4 Ways to Champion Women’s Representation in Global Health Media

In the most recent installment of WomenLift Health’s “Gender and Power” Speaker Series, we explored the topic of “Women’s Voices & Representation in Media” with experts from India, Kenya, and the United States. Anubha Bhonsle, Founder and Editor of NewsWorthy; Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer; and Anne Mawathe, Africa Health Editor of BBC joined Michele Barry, WomenLiftHealth’s Founder and Director of Stanford Global Health to discuss the impact of diversity in media on healthcare coverage and how organizations can take steps to ensure equitable representation and elevate female voices. Here are four key takeaways from the discussion on the importance of women as subjects, reporters, sources, and newsroom and news organization leaders.



 

1. Apply a Gender Lens to Capture the Realities Women Face as Patients and Providers

When it comes to jobs and healthcare, women bear the brunt of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis because they are more likely to be health care workers, informal sector workers, and primary caregivers. According to the World Health Organization, more than 70% of the global healthcare workforce is made up of women. Women at the front lines are often underpaid, overworked, and under-resourced, which Anne Mawathe noted is exacerbated among the community healthcare workers that serve as the backbone of healthcare systems in many developing countries. Despite the pandemic’s outsize impact on women, gender-balanced, gender-sensitive perspectives in the media can be limited, and the female perspective on COVID-19 is underrepresented. Poor representation has a cost. For example, the under-reporting of the reallocation of resources from sexual and reproductive healthcare during the pandemic has contributed to the minimization of the severity of this issue amongst public health officials.

2. Fight the Perception that Health and Education Are “Soft Beats”

While women may have reached parity in the coverage of certain areas such as style or gender, they are often overlooked for “beats” in areas such as foreign policy or politics. Moreover, editors rarely allocate sufficient resources to cover beats like health and education, which are traditionally covered by women. During the discussion, Anubha Bhonsle highlighted how COVID-19 has exposed the consequences of newsrooms approaching health journalism through a narrow lens. Outlets that have historically failed to recognize the interdisciplinary nature of health media have not equipped healthcare reporters, who are more likely to be women, with tools to cover how COVID-19 impacts the economy, rural development, and other key issue areas.

3. Challenge Biases that Limit Diversity of Voices at the Top

The number of working female journalists has remained stagnant for decades, although there is gender parity in journalism school and entry-level media jobs. According to Laurie Garrett, this gap highlights journalism’s retention problem: women pursue careers in journalism, but structural failures and newsroom biases lead to poor retention. In the developing world, one of the most glaring gaps exists around programming in local languages vs. French and English language media. For example, Bhonsle and Mawathe both noted that reporters who broadcast and write in English are more likely to receive higher pay than their colleagues who cover stories in languages such as Kiswahili, Tamil, or Hindi. Because women are less likely than men to speak English or French, they are more limited in access to roles and more likely to be underpaid in comparison to their male peers. Garrett also highlighted that the language pay gap is not only unique to the developing world: Spanish-language journalists in the United States are likely to encounter similar challenges.

4. Champion Mentorship to Create Opportunities for Change

To ensure women advance in their careers and reach positions of leadership, Bhonsle, Garrett, and Mawathe all stressed the importance of mentorship and skills training to accelerate career progression. According to Garrett, this starts with dismantling old traditions, like “the boys club,” to create mentorship opportunities through socialization with colleagues at the managerial level. Mawathe also discusses access to mentorship and highlights the need to create inclusive newsrooms that accommodate the needs of women. But the role of mentorship to advance women in leadership positions doesn’t end there. Bhonsle adds in that mentors must also play a role in equipping women with the skills necessary to succeed in these positions. Catalyzing change starts with access to mentorship opportunities and skills training to advance women’s career trajectories. Hoping to learn more about how to champion women in health media?  Listen to or view the entire conversation here.