The representation of Women in Daily Newspapers of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia

During the last centuries, the former Yugoslav Republics were marked by turbulent political, economical, and cultural transitions. National and international attention was focused on the importance of ethnic, regional and religious equality, while gender issues were sidelined.

In September 2006, the Mediacenter from Sarajevo published an interesting report: “Stereotyping: representation of women in print media in South-East Europe” (http://www.media.ba/sites/default/files/stereotyping.pdf.pdf). 

Through a very accurate methodology and a valid analytical framework, we can notice that there are no significant differences on the modes of gender representation within the media of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. From the results, women, and other gender groups, are under-represented and marginalized, while men dominate newspapers. Regarding the representation of women in newspapers, they are quite always: assigned to entertainment and private spheres, kept in background and passive, with no authority and competencies, situated in the context of family relations, limited to less serious and less responsible tasks in society than men, presented as sex objects in photos, and described with gender insensitive language. Moreover, women are rarely represented as an authoritative source of information or as an expertise; as a matter of fact, female voices are often silenced: more than 82% of interviews, direct quote and indirect quote are conducted to men. 

It is clear that newspapers systematically reconstruct and reconfirm dominant gender stereotypes in those societies. The importance of a gender sensitive language is well understood as it is well used in man-based articles (except for some positive examples from Croatia, that use it also for women). However, it seems to be ignored the possibility that an equal use of gender sensitive language both for men and women can lead to a more gender equality.

References:

http://www.rosalux.rs/userfiles/files/Prirucnik_za_medije.pdf

http://www.media.ba/sites/default/files/stereotyping.pdf.pdf

http://www.iwmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/IWMF-Global-Report-Summary.pdf

http://www.euractiv.rs/eu-prioriteti/2586-samo-treina-zaposlenih-u-medijima-su-ene