A 19-year-old Tunisian women’s rights activist, known only as Amina, has come under fire for posting a topless photograph of herself online. Amina is a member of FEMEN, a Ukranian radical feminist group notorious for their topless protests. Weeks ago, Amina uploaded a picture of herself to a website she started for the group in Tunisia, with ”My Body is My Own and Not the Source of Anyone’s Honor” written across her bare chest.
Late last week, the Paris-based head of the group, Inna Shevchenko, claimed that Amina had been committed to a psychiatric ward by her family members. Shevchenko told the Atlantic that she last heard from Amina on 18 March. Her disappearance came after a 16 March appearance on Tunisian talkshow Labes to talk about her controversial photographs. However, her lawyer Bouchra Bel Haj Hmida, told Tunisia live that she is not missing, and denied allegations that Amina has been sent to a psychiatric facility.
While no legal charges have been brought against Amina, Salafi preacher Adel Almi said days before her disappearance that she should be punished with 80-100 lashes, and called for her to be stoned to death. According to Bel Haj Hmida, Amina could face up to six months of jail-time if charged with public indecency.
Women from across the globe have posted photographs of themselves topless online, with messages of support for Amina scrawled across their bodies. A petition for her release has now garnered over 84,000 signatures.
Secular activist Maryam Namazie has called for 4 April to be declared International Day to Defend Amina, in order to “remind the Islamists and the world that the real epidemic and disaster that must be challenged is misogyny — Islamic or otherwise.”
Sara Yasin is an Editorial Assistant at Index. She tweets from @missyasin
Egyptian Salafi preacher Ahmed Mahmoud Abdulla — known as Abou Islam — recently made remarks justifying sexual violence against female protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, claiming that women who join protests are asking “to get raped”. The preacher, who owns private religious television channel Al-Ummah, has previously stirred controversy when he burnt a Bible outside the US Embassy in Cairo during last year’s protests over anti-Islam film the Innocence of Muslims.
In a video posted online last Wednesday, Abdulla said that women who join the protests are “either crusaders who have no shame or widows who have noone to control them”. He also described them as “devils”, and added that “they talk like monsters”.
A protester chants during a march against sexual harassment
A few days before he made the controversial statements, at least 19 women were reportedly gang raped in Tahrir Square during a Friday protest marking the anniversary of the January, 2011 mass uprising that toppled authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak. One woman was hospitalised after attackers used a knife to cut her genitals.
Risking stigma and breaking an age-old taboo on sexual violence, many of the women have since spoken out, giving disturbing testimonies of the attacks in interviews published in newspapers and broadcast on radio and television. In a show of solidarity and support for the rape victims, hundreds of women protesters meanwhile staged a rally in downtown Cairo on Wednesday, protesting sexual harassment and demanding an end to sexual violence.
“Women and girls are a red line,” the protesters chanted. Some of the demonstrators brandished kitchen knives to send a message that they were capable of defending themselves.
Sexual harassment has plagued Egypt for decades. In 2008, a study by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR) revealed that more than 80 per cent of Egyptian women have been subjected to sexual harassment. Since Egypt’s revolution two years ago, there has been a surge in sexual violence against women, and rights activists say that harassment over the past two years has become “more violent and more organised”. The warn that the phenomenon has now reached “epidemic proportion”.
Nehad Abou Komsan, Chairperson of ECWR said that she believes the rise in the number of reported incidents since the revolution may be due to the fact that “in the freer post-revolution environment, more women are willing to speak out against harassment”. In the past, victims of harassment or sexual assault rarely reported the incidents for fear of being blamed or stigmatised. Since the revolution however, both women and the media have broken their silence. In recent months, the issue has been publicly debated a number of times in TV talk shows and has been tackled by local dailies.
The first time such assaults were reported in the press was during Egypt’s 2005 presidential elections, when female journalists were molested and stripped by what were believed to be security forces in plain clothes hired to attack the journalists. The following year, a brutal mob attack on girls celebrating Eid Al Fitr in downtown Cairo sent shockwaves across the nation, bringing the issue of harassment to light.
