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1992 Global Summit of Women Press
July 13, 1992, CITY
EDITION
“Forum urges governments to act on
gender equality”
By Mary Cummins, Women's Affairs
Correspondent
URGENT research into diseases which are only
beginning to affect women since the increase in their numbers in the
workplace must be carried out as a priority, Senator Joaquima Alemany
Roca, a Spanish politician, told delegates to the Global Forum of Women
in Dublin at the weekend. In spite of scientific and social progress,
women's health continued to be a neglected field in terms of money and
medical practice, she added. They were suffering from specific problems
and needs which required specific resolution. Over the weekend, which
included musical evening at Trinity College on Saturday night, delegates
and speakers covered subjects such as women and the arts, new visions of
economic leadership , the media and rethinking food "as a macro-economic
issue". At the conclusion of the forum yesterday Ms Betty Friedan
announced that a third global summit meeting for women would take place
in Barcelona in two years' time. Ms Friedan chaired the final session in
the absence of the summit director, Ms Irene Natividad, who had already
left to run a women's section of the Democratic Party convention in New
York this week, a spokeswoman said. The Dublin summit wrapped up the
four-day "New Visions of Leadership" meeting with some moderate
recommendations. These had emanated from a variety of sessions ranging
from issues on crisis in world leadership, women in private-sector
leadership, health, the arts, work and family, the economy and the
media. The proposals, which are already defined policies of most women
in politics and other organisations, included at least 40/60
representation at all decision-making levels. They urged governments to
integrate progressive affirmative action" to achieve gender equality.
They sought to activate the woman's vote for change in their lives and
encouraged "the setting up of a global network to monitor how the media
generally cover women, their issues and their lives". They also demanded
that governments should not impinge on women's personal decisions about
family planning or having abortions. Speaking on "Media and the Changing
Image of Women", on Saturday, Ms Kathy Bonk, president of Communications
Consortium in the US, declared that "ownership of newspapers and other
outlets should now be the vision for women". She believed that this
ambition represented the only seed of hope for women since they would
never be able to get an accurate, fair and equal coverage while these
businesses were owned and controlled by men. Ms Mitsuko Shimomura,
editor-in-chief of the Asahi Journal in Japan, described the
difficulties and triumphs she had encountered since getting a senior job
over the heads of four men. The problems had included the lack of any
role model and "establishing a new kind of female leadership". She had
found it a great help in working with career women in other jobs and in
helping to get women's issues taken "out of the women's pages". She
cited some instances where she had managed to change the perception that
women's issues did not constitute political coverage. Several speakers
declared that it is "commercial interests" which will change. newspapers
and other media coverage of women's issues. Ms Jennie Buckner, vice-
president for news at KnightRidder, a US media organisation, declared
that she had seen the stirrings of serious change because newspapers
were "trying to win back women." It had been discovered that if as many
women as men read newspapers, publications would have an increase of
some four million readers a day. Now "she said - many newspapers were
conducting analyses into what women wanted to read. .and into their
opinions about how the news was presented. It had been shown that many
women believed that much newspaper coverage had no apparent relevance
to their lives". Also, she added, they had "failed to connect" with the
lavish fashion spreads of expensive clothes modelled by women whose
bodies did not seem "real" to the readers. Ms Friedan outlined the
findings of a US survey which showed that 85 per cent of reports and
picture coverage on the front pages of several newspapers were about men
- with the remaining 15 per cent given to women. The survey had found
that this was not the result of a conspiracy among men in journalism. It
reflected "a blind spot", she said, "which reflected and shaped the
status of women in the larger society". During the Anita Hill/Clarence
Thomas hearings, further studies had shown that only one in 10 of the
public asked for their opinion on the issue was a woman. This had
continued during the recent breast-implants scandal, and when it was
pointed out, the managers of television stations and newspapers doubled
this ratio. Ms Danielle Debbas, a journalist from Canada, described how,
in order to change advertising policies which portrayed women in
additional and unrealistic roles", they had managed to establish an
annual award for the most sexist advertisement. This had first hit a
product called "Mr Clean", which had been damaged commercially and
embarrassed by the publicity when its manufacturers won the award.
Within weeks they were seeking advice as to how they should portray
women. Ms Debbas said the problem had disappeared in quite a short time.
"We must realise we have economic clout even if we are not individually
rich", she said. During this session, The Irish Times and specifically
this reporter were strongly attacked from the platform and the floor for
writing a piece in last Saturday's newspaper which gave an account of
some of the organisational problems that were evident at the summit.
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