Dr Charity Binka, Executive Director, Women and Change (WOMEC), has urged women in the media to challenge themselves by defying all odds to get to top positions in their organisations.
She said women in the media must be challenged enough to be able to do something different, not only for themselves but for the many young women looking up to them.
“When we begin to have such conversations and begin to get ourselves empowered to speak up to be more assertive, we would be emboldened to apply for positions.”
Dr Binka made the call during a four-day training on women empowerment in Ghana for female journalists across the country, organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) in partnership with Canal France International CFI, on Tuesday, in Accra.
The training forms part of series of capacity building workshops under “The Equal Voice Project” by the MFWA, which started last year.
She said the project was aimed at making the media space better for women and getting women journalists at the top for more gender sensitive reportage.
It is specifically for the women to be able to have their exclusive space to be able to discuss their issues, identify the challenges they face and strategies to be able to climb to the top.
“The media is a male dominated field, and right from the beginning women were not there, so our being there is more like we are crowding their space, but we must also claim the space because nobody gives power to anybody. We are not taking power from anybody, but we must find our own power within that space.”
Madam Adizatu Moro Maiga, Senior Programme Officer, Media and Good Governance, MFWA, said the four-day training was to empower women to take up managerial roles within the newsroom.
“Over the years, women within the media are not highly positioned. In terms of content production and assignment, women are always limited to the so-called softer assignment, which continuously undermine their abilities and position.”
She noted that media content production should be gendered such that women got to see themselves within the programmes that were aired.
“We have built the capacities of both male and female managers in media space, but this particular one is for women from eight media houses across the country to build their capacities and get their concerns and together see how to address them.”