On 11 February 2011 — the night former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was forced out — CBS Correspondent Lara Logan was sexuallyassaulted by a mob of 200 to 300 frenzied men in Tahrir Square, as tens of thousands of jubilant opposition activists celebrated Mubarak’s ouster. Since then, a series of sexual assaults by mobs have been reported, targeting mainly prominent female activists and journalists.
The wave of assaults has led rights campaigners to infer that the “targeted and systematic attacks are being used by the state to keep women away from the protests”.On 8 March 2011, scores of women demanding equal rights at a rally marking International Women’s Day were verbally abused and shoved by bearded men who shouted at them to go home. The following day, several female protesters arrested by the army near Tahrir Square were electrocuted and subjected to humiliating “virginity checks” performed by a male doctor. Samira Ibrahim, one of the young protesters subjected to such a test filed a lawsuit against the then-ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. She won the case and the military promised that such tests would not be performed on female detainees in military prisons in the future. She however, lost a second case against the military doctor she had accused of performing the tests, who was acquitted by a military court. In December 2011, another female protester was stripped down to her bra, dragged by soldiers and beaten during a protest outside the parliament building. A video of the “girl in the blue bra” went viral on the internet , provoking a public outcry and a wave of anti-military protests.
Sexual harassment has increased since protests calling for “the downfall of the Islamist regime” began at the end of last month. The surge in sexual violence in the protest areas has given rise to informal groups like Tahrir Bodyguard and Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault— initiatives set up by volunteers and rights activists who patrol Tahrir Square during protests, keep track of sexual assault incidents and report them to rights organisations. The volunteers also try and protect female protesters by forming human chains around them or by coming to the rescue of women who are under attack. In their neon vests and helmets, Tahrir Bodyguard members are easy to spot.
Many activists believe that paid thugs are responsible for the spike in recent harassment, which they say is being used to keep female protesters out of Tahrir Square and away from the Presidential Palace.
In a press release issued last Wednesday, Amnesty International stated that rights activists believe that “the state may be behind the organised and coordinated attacks which are aimed at silencing women and excluding them from public spaces.” In most of the assault incidents, similar tactics have been used by the perpetrators to “intimidate and degrade the women”, the statement added.
Morsi’s Islamist supporters meanwhile blame the attacks on former regime loyalists who, they say,” hire thugs to tarnish the image of Islamists”.
“Violence was used by the old regime to silence dissenters. Now, old regime remnants are still using the same methods to further their interests and turn people against the new regime,” argued Walid El Garf, an interpreter with State TV and supporter of President Mohamed Morsi.
Rights activists have called on the government to bring the perpetrators to justice, asking President Morsi to take urgent action to end the culture of impunity.
The Egyptian president has been quick to respond to the call. Last week, he announced via his official Twitter account that a sexual harassment law was currently being drafted and would soon be ratified by the Cabinet. Prime Minister Hesham Qandil has also annnounced that his cabinet was working with civil society organisations and the state-sponsored National Council for Women (NCW) to finalise the law. Mervat El Tellawy, Secretary General of the NCW, has meanwhile urged victims of sexual assault to report incidents to the Council so that legal measures may be taken against the perpetrators. An Interior Ministry source has also said that surveillance cameras would soon be installed in the main squares and on downtown streets to monitor incidents of sexual harassment and assault.
While the increased violence against women has been cause for growing concern, the long-awaited new legislation, the increased willingness of women to speak out and the growing number of NGOs fighting harassment (either by spreading awareness about it, encouraging women to speak out or protecting women during protests) are all encouraging signs of positive change to come. Rights activists welcome the change but insist that more needs to be done to end gender-based discrimination.
“Changing the attitudes of men and women can only take place through education and awareness campaigns, ” said activist Azza Kamel of Fouada Watch, an NGO that has established a round-the-clock hot line for victims to report incidents of sexual harassment, verbal abuse or assaults against women. Kamel also advocates training of the police, traditionally known to take harassment reports lightly . “But above all”she said, there must be zero tolerance for those who incite violence against women (referring to the recent comments by Salafi preacher Abou Islam.)
