Politics, Women and the Media

Politics, Women and the Media

As part of a revolutionizing world, the idea of women taking over countries and running states has become both an alarming and celebrated idea. The main focus of media and politics in Africa has always been the idea of patriarchal leadership and ideology. While women have fought for political revolutions, the credit of their fights has always been attributed to men.

How do we as the media give fair coverage and praise to women in politics, without reverting to their fashion or the fact that they stuck by their husband’s side, if some of their husbands stray, rather than reporting on what they have accomplished and what they are doing? Media reporting on female leadership has been used in a manner that undermines women in politics and may cause society and the institution of politics to have low confidence and trust in female leadership.

On Monday 29 October 2014, Boikelto Mongoato from CANRAD spoke on Madibaz Radio about how women have been reduced to their image rather than knowledge. “A woman's body is political,” she said, referring to two incidents that took place nationally, where Lindiwe Mazibuko’s received backlash for wearing a skirt that older parliamentary members deemed as inappropriate dress code for parliament. This was also the case at an institutional (NNMU) level, Hlumela Bucwa who has become the first ever female SRC president in the history of the NMMU, a few male students had passed a remark saying that in order for her to win, and she would have to show them her “assets”, reported by Press Release (Madibaz Radio) host Zanele Titi.

Africa has had only three female presidents, but very thing that has been reported and said about them, the media industry has been able to divert from the success of these presidents, to their male counterparts. Libya Ellen Johnson, the first female president of Libya and one of the three African female presidents, who was able to bring about change in Libya and bring peace in a country torn by war. She shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with Leymah Gbowee and Tawakko, awarded for "their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work." The role that the media seems to have avoided, is that of telling the truth about African female leaders. Chimamanda Adichie on her TED talk “The danger of a Single Story”, talks about the danger of knowing a single story, which means, when you are being sold a story that is coming from one side and not from all sides, what you know about a place, country or person is very isolated and one sided.

There is a distorted idea of African culture and how the patriarchal hegemonic ideologies have penetrated through the African culture and diluted the idea of masculinity and femininity in the African context.  Before colonisation Africa never had patriarchal leadership.  Research shows that in African cultures men and women were equal and decisions were taken by both males and females. . There is an old Xhosa saying: “utata yinhloko, kodwa umama ngumqla,” meaning "the man is the head, but the woman is the neck." This is to say that while the man is the head, I cannot turn or move without the neck. They work hand in hand and each get their recognition.

When looking at the past traditional leadership of Africa, we discover one of the strongest and greatest traditional leaders was a woman, but her story has not been shared. The literature and the media has paid little tribute and attention to her as an African heroine:  Ya Asanteswa is a Ghanaian Queen also known as the "Warrior Queen". "If you, the men of Ashanti, will not go forward, then we will. We the women will. I shall call upon you my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight until the last of us fall in the battlefield." These are the words of the late Queen Ya Asanteswa who lead the fight against the British for Ghana; but who is talking about her greater leadership? No one!

 In 1912 the first demonstration of rebellion against the laws and the treatment of the natives in South Africa was made by women, it was a petition with 5000 signatures by  a league called Bantu Women’s League. These women were the first to take action against all the injustices in the country, before the ANC was even properly functioning.  The literature and history telling of the freedom fighters of South Africa is surrounded around men, and the first true freedom fighter who were women, were never given recognition.   Names of women like Charlotte Maxeke, are names you do not hear about in the media, when tributes are played every year in April in celebration of the freedom of South Africa. Who are the six women that went to Cape Town to present their case to Henry Burton, the Minister of Native affairs? No one knows because no one gave the history of South African women enough and well deserved coverage.

Media and the manner in which woman have been covered or reported on, has been a poor reflection on the true intellect of the women of this land. When a woman is not given her voice and her platform, she loses her power. Media has been called to make the public aware of what is happening around the world and to report truth and honesty and media may need to extend the quality of coverage it gives women in politics.