Over the past ten years, the Ombudsperson for Gender Equality Višnja Ljubičić has conducted several gender analyses of the media, for example in 2019 on the representation of topics related to the equality of men and women and on the representation of men and women in news programs, and in 2021, the research “Gender Analysis of Daily Newspaper Front Pages”. We discussed continuous monitoring of media trends, complaints about media content, and greater inclusion of Roma women in media content during the roundtable “Roma Women and the Media”, in which Višnja Ljubičić significantly deepened the understanding of the topic “(In)visibility of Roma Women in the Croatian Media” with her presentation.
What are the key results of the gender analysis of the media that you conducted and what is the situation in the media today in relation to gender equality? Is the portrayal of women changing, especially when we know that the Recommendation CM/Rec(2019)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on preventing and combating sexism was adopted in 2019?
The Ombudsperson for Gender Equality, within the scope of her competences prescribed by the Gender Equality Act (OG 82/08, 138/12 and 69/17), continuously monitors media trends and addresses them through independently prepared analyses and annual work reports, in a separate chapter entitled “Media”. Over the years, we have conducted numerous media analyses, which without exception point to the conclusion that women today are still a gender that is in a far subordinate position in the media space, both in terms of significant underrepresentation and in terms of the manner of presentation, while positive shifts towards more egalitarian presentation are taking place at a slow pace.
For example, the “Gender Analysis of Daily Newspaper Front Pages” (2021) confirmed the continuously present negative trends. Women in the media continue to be a significantly underrepresented gender that is portrayed in an unequal manner compared to men. The analysis specifically showed that women as the main characters on the front pages of daily newspapers were represented in 23 percent of the titles, and men in 77 percent of the titles. Another bad indicator is that of the front pages where the main characters are women, as many as a third of them are in a sensationalist tone. It also confirmed the established trend of presenting women as decorations for media content with an emphasis on female sexuality, which is especially emphasized on the front pages during the tourist season when women are reduced to a decorative element in order to attract attention to the “beauty of the Croatian Adriatic”. It is clear that this is a sexist practice that promotes the objectification of women, as a result of historically conditioned unequal power relations between women and men, where women have the role of passive decorative objects who, with their carefully groomed appearance, put the value of superficial aesthetics in the foreground at the expense of other qualities, and in this way find themselves in the role of standardizing the standards of beauty and complying with social norms determined by the ruling elite, which is traditionally made up of men. Such a structure, whose legacy goes back to the era of patriarchy, is very difficult and slow to deconstruct.
One of our slightly older analyses (2012), in which we also analyzed the front pages, but not of daily newspapers but of Internet portals, yielded interesting and indicative data. In the photographs published as breaking news on the portal’s front page, there were 80% men and 20% women, with women being shown half-dressed or undressed in every third photograph. We particularly noticed that a significant number of photographs (290; 2 percent of the total number of the analyzed sample) practiced a form of crude objectification, showing a man or woman without a head and with a focus on some part of the body. As expected, such a practice is generally characteristic of depictions of women — men were shown “decapitated” in 6 percent of cases, and women in 94 percent of cases.
Although today, the concentration of criticism and awareness of various gender equality issues in society is at a higher level than ever before, including in the case of the media, the strategies of media attention-grabbing are deeply rooted and, although the differences in the portrayal of women and men with signs of discrimination are gradually being mitigated in both quantitative and qualitative terms, the media still contribute to maintaining unequal power relations between the sexes. In addition to the Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec (2019)1 on preventing and combating sexism, we have a number of other national and international regulations and documents that touch on this issue in whole or in part and whose function is to encourage faster progress in this area. We have also identified space for improving media standards, and for this purpose we have developed the “Media Code – a guide to professional and sensitive reporting on violence against women and femicide” (2019). These regulations and documents are primarily a means by which reporting standards are attempted to be raised to a higher level, with a greater degree of awareness and respect for human rights. Therefore, the way in which the prescribed norms are implemented and applied, or to what extent they are respected, is extremely important. It is precisely in this segment that we still have a lot of room for progress. The standards we want to achieve have been set, but there is still a lot of work to be done to achieve them. Given the firmly rooted structural determinants that condition the current state of the media, it is certain that assume that the process of achieving real gender equality in the media will be long-term.
To what extent do women and men complain about the ways in which the media represents women and men? To what extent is the awareness of gender equality developed among media users? What in the media particularly bothers recipients of media content in relation to the gender-equal portrayal of men and women?
The Office of the Gender Equality Ombudsman receives between 60 and 70 complaints about media content annually, which makes up between 12 percent and 13 percent of the total number of cases. As a rule, these are complaints about discrimination against women in the media, and therefore complaints are most often filed by women. Since the establishment of the institution in 2003 until today, following the development of media trends and the reaction of citizens to them, we can say that in the last 20 years or so, there has been a gradual increase in criticism, sensitivity and awareness of examples of gender discrimination in the media. As time goes by, we are gradually starting to receive more and more complaints of higher quality in terms of their merits and relevance. This is important because it gives us a good basis from an institutional level for acting and combating discriminatory practices.
As for the type of complaints we receive, they generally relate to some form of sexist or gender stereotypical portrayal of women. Since these harmful practices are widely present not only in the media and electronic media, but also in the Internet and public space, there is no specific pattern according to which standard characteristics of a “typical complaint” could be determined. The problem is still widespread to such an extent that we receive complaints of a very diverse content.
In your opinion, what can be done to improve the inclusion of women belonging to national minorities in media content, especially Roma women, who are certainly one of the most excluded groups in Croatian society?
Precisely because in the case of Roma women, they are the most marginalized, most excluded and generally most vulnerable group in Croatian society, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of the role of the media in encouraging a gradual change in perception of the characteristics of this group, among which stereotypes and prejudices that stand in the way of emancipation and integration into social flows continue to dominate. A positive and affirmative media approach is necessary, through which it is necessary to emphasize all the qualities and potentials that remain unused due to deprived living conditions, poor starting positions and the uninspiring environment that the Roma national minority and women in particular encounter. It is precisely because of such life circumstances that Roma women need positive role models of independent and well-off women from their environment who are progressive in the areas of education, employment and work. The vicious circle of poverty, lack of prospects and unequal relations with men, which is often characterized by complete material dependence on the man in the family, must be broken by promoting different life patterns and paths that lead to a better and higher quality life.