“Such extremists must be silenced. Incitement is as big a crime as the assault itself”, Kamel added.
Journalist Shahira Amin resigned from her post as deputy head of state-run Nile TV in February 2011. Read why she resigned from the “propaganda machine” here.
You’ll find more women cooking and cleaning in the TV ad breaks than sitting on the couch during Sunday morning public affairs talk shows. And it doesn’t matter where in the world you live.
“Women represent only a third (33.3 per cent) of the full-time journalism workforce in the 522 companies surveyed,” says the most up-to-date Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media, published by International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF).
And numbers are even lower when you look at who is leading these news organisations.
The researchers of the IWMF report found that on average globally, “73 per cent of the top management jobs are occupied by men compared to 27 per cent occupied by women”.
The 2011 report is based on questionnaire surveys conducted by local researchers in 59 nations. IWMF does not currently have plans to publish another research report until 2014 or 2015, the organisation told Index.
“There is abundant evidence of underrepresentation of women as subjects of coverage, but until now there were no reliable, comprehensive data on which to make a clear determination about where women currently fit into the news-making operation or in the decision-making or ownership structure of their companies,” says Liza Gross, former Executive Director of IWMF, in the introduction of the report.
A RTDNA / Hofstra Survey of 2010 in the US confirms that there is “no good news for women in radio and television news. Women in TV news and women TV news directors stayed largely the same — each had a slight dip — and women in radio news and women radio news directors both fell noticeably.”
Women in the US are not alone. “Glass ceilings were especially noticeable in Canada, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the United States, although these are manifested at different occupational levels,” says the IWMF report.
Furthermore, a recent analysis by El Pais indicates that the number of women in journalism has fallen in Spain lately. Spanish newsrooms at present include 41 per cent of women. The reason behind this disparity is not lack of raw material. According to data from the Federation of Journalists Associations of Spain mentioned in the report, more than 60 per cent of students in Communication faculties across Spain are women. But women make only 20 per cent of the management positions at media organisations.
So the news is… there is no news. Basically, nothing much has changed since this author had a look at who was commander in chief at media organisations in 2008 in an article entitled “Women-Media: Conspicuous by Their Absence”, published by Inter Press Service news agency.
“Anecdotal accounts seem to imply that the situation is largely unchanged (today). It will likely remain so until a concerted effort is made to address inequities at all levels,” says Elisa Munoz, current acting Executive Director at IWMF in an email interview with Index.
So, what impact does all this have on content and how news is commissioned, gathered and published?
“T” for testosterone
There are studies that point to a “patriarchal mentality” that makes male editors assign “serious” issues — business, sports, and politics — to male reporters, while female writers tend to deal with “softer issues” in the social, culture and entertainment pages. However, the direct connection between more men at the top and less women as sources or dealing with serious, relevant journalistic content needs to be further explored. IWMF acting Executive Director, for example, says: “I am not certain that having a man or woman at the top influences media coverage, as a study on that matter has not been undertaken (by IWMF).”
What many studies do establish is the fact that many more men are sources of stories than women; many more women are represented as victims, and not the protagonists of news; in some countries, like in the US, it has been verified that more men byline front-page stories than women.
Women are always in a worse position both as news makers, sources of relevant information and subjects of stories.
According to The Gender Report of eight online US-based news sites, only 26 per cent of the “human sources” of information were women. Other studies put that figure as low as 22 per cent globally.
“Men have long been the predominant sources for the news media on issues such as the economy, politics and the military. And a new analysis of campaign coverage (by 4th State) found that women aren’t even the principal news source on a topic they would presumably know best: women’s issues,” says a Washington Post article by Paul Farhi.
“When it comes to stories about victims, we represent a whopping 79 per cent (according to a report published recently by Womeninjournalism.co.uk). Pretty good market penetration there. And what about in pictures? Research shows that young women dominate here too — so long as the picture doesn’t actually relate to the story and is just used to give it what’s called a ‘lift’ in the industry. But what about when we turn to the question of ‘experts’? Suddenly we don’t look that impressive, as the media tells us that three-quarters of the keepers of knowledge are men,” says Caroline Criado-Perez in an article published by The Guardian.
