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Magazine
‘By our lady correspondents’
NIRUPAMA SUBRAMANIAN
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A new initiative in Pakistan focuses on the famous and not-so famous women in journalism: their profiles and contribution to the growth of media in the country.
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In Pakistan, only an estimated five per cent of all journalists are women.
Photos: AP
Role models: Sherry Rehman and Maleeha Lodhi are well-known faces in Pakistani media and politics.
We know them well; the elegant Sherry Rehman and Maleeha Lodhi, high-profile women who ably headed publications in Pakistan until they moved on to even more high-profile jobs — Sherry, as the editor of the monthly Herald before plunging into a political career that saw her become the minister of Information and Broadcasting in the PPP-led government before she resigned in March; and Maleeha, as ambassador of previous regimes, military and civilian, first in the all important capital, Washington D.C, and later in London, and before that as the editor of The News, the first and only woman to make it to the top of a daily newspaper.
But there have been many other women in Pakistani journalism, some equally famous and others faceless. To all of them, Uks, a Pakistani non-government resource, research and publication centre on women in media, has paid a novel tribute — a diary for 2009, containing a valuable collection of profiles of all women journalists in Pakistan, their individual achievements and their collective contribution over the years to the development of a vibrant media that is such a force in the country today.
The trendsetters
Television rules the media roost in Pakistan, as it does in India. But two generations before Asma Shirazi became the face of the Pakistani woman television journalist — head demurely covered with a hijab but fearlessly and confidently taking on politicians, officials and anyone else in her line of fire — the diary reminds us that there was Razia Bhatti. Of her, Eqbal Ahmed, the well-known political thinker and writer, wrote: “She was always in official disfavour. She understood better than most of us that the relationship between power and the press must necessarily be adversarial if the latter is to fulfil its professional and moral obligation to the public”.
Bhatti was editor of the monthly Herald for a dozen years that almost exactly coincided with the dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, a period most Pakistanis regard as the darkest in their six-decade history. For journalists, it was a period of censorship and repression, but Bhatti was not easily intimidated. She left Herald, shortly before Zia’s 1988 death, in protest against attempts to muzzle the magazine. Other journalists in the magazine left with her, and a year later, they founded Newsline, another fiercely independent monthly. Bhatti died in 1996 at the age of 52, and many still miss her presence.
Even before Bhatti was Zaibunissa Hamidullah, Pakistan’s first woman political commentator, columnist and editor. She joined Dawn newspaper immediately after independence, and her column “Thru’ a Woman’s Eyes” began in 1948. But she soon rebelled against the limited scope of the column, and persuaded the editor to allow her to comment on all subjects, including politics. Her column was upgraded to the editorial page. She later left Dawn to found a magazine called Mirror, becoming an outspoken critic of the Ayub regime. For this, her magazine was banned twice, with General Ayub Khan dismissing Zaibunissa as “rashly emotional”.
Among the nuggets of information in the diary is a little-publicised event: in August 2006, Zahida Hina, a noted columnist, essayist, fiction-writer and dramatist, writing in the Urdu Daily Express, declined to accept Pakistan’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Pride of Performance Award, as a mark of protest against military rule in the country.
Also tucked in are interesting anecdotes about the working conditions for women in Pakistani media. One, by well-known journalist Beena Sarwar, recalls that women reporters in Urdu publications were for long not given by-lines. Their reports were always “By Our Lady Correspondent”.
Gloomy picture
But if the diary, called “Women of Pakistan: Striving for Visibility and Power in the Media”, is a feel-good chronicle of women in Pakistani media, a recent study by Uks presents a gloomier picture. The study, titled “From Classrooms to Newsrooms — Promoting Media as a Career for Women in Pakistan”, found that while Pakistani women may be more visible in the media today, especially with the proliferation of television channels, their working conditions have not come very far from the days of “our lady correspondent”.
Their presence in the media has grown, but horizontally rather than vertically. They are still dogged by gender discrimination on several fronts, from the type of assignments they are set — typically “soft” reportage — to discriminatory salaries, sexual harassment at the work place, and working conditions such as dress code and availability of transport for late night duties, which women say is just another way of keeping them out of the meatier assignments in journalism. So much so that the number of women who have an education in journalism is not reflected in the numbers entering the profession.
Shirazi, who is a well-recognised anchor with ARY television, describes her story as a “battle for survival” against hostile male colleagues. But she is exceptional too. Pregnant with her first child, she is setting a new trend for Pakistani women with her determination not to let her condition come in the way of her work. As of now, she is determined to do her programmes until the last possible minute.
If more women like Shirazi were employed in Pakistani media, they could be agents of social change in society. Not only would they be role-models for other women, but it could also lead to changes in the way the media looks at women’s issues. Unfortunately, that is not the case now.
“Women are not given their due place either in the newsroom or in news stories. The two factors are closely linked to each other. When more women are employed in the newsroom it means better projection of women related issues,” she said. But as the Uks diary informs, in Pakistan, only an estimated five per cent of all journalists are women.
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