Women’s issues in journalism

Olga Zdravomyslova, Natalya Kigai

Which problems tend to be ignored?

We asked the following question to the journalists within our study: what are the problems of a modern woman that seldom attract the attention of mass media? We got the following answers:
"Inequality of women in the society" (36.4% of answers)
1. Women's employment and unemployment, professional discrimination, competition with men when seeking a position with demands for high skills and responsibility, women as leaders
2. Formality of women’s rights and equality
3. Stranglehold of male standards and approaches, misjudgment of the large role of women in getting the country out of crisis
4. Family violence
5. Sexual abuse at work
6. White slavery
"Traditional women’s problems" (17.7% answers)
1. Medical problems
2. Motherhood, child care
"Contemporary role of a woman in the society" (16.5% answers)
1. Career, woman as a professional, reconciling of several social roles
2. Women and power
3. Women and business
"Social and psychological problems" (13.9% answers)
1. The quality of life, female poverty
2. Women adjusting to fast changing life
3. Women from the provinces
4. Interaction and relationship of sexes
5. Alcoholism
6. Female psychology
7. Problems of aging
"Self-actualization of a woman as a personality" (11.4% answers)
1. Loneliness of women (social, domestic, emotional)
2. Seeking for one's place in life
3. Professional self-actualization
4. Fostering independence in a woman
5. Experience of strong personalities who found their way out of crisis
6. Fostering feeling of one's own importance and self-sufficiency
7. Problems of education and spirituality
"Security of women in the society" (3.8% answers)
1. Moral security of women in the society
2. Judicial security of motherhood
3. Welfare and allowance at the birth of a child
"Female studies" (1.3% answers)
The rating of «women's problems that are ignored» gives us a chance to find out how the journalists see a woman's place in the society. The first place was taken by the problem of women's employment and unemployment (22.8% answers) with the greatest stress on discrimination against women in the labor market ("Very hard to find a position that will fit in with professional skills and calling for many women with higher education", "men advantaged in the employment") and especially in the sphere of taking responsibility on oneself ("women as leaders").
The second place was taken by so called "traditional" female problems. They can be divided into problems of child care (8.8% answers) and female medical problems which include, in journalists' opinion, "the right to abortion" and, in other words, are a part of general "women's rights" (8.8%).
The third place was taken by "contemporary role of a woman in the society" (16.5% answers). Most of all it concerns a professional taking active part in business and politics. Social and psychological problems (13.9% answers) take the fourth place. They are much varied, but it attracts attention that "relationship of sexes" was mentioned only once. It can't be explained by the unimportance of the problem; more likely the it is due to a lot of publications on this topic in the Russian press.
The cluster of problems related to self-actualization of a woman (11.4% answers) is also rather extensive, it took the fifth place by significance. The diversity of these problems and some comments made by journalists suggest that they are themselves dissatisfied by the way mass media talk about women ("too much attention is paid to physiology, psychology and looks").
Problems of security of women in the society were mentioned only in 3.8% answers. The fact that they were rarely found among the answers can be explained by their joining the general problem of discrimination and women’s rights.
So called "women's studies" were specially mentioned: one should keep in mind the growing media's interest to this topic and not lose the opportunity to enrich published materials by non-traditional information from the results of gender problem studies.
The journalists included in the poll were found to feel rather critical about the way women's theme is presented in mass media. One can draw a conclusion that women's problems are covered in mass media in one-sided way, with the pronounced accent on a limited number of subjects. At the same time the spectrum of subjects in this area is much wider, with the central position occupied by social, judicial, sociological, psychological, and culturological themes.

Attitude toward women’s organizations

One of the goals of our study was to determine the journalists' attitude toward women's organizations. In the course of the poll we found out that the ideas of journalists about the work of women's organizations were very indistinct.
60% of respondents think that "women's organizations appearing in our country are one of the positive results of democratization". At the same time the similar number of respondents (58%) suppose that "most of women's organizations are established by ambitious women seeking political career".
Half of the journalists believe that women's organizations have bright prospective as the voice of women's interests, but one-third of respondents think that they are demagogic. 25% are sure that they "are constantly conflicting with each other and are not able of working out general strategy". 36% support the point of view that "women's organizations are appearing in Russia because everything that comes from the West is now in fashion". The same number of people believe that "Russian women's organizations come into existence because of the worsening condition of women in our country". The fact that only 19% respondents agreed that "Russian women get real support from women's organizations" speaks for oneself.
Journalists are so short of information about women's organizations that one could think mass media (especially the ones dedicated to women's theme) and women's organizations live in some parallel worlds. The journalists' opinions about women's organizations are controversial and rather abstract.
"As a journalist I would be more interested by women's organizations if there activity was more obvious".
"It seems to me that the most effective women's organization today is the Committee of Solders' Mothers. And the rest – I don't know… The other ones may aim at something, but only the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers has got some real results".
"Of the women's organizations we know very few that do something useful, and the majority is kind of elusive".
Judging by the answers of the journalists, the real use of women's organizations seems insignificant, and the interest to their activities is half-hearted and unsteady.
The focus groups made obvious the deepest incomprehension of the part of women's movement that tries to conceptualize women's experience and change female conscience. We asked a question: "Is there a need for organizations which attempt to speak of and conceptualize women's experience?" The answers we got were in general like: "What for? So we conceptualize it, what's next?" We had to make the point clear: "In the western countries there are special intellectual periodicals in the whole spectrum of women's press where women's movement experience is discussed, and these discussions draw in more and more women. As a result their conscience changes, they bring up their children in a different way, and that gradually changes the society in general. Do you agree with that?"
To this question we got the following answers:
- Yes. - It would be nice, but we don't have such a possibility in our country.
- Our problems are absolutely different. It is unlikely that women in the provinces would be attracted by such periodicals.

