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I was cynically pleased when Communication University of China (CUC) in Beijing trumpeted the establishment of an UNESCO Chair on Media and Gender in its campus last week as the country's first journalism and communications research facility to link media studies with gender issues.
As early as in 1995, during the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, the member states promised to focus on 12 key areas to help women's advancement towards achieving gender equality. Women and media was identified as one of the priority areas of concern.
But it still took a decade before a leading - arguably the best - institution of higher learning for training media professionals decided it was time they went into that area of research.
It is not surprising, though. After all, few media executives or leading media researchers are clear about what gender issues are. Even fewer are aware of how the media can promote gender equality but can also reinforce traditional male dominance in society and stereotypical bias against women.
That is why more than a decade after China announced that achieving equality between men and women was a State policy, television programmes and newspapers continue to sensationalize misfortunes of women migrant workers and blame wives for the fall of corrupt male officials.
While farming women contribute more than 60 percent of the country's agricultural production, they hit only a very tiny percentage of news headlines. The reason is the people who pay for the news products are not interested in those who help feed and clothe them.
In TV advertisements, women always appear in ads promoting kitchenware or washing machines, while men stand out more as successful professionals.
Some TV dramas and tales on the Internet are even more blatant, where women's subservience to men is featured as the social norm.
What is sad is even the few women media executives are not aware of the problems of gender inequality in media organizations and media coverage.
I once heard a Beijing media executive proclaim that she alone has proven that gender is not a problem, because she was "doing superfine."
I myself grew up quite complacent about what I could achieve when I compared myself with most of my male peers.
I took pride not only in my academic performances in school, but also in hard physical labour in the countryside. There, I once competed with the boys in carrying two buckets of water on a shoulder pole in the fields. At lunch time, I ordered three steamed meat-rolls - the ration for boys - but one more than the girls' ration.
My argument: I did as much as the boys did.
But later on, especially during the United Nations' Fourth World Conference on Women, I learned a few personal successes cannot cover up the fact that women on the whole are still disadvantaged in education, employment and, especially, politics.
Even some of the most successful concede that although they double men's efforts, they may still hit the glass ceiling.
Despite all the misgivings, I commend the chair, Professor Liu Liqun, and her colleagues, for their pledge to shoulder a "heavy responsibility" to promote women's media power and develop mainstream gender awareness in media and society.
They seem resolved in what they will do, as Professor Liu proclaimed: "Gender equality and empowering women are key features of the Millennium Goals (set by the United Nations).
"Media, as an important part of society's communication, has a strong impact on gender equality and development."
I can only hope for success in the centre's research and projections, and wish more media researchers and workers follow suit and make gender equality one of their key concerns in their work.
Above all, with 70 percent of the nation's illiterates and more than half of the poverty-stricken population being women, gender equality is a major contributing factor towards a harmonious and well-off society.
(China Daily September 29, 2005)
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