wfn.org | WACC - International Women's Day Statement and Call to Action

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all is the
global United Nations theme for this year's International Women's
Day (IWD).

Since 1911, the IWD has been a day to celebrate achievements in
women's empowerment. It has also been a day to reflect on women's
struggles and the structural barriers that continue to impede
women's progress.

One arena of struggle is media, where unfair and unbalanced gender
representation has continued to impede women's progress towards
gender equality. Over the past fifteen years progress towards
gender-responsive media has been painfully slow, as demonstrated by
the preliminary research results of the Fourth Global Media Monitoring
Project

<http://www.waccglobal.org/component/content/article/2219:who-makes-the-news 
-in-2010-.html

> * (GMMP 2010).

In 1995 only 17% of the persons seen, heard, or read about in
mainstream radio, television and print news were women. Fifteen years
later, women's presence in the news remains dismally low; they
constitute only 24% - less than one quarter - of the total number of
people the news.

The rate of progress in other indicators of gender in the news has
been equally slow. In indicators on the sex disaggregation of
reporters in news stories for instance, 15 years ago 28% of news
stories were reported by women. In 2010, the statistic has risen to
37%, an increase of only 9% over 15 years, or 0.6% per year. More
evidence on the slow progress is documented in Who Makes the News?
Global Media Monitoring Project 2010 Preliminary Report.

The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) calls on
individuals, groups and organisations to act in order to accelerate
the pace of progress towards gender-equal, gender-fair media.

> Download the preliminary report

<http://www.whomakesthenews.org/news/2010-preliminary-report.html

to use as evidence for advocacy and training to hasten the rate of
change.

Participate in this yearâ??s UNESCOâ??s Women Make the News
campaign

<http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=29550&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_ 
SECTION=201.html
,
themed "Towards Gender Sensitive Indicators for Media: Best
practices for gender perspective in media and in media content".

Share your experiences in training, advocacy or other actions with us
for dissemination through the next issue of WACCâ??s Media & Gender
Monitor newsletter.

WACC wishes you a successful and memorable international women's day
2010.

*The GMMP is coordinated by the World Association for Christian
Communication (WACC) a U.K. Registered Charity and Incorporated
Charitable Organisation in Canada.