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Mrs Magada is one of many women operating their own businesses. While women running small to medium enterprises contribute in stimulating economic activity, creating jobs, alleviating poverty and uplifting living standards of the Zimbabwe populace, they are rarely in the limelight. In fact, save for a few, most of the women in business seem to be on some media blackout.

“I have never received any form of support or positive coverage by the media here; rather they are busy de-campaigning my business. They always make unflattering comments about me and I rarely see them saying good things about women,” said Mrs Magada.
Her sentiments are shared by Mrs Dianah Mlambo (39), another businesswoman also based in Mutare. Mrs Mlambo owns a bridal shop which she has since expanded to incorporate events management.

“The media does not put much effort in showcasing the businesses of women; rather they are giving preference to positive coverage of well established male counterparts in the business sector.  This leaves us women in the cold.”
Despite constituting 52 percent of Zimbabwe’s population and being a majority the world over, women do not appear in the media often enough. In spite of the fact that they are the backbone of the family, the majority of small scale farmers that produce about 80 percent of the food consumed in southern Africa, their voices are suppressed in the media. When they are featured in the media it is often in some trivialised domestic scandals. If they are not visible in such topics, it is usually in some sensational news which is often used to attract readers and sell newspapers. In such circumstances it is not surprising that they make headlines on the front page.

Women in Zimbabwe continue to be marginalised by the media and much of their success stories are yet to be told fully.
While the media is supposed to act as a public sphere, a platform where all citizens are represented equally regardless of gender, race, class or ethnicity, gender disparities are still a cause for concern. Gender activists’ concerns stem from the media’s failure to promote women’s economic empowerment with women in business emerging as victims of harsh portrayal in the media while those who wish to get into the business world are rarely supported and hardly fully informed.

According to a 2010 Gender and the Media Progress Study, apart from its basic roles of informing, educating and entertaining, the media should bear a social responsibility of promoting social justice and equality between men and women. However, in Zimbabwe the media tends to drive women empowerment initiatives backward by under-representing them and reinforcing patriarchal stereotypes that block women’s advancement, a view which freelance journalist, Tafadzwa Chiutsi (23) agrees with.

“Everyday what you see in the media is negative portrayal of women. Businesswomen are just silent heroines; they are hardly represented in the media despite their tremendous contribution to the economy of Zimbabwe,” said Chiutsi.
Not only does the media influence and shape policy formulation, it also informs the public’s perception of gender roles and responsibilities and influence the public’s attitudes towards women and their position in society.  As such, feminists believe it is justified to heap accusations on the media for the delayed, and at times failure to fulfill the dictates of the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, Sadc Protocol on Gender and

Development, and many other gender related treaties and conventions that Zimbabwe ratified.
For instance, article 17 (1) of the Sadc Protocol on Gender states that “State Parties shall by 2015 adopt policies and enact laws which ensure equal access, benefit and opportunities for women and men in trade and entrepreneurship. Taking into account the contributions of women in the formal and informal sectors”.

While the voices of the majority of women in business are silent — a historical phenomenon of Zimbabwe’s patriarchal society which others have come to accept as normal — the problem with the media is that it is helping to reinforce rather than challenge patriarchy.
Rural women have not been spared from this marginalisation. They are also the major victims of the media exclusion and this was also recognised in the 8th Session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development’s Report on the High-Level Consultation on Rural Women and Information.

There is a growing concern from some civil society organisations and NGOs, that although they have implemented a number of income-generating projects to empower the marginalised women in rural areas, it remains a mystery why these programmes and initiatives are not seeing the light of the day in the media.
An economist and income generation project programme officer for a local NGO; Swedish Organisation for Individual Relief, Mrs Dorcus Tarugarira (44), expressed disappointment over the media’s ignorance towards women’s issues, in particular women empowerment.

“We run projects since 2007 in the seven districts of Manicaland that are meant not only to improve household income, but are sustainable projects that have improved project management skills of the rural women, killing the dependency syndrome of women on men. But none of these initiatives has ever attracted even the community newspapers in our area,” she said.

The organisation is running a wide range of projects from poultry, sewing, piggery, carpentry and agricultural activities in the communities with one community group based at Bangira in Chipinge going to the extent of buying their own grinding mill as an income generating project.
According to Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank,  “Gender and women empowerment are also at the core of what we need to do in development. It is not just a women’s issue. Improved economic opportunities for women lead to better outcomes for families, societies and countries.”

But why is the media turning a blind eye on women economic empowerment issues?
According to freelance journalist, Sophia Mapuranga (32), the major hindrance to the promotion of women economic empowerment is that there are fewer female journalists in newsrooms and these few are normally given soft beats like arts, health and entertainment. Worse still, few female journalists are in decision-making positions in the media, she said, adding, “generally, it would be expected that if women are given decision-making roles in the media, they might champion the cause of their female counterparts, allowing more stories about women economic empowerment in the media.”

Kenneth Matimaire, of New Ziana, agrees that women’s economic empowerment issues are often not covered in the news.
“The need by the media to fulfill its profit-oriented objective and the desire to meet the required newspaper house styles are among the major contributing factors that have led developmental journalism to be sacrificed for the tabloid style of journalism,” said Matimaire.
His is a common excuse that is typical among media owners and other practitioners that media is business and only stories that sell are accepted, but lest we forget, media has its normative functions that are supposed to be            fulfilled.

Mrs Ronika Mumbire (41), the director of the Zimbabwe Women’s Bureau is of the opinion that the media has not yet realised the above considering their lack of prioritisation of women issues citing that women economic empowerment issues are only covered as events and that is if the                  event is lucky to be graced by a high official from the government.

“To empower a woman is to empower a nation, and there can be no sustainable development without development for women because it is women who contribute more for the development of children and the children are the future of any society or nation,” Mrs Mumbire said.
While some newspaper editors consulted by this writer showed enthusiasm to defend and justify their coverage of women as professional and up to standard, there is indeed a sharp contrast between what is published in the newspapers and their claims.

A concerned journalism student David Makacha (25) said:
“Feminism should not be seen in civic society magazines only, but it should also be a daily bread of our mainstream media. Women empowerment issues are a

developmental topic that are without doubt newsworthy and deserve space in the media.”

• The writer is a final year student in Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Journalism and Media Studies at NUST. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Phone: 0733854681 or 0777930995.