Why do Russian women need feminism?

Focus group discussions were a good illustration of the journalists' reluctance to make up a non-controversial frame of reference regarding the role and position of a Russian woman in the Russian society. The discussion of feminism was the best demonstration of it.
The prevailing point of view that the equality of sexes exists in reality automatically leads to devaluation of imported feminist theory and women's liberation ideology in Russia.
- I have not met with any discrimination since I have started working. Have I been paid less money and not given a good position because of being a woman? I haven't ever! And I am not now! There is just a lot of talk about it and little more.
- What does a Russian woman need feminism for? She can do everything she wants without it. Sometimes she makes more money than her husband does.
- She has things to do beside feminism. Why does she have to stand up for her rights? She has a family to keep.
- There are many women in the West suffering from loneliness. They have turned out their husbands and cannot find another man because of their feminist views.
- We have two categories of women in this country. Those who do their best to make some money, and those who were lucky to marry a rich man. The first group is busy with making as much as possible or just making something; the second group is concentrated on spending money: buying expensive, high-quality things, going to a beauty parlor, hiring what we call an "image maker" for themselves etc.
- For our women to fear inequality they should be demonstrated this inequality. Then maybe they will need to organize feminist movements. We only have inequality in the government and on the highest level of business. No inequality on the medium level, no official inequality.
The general position of focus group members is characteristic for its social pessimism, which is the base for "sandwich ideology": its upper layer is an imitation of equality, political correctness and social tolerance. The bottom layer is a kind of pseudo-patriarchy "conspiracy" that is characterized by the fusion of hard realism and romanticism. Such a position shatters the possibility of forming the definition of human dignity, which is the central idea of the concept of human rights. Human rights, in turn, is the central idea of the whole feminist theory. Without this concept any talk of women’s rights becomes objectless.
Besides, the journalists' answers have demonstrated that they are themselves living in the state of "survival". People in this state take every attempt to find logic in their talk or any call to reasonable actions as aggression toward them. This "aggression" disturbs their inner instinctive and unsteady balance. They can hardly pay attention to anything "alien", "new", or "extra" that is what they think about feminism. Defining your position can make you more vulnerable, and Russian journalists are not ready for ideological battles. It could be one of the reasons for hard words and aggressive tone of discussion of feminism.
- I am against this point of view. My approach is to read the Bible. One must stick to one's last. I like the theosofic approach to divisions between men and women, to destination. All these reshuffles of positions and relationships are excruciating. I am against paying excess attention to women's role.
- My attitude to feminism is negative. I believe women to be weak-minded, especially the ones that cry aloud. If you need something, you should move and not cry. But men who hate feminism are still worse. There are so many of them today. They seem to feel their inferiority because feminism has come into being.
- We don't have any feminism.
- I can't understand what feminists want. I can't read their programme and moreover, I don't want to read it because the concept itself is discredited by the persons who are in the movement.
- There are indirect signs of feminism having come to our country – some persons appear that represent or profess it. Among these persons (M and N) there is one I don't like at all, and the other one who I like very much. But I can't make out what they want.
- There is a demand for feminism in our country, but the thing we don’t need is a feminist movement that makes a woman rushes to join some societies and organizations.
Journalists' social pessimism results in particularly cynical attitude towards functions and abilities of mass media in our society. Both are understood simply as selling services for money. That's why feminists who would like to change the society should not command the services of the press.
Nevertheless the given problem does not allow us to turn the back to it. Feminists are not all man-haters; feminist theory is not all nonsense and literature is not unreadable. But journalists are not eager to go deep into the subject, and they have found a very simple answer to the problem: feminism in our country is represented by two women, M and N. One of them is so nasty that one is reluctant to listen to what she thinks; the other one is so nice that she can think whatever she likes.
At the same time the results of the completed study demonstrate (mainly among women journalists) the dormant interest to women's problematics, feminist theory and development of women's theme in «big» press. If one could avoid head-on collisions this interest could be used to develop social discussion of women's rights, feminist theory and gender construction in our country.