitoring Project.

I would like to congratulate the global coordinators, the World Association for Christian Communication, Margaret Gallagher, the Media Monitoring Project and the Southern African Media and Gender Institute for their sterling work on this project. Special thanks to Judith Smith for arranging this event today. I do hope the event and the issues it seeks to raise will receive the media attention it deserves.

Fresh from the excellent Local Government Elections, I want to commend the media for their role, especially the public broadcaster SABC.

The South African media has a lot of introspection to do, nonetheless on the role it plays in building this nation and young democracy. The tendency for the media to think it is above all and it is a watchdog itself not being watched is rather presumptuous.

So this exercise which watches the media needs to be encouraged and promoted. This year we celebrate 50 years of women’s struggle in South Africa since the march to the Union Buildings. We hope the media will join us as we begin the celebrations starting from tomorrow on 8 March to 9 August, to highlight the issues affecting women and our society.

Thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
7 March 2006