For the longest time ever there has sadly been very little coverage of women related news. In the little that was covered 8.5% of the women were portrayed as victims or the news was laced with stereotypes for example Nyeri women beating up their husbands. All in all not many positive women stories have been highlighted by the media mostly because they are not deemed as newsworthy. This imbalanced reporting fuels stereotypes simply because if something is repeated to you multiple times you tend to believe it regardless of whether it is true or not. Hence there is an urgent need to change the narrative.
In 2014, the top five television stations in Kenya only aired a total of 16 hours of news stories related to women and girls. That is basically just 4% of the news airtime dedicated to talking about the challenges impacting women and girls and the amazing feats that they have made. These include economic empowerment, education, gender-based violence, reproductive health, maternal and child health. Yet one doesn’t have to look far for women success stories.
Women have excelled in various male dominated fields like I.T, business, engineering among others but little or nothing about this is highlighted by the media. Some of them have made such an impact in their fields such that during the recently concluded Global Entrepreneurship Summit they got a special mention from the US President for example Jamila Abass who is the CEO and co-founder of M-Farm who strives to empower farmers through technology. M-Farm works by giving farmers transparent market price information, aggregating their farm input needs and creating market linkages. Judith Owigar on the other hand is the president of Akirachix a revolution for African women and technology, her organization encourages young girls to pursue careers in ICT by teaching them coding skills.
Other women who have excelled include Hilda Moraa one of the founders of Wezatele Ltd which was earlier this year sold off to Afb for an estimated price of $ 1.7 million and not forgetting Tabitha Karanja of Keroche Breweries who has had to fight for her space in the male dominated alcoholic beverage world and against multinationals.
As media becomes more accessible with the advent of technology, new stories will empower and educate women to help them fight against abuses such as domestic violence, harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and gender based violence. Greater representation of women issues in the media will allow policy makers and government leaders to take action in allocating resources and pushing for the necessary laws, policies and programs that help to create opportunities for Kenyan’s women and girls in this and the next generation.
To be honest any woman who has made it be in the corporate or business world has had to put in more time and effort than her male counterparts. This is something that most people take for granted and as such their efforts deserve to be recognized. To this effect the Wezesha Dada organization is seeking to petition Kenyan media houses to increase their coverage of women issues and dedicate at least 5 more minutes of their coverage to highlight positive stories about women.
Check out Juliani’s video in support of this noble course.