Historically speaking, women have always been seen as inferior to men in every sphere of life, all around the world, and media has not been an exception. Media has always served for sharing information, informing people on certain topics, teaching them something new. However, are media going in the wrong direction these days? Speaking about gender equality, what are they really teaching us? Can we trust the media?
In North Macedonia, as in most of the countries, media is full of articles dedicated to successful men, whether it is in sports, politics, or some other fields, while the articles dedicated to successful women are basically not even existing, or if they exist they are usually not so detailed nor considered as important. Another common thing for our media is that whenever there is a panel discussion on a certain topic led by men, it is often covered by every media that exists in our country, while when there is a panel discussion led by women about certain topic that concerns their needs and rights, usually no media comes.
One of the biggest issues women face with even in the 21st century is the hate speech in media. Whether we talk about famous women or women in general, they are always victims of hate speech, especially because we still live in a pretty conservative society in which women are still seen as housewives, and not as businesswomen.
Sexism is another point that should be stressed out, because it is largely used and “popular”. Nowadays, especially with the digitalized media, a woman’s body is used by the media to gain more “clicks” or “likes” and it has become so normal that people don’t even notice it anymore. But when we see a men’s body portrayed in the same way as the women’s body is, we don’t really like it and those articles or commercials are not so appealing, people even give negative comments about them.
Still, the first thing we need to fight against is the media remaining silent or indifferent when there is a case gender-based violence. In our country, not only that media don’t write about these cases, but they often don’t give the right truth and diminish the importance of the violence usually committed by men. Instead of supporting and encouraging the victim to speak up, media decides not to get involved in it.
As a conclusion, we should remember that media is not completely trustworthy. We should pay attention to what we read and what we believe in. Not everything that is written has really happened, and we should not judge by what is given to us on the TV screens. Additionally, we should keep in our minds that we are also the ones who should react on the news where gender inequality is presented. If we constantly address the media and react on their articles, emissions, posts, maybe we can change a bit the situation and make media more reliable source of information.
Written by the Macedonian team
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