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