Women, especially black women, are still largely absent from the higher ranks of South Africa’s media organisations — and they earn considerably less than their male colleagues do.
These are the findings of a new study by the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) that forms part of its long-term study of the glass ceiling in South African media.
“Women are still under-represented in decision-making positions,” said Collen Lowe Morna, the executive director of Gender Links, said at the presentation of the report in Rosebank, Johannesburg, on Thursday, World Press Freedom Day.
The study builds on a qualitative study released by Sanef in August last year and shows where women are located within the hierarchy and work of newsrooms. It also analyses related conditions of service and employment practices in the newsrooms of nine media houses surveyed.
After the first study, it was apparent that “patriarchy and sexism is alive and well”, Morna said. The second part of the study provides facts and figures needed to set realistic goals of achieving gender parity.
Apart from managerial positions, the report also notes a scarcity of women reporting on hard news — but all is not gloom and doom. “There is a progressive trend towards gender parity in terms of the numbers,” Morna said on Thursday.
The report concurs: “There are considerable differences between the media houses surveyed (representing over half of all newsroom employees in the country) with some having a majority women in senior management and others none at all.”
On average, women earn 20% less than men in newsrooms, and black women earn 25% less than white men.
The 2006 study found that discriminatory practices, patriarchy and sexism, among others, were still alive and well in South African newsrooms, prohibiting South Africa’s women journalists from realising their potential.
Subsequently, an audit of women in newsrooms was conducted in collaboration with Gender Links. Questionnaires were submitted to the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the Citizen, Kaya FM, Media24, Primedia, the South African Press Association, the Independent Group of newspapers, Johncom, and the Mail & Guardian.
Though gender balance is close to being achieved on average in newsrooms (45% women), there are differences between media houses. For example, Kaya FM and Primedia have more than 70% women in newsrooms, compared with the Citizen (29%). There are also major racial differences. Black women, who constitute 46% of the population, only account for 18% of newsroom staff.
Moving out of the news trenches, women are not part of the boys’ club. They occupy less than 30% of top-management posts and constitute one out of three senior managers in newsrooms. Conversely, they comprise 48% of junior managers and almost 70% of all semi-skilled workers in the newsroom, the study found. Several newsrooms do not have any women at top and senior management levels.
“I do think senior men think they are gender sensitive when, in fact, they are not. And the fact that they do not know that they do not know is even worse than to argue/debate with those who are outright discriminating,” said one respondent.
“But this is not because of any formal discrimination,” Morna said at the report’s launch on Thursday. People who do the same job earn the same amount; the disparity lies in the types of jobs that men and women tend to do. “It is inbuilt in the kinds of jobs people are doing, rather than any blatant discrimination across levels,” she said.
Women rule the roost in the presenter and administrative categories, but 86% of those employed in technical jobs are male. In reporting, male journalists dominate hard beats (such as politics, economics, investigative reporting and crime) — and constitute more than 90% of sports reporters. Female journalists are predominant in entertainment, education and general reporting.
“Men are more likely to have the best of all deals,” Morna said, adding that news beats are significant as they are “very critical” in terms of promotions later on.
“We were surprised; we expected to find more gender benders,” she admitted, questioning whether beat assignments are the result of editorial decisions or whether they have to do with journalists’ comfort zones. “It’s something we need to be conscious about,” she said.
Amina Frense, Sanef’s Gauteng convener, agreed, saying “editors should encourage people to get out of their comfort zones” and that there is a need for formal, constructive executive coaching in the editorial process.
Racial imbalances
When it comes to black males, there have been “deliberate investments” into redressing racial imbalances, but black women account for a mere 6% of top and senior management in newsrooms.
“The hostile environment includes being ignored, being undermined, being belittled and assumptions about competence (ie, an assumption that women are less competent). This works across colour — black men are as unsympathetic to black women as white men are to white women. Also … black men are particularly hostile to white women who they feel should move out of the way,” said a respondent.
The study also found that, in general, newsrooms with a higher proportion of women in decision- making positions also have higher levels of gender parity among the overall staff.
Men often get better employment deals and a higher pay cheque. They are more likely than women to be employed in open-ended full-time contracts, while women are more likely to be contracted on a part-time basis or a fixed full-time contract — but again there was variation between media houses.
“At R184 387 per annum, the annual average salary of women in newsrooms is 21% less than the average annual salary of men (R233 737). The income differential between white men and black women is especially pronounced: while the income differential between white men and black men in newsrooms is narrowing, black women earn, on average 25% less than white men in newsrooms,” the study found.
“Look at how much effort and investment has been put in by owners into having skilled black/African male editors of standing and substance running their media titles … Has this been done with prospective women editors? Let alone African women? Mostly, it appears not: maybe the obstacles are seen as too big to tackle now,” commented a respondent.
Looking ahead
None of the media houses in the study could point to specific targets for ensuring gender equality as part of the Employment Equity Act obligations. “It surprised and shocked us,” Morna said. “Without targets you don’t have a plan.”
Only two companies had gender policies, although 12 had sexual harassment policies (almost half of the media houses showed interest in developing a gender policy, though).
Based on the findings of the study, Sanef recommends that a media action plan on gender be adopted to focus on awareness raising of the research and workshops to discuss these findings, and that its members be assisted with strategic targets and time frames to achieve gender parity by 2015.
“SADC [the Southern African Development Community] is about to adopt targets of gender parity in all aspects, including media, by 2015 … This is not an unrealistic target, it’s doable,” Morna said.
She feels positive that in about five years, the media industry will see even greater change. Using the greater national demographic as an example, she said 13 years ago the percentage of women in Parliament was just 2,2%; today this has increased to 32%.
Sanef also advises one-on-one engagement with members that participated in the study to determine priority actions, and that pilot projects are launched to develop gender policies with interested members as part of the regional Media Action Plan on HIV/Aids and Gender.
Other recommendations include the development of templates for policies, sharing of good practice, training and development programmes, and regular monitoring and evaluation — including repeating this study every five years.
Sanef deputy chairperson Thabo Leshilo said on Thursday he was personally encouraged by attempts to correct gender imbalances in newsrooms, but added that a lack of significant female players in the media “affects the voice of journalism”.
“The issue of voice is very, very important; it has an effect on what society perceives as important.” Having an overwhelming amount of male voices negatively affects the news product, Leshilo said.