Women Journalism and the Indian Newsroom

have

you ever been mistaken for somebody else

or something else say you’re a doctor

and somebody thought

you’re a dancer or maybe you’re

a priest and somebody thought you are

a gym instructor

ah it happened with me i’m a journalist

and i was mistaken for a sex worker

so i it happened one evening i got a

call

i was at my work either making a page

newspaper page or editing a copy i got a

call for some from someone

a man and he asked me

lady bird wrong number i kept the phone

there was another call ladybird

wrong number i kept the phone and calls

kept coming

and in a matter of days there were

barrage of calls

all men all wanting to know

if i am lady bird then one day one guy

asked me

ready bird what is your rate

that time something struck me what’s

going on

i waited for the morning and the next

morning

i called these guys back who are you

why are you calling me and where did you

get my number

so one of them’s they said one of them

said

that he had he saw my number scribbled

on the wall

of a toilet of a restaurant in siliguri

the other guy also found my number in a

toilet wall

in calcutta and another guy found my

number

in um oh okay the sleeper coat of

darjeeling wheel train

and all of them said so it i presume

that some guy

wrote my number scribbled it

with my pick up name or what would you

call it lady word

so there all these poor guys they wanted

to speak to lady bird

and there i was a boring journalist

working in my desk

making pages and editing copies hardly

anybody wanted to believe me when i said

that is not the case

see finding out is my job and i found

out this also as it turned out

that a former colleague of mine a former

boss of mine

went about doing this writing this

because he thought and he was right

that if men they see a number

lying around and if they think it

belongs to a woman

they’ll have to make a call and they did

and they asked me ladies

so here i am somebody’s ladybird

to tell you what it is like to be

a journalist a small

town woman journalist in a very very

male dominated

profession i uh when i joined

in the very early years in the turn of

the century i was possibly the second

woman journalist in the city a small

city a town

of siliguri darjeeling this town this

you know it’s really nice last time that

i was here

i was here for a meet of journalists and

it was a job you know

me conference of journalists from all

over north bengal and second

there were 70 journalists can you guess

how many were women

two i was one and the other one was from

the hosting side

and she had the most important job of

welcoming the guests

giving them khadas and garlands right so

that’s pretty much

it is heartbreaking for me because from

the time i started out

till that moment two years ago

spanning almost two decades it was

heartbreaking that the story is almost

the same for us women

why when i started out it was

the time of so much positivity

it was like you know media was boom like

it was media boom and there was so much

of

activity happening and satellite

channels had made it

the journalism profession was so visible

like they were women particularly it was

good time for women to enter the

profession

so many women were coming forward right

where are these women now

this is the statistics that we have in

2010

there was a study then we are very bad

with statistics by the way

there are very few studies in 2010

they found out that one in

four journalists were women only 25

percent

and there was more in 2019 there was

another study done

by united nations women and

news laundry and they found that they

did a survey of

the top positions of the decision uh

you know making roles women held only

five percent of the top decision-making

jobs

in uh in newspapers

so that and in case of tv and

and digital media that was slightly

better but considering that we make half

the population

it’s pretty pathetic to have such few

numbers in journalism

she is an egyptian journalist she has

coined this term called

courier femicide she used the term

courier femicide to refer

to the systemic destruction of

women’s careers especially in the

context of me too

she was particularly speaking about

women who either lost their jobs

or were rendered unemployable

because they raised their voice against

voices against

harassment so when we speak of systemic

destruction of women’s career when we

speak of

career famicide

when you speak of career femicide what

we

exactly the death it’s it’s like a

professional death for a woman right

your career comes to an abrupt end for

reasons

beyond a control for reasons that you

are a woman

for the sets like for and and i uh

you know it you must have seen i don’t

know whether you followed the metoo

movement closely or not

i don’t know if anybody is laughing here

or not because some people still

think that it was a joke but it wasn’t a

joke me too movement for the first time

in india and in the world especially

when it happened in india

it confirmed our doubts

that sexual harassment in workplaces

is rampant right this is something this

is the reality that

we live with and you know and what was

it like one after

one when women came forward and their

stories of horror

and what they faced you know what we got

to see

was a very you know there were many

different stories but there was

one particular narrative that one

there is some like the things that they

