‘… it is essential to promote forms of communication that not only challenge the patriarchal nature of media but strive to decentralise and democratise them: to create media that encourage dialogue and debate; media that advance women and peoples' creativity; media that reaffirm women's wisdom and knowledge, and that make people into subjects rather than objects or targets of communication. Media which are responsive to people's needs’ (The Bangkok Declaration, 1994)

‘Strategic objective J.1: Increase the participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the media and new technologies of communication; Strategic objective J.2.: Promote a balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media’ (Section J, The Beijing Platform for Action for the Advancement of Women, 1995)

Objectives

The Media and Gender Justice Programme draws direction from the Bangkok Declaration on Women Empowering Communication (1994) and Section J of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) for the Advancement of Women (1995). The Programme's objective is to contribute to local and global struggles for gender equity and equality through communication rights broadly and media in particular. Inexistent or weak communication rights thwart the possibility of those affected by practices of exclusion and marginalisation on the basis of gender to exercise agency over their lives; the cycle of gender-based exclusion persists and gender disparities are entrenched even further. Where gender stereotypes are propagated in and through media, they reinforce inequalities in gender power relations and provide justification for the perpetuation of discriminatory practices based on gender. The Programme supports projects that strengthen communication rights for those who are marginalized and discriminated against on the basis of gender and in particular, women. Additionally, the Programme conceptualises and implements initiatives that generate empirical evidence of gender stereotyping in and through media, evidence that forms the basis of advocacy campaigns for gender fair and balanced media.

Activities

In 1997, the Programme moved beyond raising awareness on women and media to policy–oriented work, with projects and activities designed to influence the development of gender-responsive communication policy. We co-ordinated the third Global Media Monitoring Campaign (GMMP 2005) that brought together gender & media activists, grassroots communications groups, academics, media professionals, alternative media networks and church groups from the world over to monitor their national news media for specified indicators of gender bias and representation. The results of GMMP 2005 demonstrate a persistence of glaring gender-based inequities and imbalances both in the content and context of news production. The net result is a perpetuation and reinforcement of certain stereotypes about gender that in turn inform and reinforce practice. A toolkit was developed after GMMP 2005 to meet the needs of women's organisations and broader civil society for training on gender and media advocacy.

In 2007, our thematic focus is ‘the fair and balanced gender representation in the mass media as a human right’. Our strategy is to build a strong, collaborative and broad global network of partners who are equipped with the knowledge, capacity and skills crucial for work towards gender-responsive media. Our activities include training in media literacy, capacity-building in research and advocacy skills for media reform and providing support to projects on gender, communication rights and media developed by our partners across the world.

We are committed to ensuring that the results of GMMP 2005 are applied to advocate for change towards a fair and balanced gender representation in the media. To this end, we are organising a series of regional gender and media advocacy training workshops in each region of the world during the period 2006-2008.