The picture of women in news reports from Ukraine

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 06/06/2022

Women are dramatically under-represented in the news, with only 24% of them serving as news subjects and sources. The bias is also a problem in reporting about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. When reporting is framed by a male perspective, it can magnify the bias that already exists within government and multilateral institutions that are dominated by male leadership, writes in a blog Emma Lygnerud Boberg, Gender and Programme adviser at International Media Support.

Copenhagen-based IMS is a non-governmental organization supporting quality journalism and fighting repressive media legislation. It is financed via donations and gets financial support from the EU and Danish, Norwegian and Swedish authorities supporting developing countries.

She is referring to Belarussian literature Nobel prize winner Svetlana Alexievich book “ The Unwomenly Face of War” and has recommendations for media covering the war in Ukraine:

• Engage in gender media monitoring to keep track of who is represented in your content and in what capacity.
• Be careful not to replicate stereotyping in which you simply view women as passive victims and sufferers. We also need to report stories that reflect women’s courage, leadership, resilience and healing and their roles as agents of change and peace building.
• When covering gender-based violence, utilise best practices, ethical standards and resources that support a survivor-centred approach.
• Focus on underreported, misreported and unreported forms and targets of violence, including with marginalised communities.
• Make use of databases of women experts on various topics — or create your own.
• Revise your editorial guidelines to make sure that a gender perspective and inclusivity are included.
• Consider introducing an equality editor. This is a self-regulatory mechanism created specifically to tackle gender inequality in media content. The New York Times (USA) and El País (Spain) are examples of pioneers of this tool.
• Conduct a gender audit of your internal work to make sure that you have a diverse workforce and identify the gender gaps in your organisation — a diverse workforce is more likely to produce pluralistic content.

Alexievich’s book was a product of thousands of hours of interviews with women who served in the Soviet Army during World War II as snipers, nurses, pilots, tank drivers, foot soldiers, surgeons and partisans.  Alexievich said: “Everything we know about war we know with ‘a man’s voice’” and “I wanted to write a history of that war. A women’s history.”

The blogger is critical to international media’s reporting from Ukraine. Question is if she is right. Reporting from the field is not easy.

Lygnerud Boberg says that while it may come as no surprise that women’s stories and perspectives from this time were neglected, one would have thought that by 2022 we would have reached a certain level of gender equality where we would document events in a more inclusive way.

“That does not seem to be the case, at least not in international media’s coverage of conflicts. In February, Russia invaded Ukraine, and international media have taken on the unfortunate role in promoting hyper masculine war narratives, gender stereotypes and manifestations of racism.”

She writes that women are not represented among the top political leaders and constitute only 23% of the total experts, protagonists or sources quoted in global digital news about the war in Ukraine, according to an analysis of the GDELT news monitoring database.

“When women are portrayed, they are often portrayed as victims or bystanders and rarely speak for themselves. The image of a bloody pregnant woman from Ukraine and her unborn child is only one of many examples of viral news stories dictating an overall narrative of women’s victimization. Whilst these stories are critical and deserve to be heard as they ultimately are documentation of human rights abuses, it is important to consider how they are being told, the involvement of the subject and the angle. The stories about women fleeing with their families are not necessarily only stories about victims, but also about women being active agents of their families, their communities and their nations, bringing them from fragility to stability.”

She writes that her point is not that women are more affected than men. “The point is that women are affected differently because of gendered dynamics and other grounds of discrimination.”

“The latest reports of rape highlight women and girls in conflicts being particularly vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence. The United Nations has now demanded an independent investigation into rape and sexual violence in Ukraine, after allegations Russian troops committed such crimes during the continuing invasion of the neighbouring country. The discrimination is also intersectional in its nature with reports of discrimination against people from the LGBTQIA+ community, such as transgender women being stopped at the borders, not being able to leave Ukraine.”

“Svetlana Alexievich’s observation that everything we know about war we know with “a man’s voice” unfortunately still holds true – and from a longer-term perspective, the participation of women in public debate during and post-conflict is proven to be crucial for peace negotiations and to contributes to long-lasting peace. Platforms must be created to amplify the voices of women and the region’s most deeply affected communities: members of civil society, especially women and other vulnerable populations. This is one of many aspects which will be critical in the long-term for any prospects of peace for Ukraine.”