For the past year, I have been guiding my nine-year-old daughter to read the papers. I first started by getting her interested in the comics section and then moved on to simple articles. Today, she came across an article on cars with models standing in front of the cars. The question she so rightly posed to me was, 'Why are the women there?'

I, for one, firmly believe in press freedom but I also hold to the belief of responsible reporting. There is a need to balance freedom with responsibility. We all know that it is a fact that most of the mainstream media are owned by parties close to the government and this is one of the reasons why issues that impinge on the integrity of the government sometimes do not get the coverage they should. Relating back to the article in question, does it not mean that in irrelevantly publishing images of women in the media our government-controlled papers are also not adhering to their responsibilities?

Our government ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) in 1995. The government's report to the Cedaw acknowledges in Article 5 the existence of 'widespread stereotyping of women as followers and supporters rather than leaders of equal partners in Malaysian society'. Due credit must be given to our government for having identified the existence of stereotyping of women. But one needs to go further than that.

The women's groups had in their report on the Initial and Second Periodic Report of the Government of Malaysia (the "Shadow Report') said that, 'We have to identify the nature and location of this stereotyping so as to enable concrete and targeted responses to be formulated to eliminate this practices. It is a great concern that these values, as currently controlled by men, act as an impediment to persisting gender inequality. Gender stereotypes are reinforced in the mass media. Editorial control on the content still largely rests with men, as decision-makers and as such this significantly impacts upon the selection of content and newsworthiness, content and method of training staff and editorial layout'.

One of the recommendations made in the Shadow Report to the government by the women's groups was to:

  1. Conduct gender-sensitisation training with media agents (editors, journalists, photographers, layout editors, etc) in collaboration with women's groups and incorporate a gender component into laws on the media.

  • Look into the setting up of an independent Media Watch to research, monitor and analyse the content of the media from a critical gender perspective and to provide recommendations to media agents on how to overcome ongoing gender discrimination and negative imaging of women in the media.

    • When our government reports to the Cedaw committee members on May 24 in New York, I do hope our government will have a concrete plan of action with time frames to institute ongoing gender sensitisation programmes for all levels of government machinery from educators to politicians. This would save me from having to answer unanswered questions posed by my daughter.

    The writer is president, Women's Aid Organisation.