face with one is gender discrimination

and there’s this power structure

entitled newsrooms with a very

patriarchal power structure

where women are subjugated to

you know exploitation and harassment i

mean you may

say that oh you cannot prove that in

court but heart of hearts

you know that this happens and this has

happened right

so and what now that me too movement

unfortunately

you know we saw most of the women

speaking out were

women of privilege they were women from

urban areas

what about the small towns what about

the smaller towns

in smaller towns we didn’t hear much

about women from there

why is it that because small towns are

safe

women having a good time and men are

really great

do you believe that no there

that’s it but why is it you know and i

you know think that women and we all

know

particularly small town in the because

we have fewer opportunities

we have fewer opportunities also and

women also live with lot of

vulnerabilities

newspapers in smaller towns they have

they are in a kind of situation where

you know journalists are often required

to

collect advertisements and their

salaries depend on that

that makes them very very vulnerable

this is one of the ways in which they

are more vulnerable right

so women in smaller towns they live with

much more vulnerability even smaller

rural areas they are dealing with

uh you know very difficult circumstances

so i would think that they are more

vulnerable they may be more exploited

i did not learn these you know lessons

of gender discrimination at home

i had no idea i learned it in news rooms

can you believe it

it was a newsroom i i understood because

when i grew up

i grew up in an all-female household

i grew up see when my father died and

when i was five it was my mother and my

aunt over there

they brought me up with along with two

other sisters we have five women growing

up we did everything we had nothing like

this is a man’s job this is a girl’s job

i entered the newsroom and a man does

what is called hard news and a woman

does what is called soft news

hard news are those important news crime

and and and this gives you an idea of

what it is like and women oh you’re that

and you know how it works out i can give

you a small example

in 2008 there was this leader from here

in darjeeling he was rising in politics

and he had this great rally a massive

political rally that was organized in

siliguri

and two reporters were pressed to cover

it to do the political stories

men of course right and

i was like i was pretty senior by then

my work

i said like what am i doing this big

thing happening in my city i’m not doing

anything

i said do a mood story mood story

what is a mood story go and talk to a

few people

preferably women again who have come

there with children

or you know some old woman there ask

them their stories and just write the

mood

but you know fun part the people who are

asked to

listen to the speech and analyze it

people who are asked

the journalists who are asked to cover

the great political event

they didn’t know a word of nepali

right i speak nepali i understand nepali

but i am a woman

so that is how gender discrimination

works in news rooms

and it often and you know the structure

is pretty much like a family

it’s a very and it must be the same in

other professions i don’t know maybe you

must be comparing now how it is

and your work as well but the reason to

speak about journalism is we

think that maybe this space is liberal

because journalism by nature is a very

liberal job we are questioning all the

time

we are trying to set things right so we

presume maybe we are the right people

but it is not and

the discrimination works like this and

often the structure is like a family

the head of the office whoever heads the

office the mail editor

wants to become your father figure or

the husband figure

someone who wants to have control over

what you do

right and if you’re a woman astounding

level of control they want to have on

you

and your body right and when you resist

there is harassment because then you

don’t fit in

if you have a problem just go why are

you here this is a man’s job what were

you thinking

you didn’t have to do this okay

so a woman is left with a choice of

either accepting it

or quitting i quit twice

most of my career you know like have

been a freelancer

and this was a decision like today i’m

here in front of you as a free

as a woman journalist most of my career

most of my achievement has been

the work that i’ve done independently

and i do not and as a freelancer it has

lot of its pitfalls a lot of its

challenges but even with its challenges

even with its insecurities i’m so glad

that 10 years ago i decided not to work

with male bosses

so that’s how it has been right so now

what happens is what how does it work

what happens

that when you are you know when these

frictions happen

they when you challenge the when you

challenge the authority

when you don’t want to quit when you

fight we put up a fight ladybird happens

i put up a complaint and i leave and

there is a

i’m a sex worker i’m turned into one

overnight i don’t even realize it

right so that’s how it works

i complain i’m forced to quit

and what happens see what you you guys

must be knowing now how revenge porn

works

your ex-boyfriends your upload your

photos on youtube and all that

or maybe some pawn site so this guy had

my number what he could do

put it out right so this is a very this

is the kind of sentiments you have

