29 SOUTHERN AFRICA PRESS FREEDOM REPORT 2019-2020 GENDER IN THE MEDIA: FEMALE JOURNALISTS AND WOMEN IN MEDIA By Belinda Ndlovu and Delta Milayo Ndou INTRODUCTION The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) in its 2001 gender policy and action plan (1) reasoned that gender equality is implicit in the notions of a “pluralistic press”; “reflecting the widest possible range of opinion within the community”; “the fulfilment of human aspirations”; “freedom of the press” and “freedom of association” as espoused in the Windhoek Declaration. It was MISA’s contention that the failure to explicitly state that gender equality is intrinsic to a pluralistic and free press had led to the gross gender disparities in the media not receiving adequate attention. Since then, gender equality in and through the media has proved elusive, affirming the Gender Links’ view that the media is one of the most difficult institutions to transform (2). Gender equality is entirely consistent with freedom of expression since nothing is more central to this ideal than giving voice to all segments of the population (3). The examination of gender and media has two main dimensions (4) which are: • The balanced representation of gender in media houses as professionals; which is related to the proportion of men and women employed in the media, the type of assignments they are given, the role women have in decision making, and opportunities given for men and women professionals. • the politics of gender representation in media contents; which relates to portrayal of women and men, their reported role as active participants or passive observers, low or highprofile sources, their attribution as offenders or survivors, and their representation in the news and current affairs or in the other soft news. The state of gender and media in the Southern Africa press will be discussed in line with these two dimensions. Attention will also be given to how Covid-19 has impacted on gender in and through the media. GENDER REPRESENTATION IN MEDIA CONTENT Media across the region fall short when measured against gender equality indicators (5) such as: • proportion of women as sources of news (voice (6)) • proportion of stories leading with women as protagonists (visibility)