Journos grilled on women political participation
Eight Botswana journalists are amongst the 29 participants who have converged at the Observatory, Johannesburg, for a three-day training on Women Political Participation (WPP) in Africa by Gender Links. Other countries present are Eswatini and Zimbabwe.
Programme facilitator, Special advisor Gender Links, Colleen Morna told The Midweek Sun on the side-lines of the event that the regional training is meant to strengthen the capacity of the media to positively and objectively portray women as credible and effective political leaders and participants.
“Discussions on the first day included challenges faced by women in politics, which range from being looked down upon, abuse, lack of support and many others,” she said. On the second day she said, they will focus more on what country constitutions say about gender balance during elections, and also try to understand the different electoral systems and why all of it matters. The last day will mostly be about how the media as a stakeholder can improve on how they report about women in politics. One of the invited guests, Ferrial Haffajee, Daily Maverick’s Associate Editor, said on Monday that it is not easy interviewing women. “They are mostly not accessible, most of them just do not like the media. They simply
hide or ignore journalists. But men are forever ready to be interviewed hence men mostly make political headlines,” said the South African online newspaper journalist. Morna said hopefully at the end of the training, a new path will be birthed and gender equality will be achieved as envisioned. She said one thing that Gender Links is doing differently is including men in gender balance trainings so that they are not left out in the process. That is why the Johannesburg training has included male participation. She believes that if there is going to be change, there is need to wholly address the dwindling numbers of females actively involved in politics by also including and hearing from men. Her view is that discriminating against men only makes them feel attacked and will not support women. This will in the long run come back to haunt efforts being made because already men have an upper hand.