Video




Gender Inequality in Asia


The lack of female representation in news production and coverage has long been a contentious issue in the industry. A recent study found that only a little more than a third of news stories worldwide were being written by female reporters. Moreover, while mainstream media outlets in Western countries have proactively addressed the issue through such initiatives as the BBC’s “50:50 Project,” those in Asia and Oceania have remained behind the curve, with another recent report indicating that less than a quarter of positions in the industry were being filled by women.

Data - Asia

All


Research has documented the dimensions of the problem, in particular, a longitudinal study launched by the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) in 1995 comparing participation in the news industry globally by men and women based on the published bylines of stories. The data have been collected at five-year intervals, with 114 countries participating in 2015. The findings indicated that female reporters wrote an average of only 37% of the published stories in that year—though this number did represent an increase of 9% over the finding in the first year of the study that women wrote 28% of stories. More specifically, women in 2015 reported 41% of the stories on radio, 38% of those on television, and 35% of those in newspapers; thus, women were most underrepresented in newspapers.

The situation is even worse in Asia. Thus, a recent IMWF report found that only 20.7% of news industry workers in Asia and Oceania were female and that women occupied just 9.2% of top management positions.

Data from the Worlds of Journalism indicate, not surprisingly, that a strong correlation exists between the proportion of women working in journalism and the proportion of women in top editorial positions. Correlation does not, of course, necessarily entail causation, but it seems clear that national markets in which a relatively large proportion of women are working in journalism also tend to be characterized by relatively large numbers of women in top editorial positions. Nevertheless, in nine of the ten markets represented in the data, a significantly larger proportion of women were working as journalists than the proportion of women employed as top editors (the United States was the only exception to this trend).







The problem of underrepresentation in newsroom compounds and is compounded by the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace. The fact is that most female journalists in China have at some point been subjected to varying degrees of this form of abuse while performing their professional duties—83.7% of them, according to an online survey conducted in Hong Kong by Sophia Huang Xueqin, an independent journalist and founder of Anti-Sexual Harassment (ATSH), a WeChat public account through which victims can share stories, find tips and counseling, and advocate for equal rights.

Huang also found that 57.3% of the victims chose to remain silent, only 3.2% reported the abuse to their companies, and only 0.6% reported the abuse to the police. Of those who remained silent, more than 60% of were of the opinion it would be useless and indeed counterproductive to report an incident, and nearly half expressed concern that doing so could impact their privacy, career opportunities, and personal lives. Nearly half also expressed uncertainty regarding the most effective strategy for responding to workplace sexual harassment.







Most of the respondents to a survey conducted by the Korea Woman Journalist Club reported having experienced gender discrimination and were of the opinion that the problem is prevalent in the Korean newspaper industry. Many of these journalists also reported discrimination with respect to story or beat assignments, including being told that certain stories were too dangerous or otherwise inappropriate for women to cover. Some had been denied assignments or transferred out of departments because they were pregnant or had children at home; in other cases, male managers had rejected requests by seasoned female journalists for new and more challenging jobs on the grounds that they were too old—even those in their 30s. In addition, a disproportionate number of newspaperwomen had only been assigned to work “soft” news beats, which offer limited opportunities for career advancement.







The South Asian media forum Media Rumble collaborated with UN Women on a 2019 study of 1,967 TV news professionals who had participated in debates on television channels operating in India. It was found that only 15.7% of these participants were women. Moreover, several of the channels featured all-male panels, or “manels,” in at least half of the debates that they aired. These included CNN News18, Republic TV, Times Now, India Today, and Rajya Sabha TV, the latter presenting manels in 82.0% of its debates.

In fact, the only area in which women enjoyed equal representation on the English-language Indian channels was anchoring.







A 2019 study by the Reuters Institute found that the proportion of women in top editorial positions varied significantly across a sample of 10 national markets. At one end of the spectrum, in Japan, none of the outlets surveyed employed a woman as a senior editor; at the other end, in South Africa, nearly half of the senior editors (47%) were women. In any case, most of the top editors in each of the ten markets were men.

Irrespective of the sectors in which they are employed, women still earn less money than men in most developed countries around the world. This gender pay gap is measured as the difference between male and female earnings as a percentage of male average earnings. According to the most recent statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the gap was especially pronounced in Korea, where the percentage difference in full-time earnings between men and women was 34.6%, and Japan, where the difference was 24.5%.







From June 2019 to January 2020, protests were staged every weekend in Hong Kong against a controversial extradition bill proposed by the local government, and the protesters have been reemerging as measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic have been relaxed. Journalists on the front lines covering the protests, including conflicts between protesters and police, have been intentionally assaulted by the latter. Hong Kong journalists have staged several protests to assert their rights in the face of this treatment, but the hostility of law enforcement toward members of the press has not abated, and it has frequently involved gender-based harassment of women.

Regarding the sources of the harassment of journalists, 38% of respondents to a recent survey of members of the press of both genders by Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) reported having been verbally abused by police; 23% reported harassment by citizen onlookers; 20% reported harassment by protesters; 7% reported harassment by other members of the press; and 1% reported harassment by members of organized crime gangs that they were covering. Among those who reported having been the victims of physical attacks, 45% attributed the abuse to the police, 18% to demonstrators, 12% to citizen onlookers, and 8% to fellow journalists.

Moreover, 24% of respondents to the HKBU survey felt that female journalists endured gender discrimination in Hong Kong society generally, 14% perceived that gender discrimination was an issue in the newsroom, and 1% believed that gender influenced editors’ assignments of journalists to cover the protests.







According to a report by the Taiwan Executive Yuan’s Directorate General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics, that country showed the greatest gender equality among Asian countries in 2018 and ranked eighth among countries worldwide in this regard. Indicators from three aspects of the UN Development Program’s Gender Inequality Index (the figure for Taiwan was 0.0056), namely reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market equality, informed the statistical comparison of Taiwan with other countries.







None of the Philippine companies surveyed recently by the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) had a specific policy on gender equality in place, though such policies might be considered unnecessary following passage of the national Magna Carta on Women in 2009. By contrast, all but one of the companies (83%) had implemented a policy on sexual harassment. Moreover, all had adopted maternity- and paternity-leave policies that included the return of women to the same jobs after the leave. Only two-thirds of the companies offered some form of child-care assistance, though all but one (83%) offered training intended to promote the advancement of women. Overall, then, Philippine newsrooms appear to be characterized by relatively strong policies on maternity, paternity, sexual harassment, and so on that promote gender equality.

It is also noteworthy that a significant majority of journalists employed by Filipino companies, male and female, were found to offer full-time regular employment with benefits. Approximately the same proportions of women (43%) and men (56%) held regular full-time positions.




Report