have and it’s unfortunate

so now this is the very important thing

by now i don’t know how many of you are

still interested in listening to me

i have a feeling that you must be pretty

bored or all

at least 30 percent of you think that i

am troublesome

i am the one who created trouble because

the services

that 30 percent you know 30 people

agreed to this question women who

complain about

sexual harassment cause more problems

than they solve

so that is it you know once what

happened like you know my colleague a

former colleague he was like

anu radha what happened to you why are

you doing this woman woman woman

i never did that like you know we all

want to not do

gender things right because we don’t

want to be seen as like

a difficult person we want to jelly we

want to fit in

we don’t want to say that we are having

any so like when did you

start doing this gender gender thing we

always thought you were like a man

we treated you like a man and look at

you woman

you know i was like what so you know

this idea this

so i’m very sorry if that doesn’t really

work well for many people but

but this why i’m talking about it is not

to cast aspersions on anyone

i don’t want to blame my former

colleagues

or any organization it is not a blame

game here

and it’s not about an individual or an

organization but it is to speak about

that culture

speak about that culture which is hardly

discussed

many many people don’t know what it is

like it and i think it is

very important to speak now more than

ever before

because media industry is seriously in

crisis and with those in post code if

govern times it’s even worse

all right and why do we um

there are three things that you know i

really want to stress upon is

why do we need women

in journalism why

right why do we need women in journalism

because

of this yes please

because of this this is the

it you know in post curvy we all know

the what we faced

hardships we faced women suffered it

more than men

you close your eyes and this is

something you can answer right

but this was the coverage

how much how only 21 of headlines were

dedicated to women

so the stories of women don’t come out

we need more women to tell their stories

but more than that

why do we need diversity gender

diversity and by that and for them you

know it’s not just

women women from the dalit community

women from religious

minorities we need all kinds of women

here we need women

from all backgrounds we also need

persons from other genders we need

diversity

why why we need because we need to

unbiased the news

because only when we have various

perspectives

news becomes unbiased it becomes fair

and as a consumer of news

it is in your interest to read news that

is not biased right

that is why and i think you know this is

the time we

really need solutions almost a quarter

of the centuries

you know 21st century is over we cannot

have

a situation like you know i had two

years ago in darjeeling where there are

only two women

in 70 that’s pathetic we need more women

and i

and if we treat women with respect

dignity

give them what they deserve there will

be more and

more women coming in workplaces need to

be safe

we cannot have unsafe workplaces we have

to give

and most importantly we need to listen

to women

we don’t listen to them if we if they

talk

we want them out oh she talks too much

a good woman is the one who talks less

we are raised to be good girls right

well good girls don’t ask don’t

challenge

and that is what happens in newsroom

also i know journalists are not

you know they don’t think women

journalists are deserving of sympathy

because they think oh they’re strong

they’re fighting for everybody

can’t they fight for themselves but that

is not how it works

so women you have to make space for

women you have to

allow more women to come in and work

freely

express freely and when they complain

listen to the complain and don’t blame

her why do we trust men more than women

as one case of sexual harassment and the

first

thought is why is she trying to frame

him what happens to his career

they’re more bothered about his career

but what about your life

what about a woman’s life you’re

destroying her life but you don’t think

much about her

we think we are more bothered with

careers of men but maybe we can

it all needs a slight orientation you

know

just change of little change of

perspective a small change of

perspective and treat women’s career

with equal importance

we don’t do that we think for a woman

it’s easy to quit

and go we think why is she not leaving

you know

always with him let’s not put that

challenge on her

leave or either you stay here or you go

let’s not do it to her

let’s say that how can we make it better

how can we

get you more involved right so and to my

female colleagues especially in small

towns

we are so few in number as i said like i

was only

one and there was another one and you

know that’s still very few and i go them

i just look around how many are there

you know all i want is seek yourselves

out

you know gang up just gang up if not in

this town you’ll have more women in

other towns form a network

find a voice because when we speak

collectively we will be heard and me too

was that example

we really need if you are a senior

mentor a junior get somebody

and and trust each other if we don’t do

that

men will never do it for us right

with these words i end my

talk thank you very much for listening