The study Criado-Perez is referring to shows that while 79 per cent of “victims” were women there is a dearth of women experts. She says:
This led to the laughable situation poor John Humphrys found himself in… when chairing an item on the Today programme about breast cancer treatment. He was forced to ask his guest whether ‘if you were a woman you would have no hesitation about being screened’; there was no woman expert to answer this question. Apparently. This followed on from the previous day’s segment on teenage contraception, which was again discussed by three middle-aged men,
Female-to-male guest proportions on prime-time cable news in the US are also risible.
“Overall, two-thirds of the guests were men. While the differences between networks were not great, MSNBC was the most male-dominated — only 30 per cent of the guests on that network were women”, says a report on diversity on television entitled “Gender And Ethnic Diversity in Prime-Time Cable News” and published in 2008 by Media Matters for America.
An investigation by Elvira Altes and Silvia Majo, details which were published by El Pais, reveals that women are quoted only in two out of ten stories about the economy, in spite of the fact that 60 per cent of the students graduating from business schools are women. “Their knowledge is wasted, “ said Altes, quoted by El Pais.
“The excuse that there fewer women economists, biologists, politicians or managers is not valid,” says Jose Javier Sanchez Aranda, Communication professor at the University of Navarre, quoted by the El Pais report. His research demonstrates that the presence of women in media is even lower than the presence of women in active society.
Basically, media organisations do not do their job properly. If they did, Sanchez Aranda argues, they would use more female sources. “
And the situation has worsened for women in the media during the economic crisis. The media sector in western countries had been badly hit, causing newsrooms to downsize and the disappearance of foreign bureaux, even whole media organisations. And “it is my understanding that women and minorities have taken a bigger hit,” says Munoz of IWMF, who points out, however, that her organisation has not produced any concrete data.
In any case, it seems clear the small minority of women who have decision making power at media organisations have an impact on how the media portrays women. At least that would explain why you’ll find many more women concocting meals on your screen than cooking the news.
Miren Guitierrez is editorial director of Index on Censorship
A recent fatwa issued by a leading Indian Islamic seminary advises women to refrain from working as receptionists, describing the job as un-Islamic and against Sharia law. The influential Darul Uloom Deoband offered the ruling in response to a question posed by a Pakistan-based company on 29 November on the seminary’s website, and states that Muslim women cannot work as receptionists because they are not allowed to appear before men without veil.
There are approximately 160 million Muslims in India, of whom 60 million are women. An overwhelming majority of them are illiterate.
Muslim journalist Bilal Zaidi told Index that although the Deoband is one of many schools of Islamic jurisprudence in India, it does have an impact on media and perception-building in general. The Deoband has a strong web presence, and as a result its fatwas are easily picked up and disseminated via mainstream media. Zaidi added that although the fatwa is just an opinion, “in practice, there are many who feel such fatwas are law… and then a large portion of the Muslim society tries to enforce them. Eventually, the opinion becomes identity.”
Some who support the logic of the fatwa, such as Saeed Hashmi, a columnist for the conservative Urdu newspaper Dainik Inqelab, point out that it is not mandatory. Hashmi told Index he feels this fatwa is a sensible warning to protect Muslim women from prying eyes, but understands it is difficult for everyone to follow such a directive in a big country like India.
In her paper analysing the effects of fatwas on Indian Muslim women, academic Shazia Shaikh feels that while the Darul Uloom Deoband has in the past brought about reforms in the Muslim communities, fatwas that seek to stop Muslim women from taking government jobs, becoming judges, and even working as receptionists, are nothing but misogynist, despite the fact the Koran is claimed to guarantee women’s rights.
A 19-year-old Tunisian women’s rights activist, known only as Amina, has come under fire for posting a topless photograph of herself online. Amina is a member of FEMEN, a Ukranian radical feminist group notorious for their topless protests. Weeks ago, Amina uploaded a picture of herself to a website she started for the group in Tunisia, with ”My Body is My Own and Not the Source of Anyone’s Honor” written across her bare chest.