“When women are missing, democracy is incomplete,” said Kirsi Madi, deputy secretary general and deputy executive director of the UN Gender Equality Agency, UN women, who responded to the last analysis.
Mrs. Madi emphasized that The sub -presentation and misrepresentation of women in the media must be recognized as a key issue, so that democratic standards do not erode for future generations.
Seeing ourselves
UN evaluations show that, despite severe restrictions on their rights in many countries, women continue to direct community initiatives, support education and advocate social and economic resilience in the most challenging conditions.
In the province of Kunduz de Afghanistan, *Mehrgan leads a women’s organization that once trained hundreds of women and supported local NGOs, but lost much of their funds and personnel in 2022.
With the support of UN women, since then it has rebuilt their capacity and is now helping other women’s groups to do the same.
When the media focus only on the victimization of women, it erases their leadership and obscures the full reality of their contributions to peace, stability and social progress, the report stands out. Sharing stories such as Mehrgan ensures that the public and policy formulators recognize not only the challenges, but also the solutions that women lead in the field, UN women said.
Barriers to gender equality
Equally important is the lack of news coverage related to gender violence (GBV).
Instead of challenging stereotypes, the media continue to reinforce biased narratives, such as types of guilt to victims, portraying GBV as isolated incidents, silenced the voices of survivors and the use of gender language and troops in reports.
“Less than two out of every 100 stories cover the abuse experienced by too many women,” said UN women.
Not only severe sub -registration in the reality of GBV distorts, but also shapes public perception. Almost four out of five news focuses on politics, economy or crime, leaving issues such as violence based on the genre that is not reported.
The representation is even more gloomy for minority women. While people from racial, ethnic, religious and other minority groups represent only six percent of people who appear in news coverage, only 38 percent of them are women.
The probability that a woman in the news is from a minority group is less than one in 10.
The way to follow
Although the way to greater representation remains challenging, Digital News offers a clear route towards the greatest inclusion.
During the pandemic, the proportion of female reporters increased from 25 percent in 2015 to 42 percent in 2020.
The UN UNSTEROTYPE Alliance is an UN initiative separated by women dedicated to eradicating harmful stereotypes in media and advertising. This together with initiatives such as the Heforshe campaign continue to be effective vectors to promote women’s coverage in the media and challenging stereotypes.
As the UN General Assembly approaches, the need to reinforce gender parity and gender representation becomes even more pressing, especially considering that in the last 30 years, little or no progress has been made, UN women said.
For more information and details, see the summary of the key findings of the GMMP Inform here.
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