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feature
Breaking Write Through the Glass Ceiling
In journalism, as in most other fields, top positions have
traditionally had men in their chairs. But the status quo is not going unchallenged. No
longer paperdolls, women are moving up the journalistic ladder. Caryn Voigt
and Maryke Spijkerman spoke to a cross-section of South African
women journalists about whine, women and work in the South African Press.
American women in journalism have a war to thank: the Second World War. With the men away, the women could work. They were thrust into editorial rooms, press offices and printing houses. No attempt at theoretical justification was needed.
In South Africa, changes have taken longer. From the fall of Apartheid to the writing of the new Constitution, the transformation has been radical, but largely theoretical. Equality for women is enshrined in the Constitution, but what does this mean in practice? Have doors finally swung open or is the latch still out of reach?
The Star’s City Editor, Paula Fray, thinks some doors still need a nudge: "At entry level, where the pay is poor and the responsibilities at a minimum, journalism is very accessible to women." But a less rosy picture emerges as the journalistic ranks are ascended.
"Virtually every newsroom has a strong component of female reporters. However, whether intentional or not, a 'glass ceiling' exists, and women in policy-making positions are the exception, rather than the rule."
Dr Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, who heads the SABC’s boardroom table, is one such exception.
Another exceptional woman is Jill Chisholm, recently appointed Editor-in-Chief of Television News Productions (TNP). Jill has thirty years’ experience in the print and electronic media. As ringmaster of TNP, she daily walks the tight-rope, deciding between what we see and what we don’t.
Giving direction to the moving pictures behind the headlines, are Linda Vermaas, Roberta Durant, Marie Bruyns and Harriet Garshon. Their programmes share a winning ingredient: giving faces to facts.
Vermaas was the executive director of provocative Carte Blanche until June. Durant, Bruyns and Garshon all head production companies, responsible for ground-breaking actuality (Future Imperfect) and human interest programmes (People and Ordinary People).
Shaping events
In the realm of print media, Jane Raphaely reigns supreme as the doyenne of South African magazine journalism. South Africa’s thriving women’s magazine industry makes it hard to believe that this niche was once vacant.
Jane followed an indirect route: from advertising to public relations and, finally - when approached by Nasionale Pers to start its first English women’s magazine - to journalism. "I leapt at the chance to start a magazine because I had always loved reading magazines and there were no good ones in English in South Africa... I had a very strong feeling, as a feminist and a humanist, that women’s magazines could play a role in shaping events for women if they were edited properly."
A feeling that paid off. The South African women’s magazine market is thriving. Sarie Editor, Lizette Rabe, says she knew she had a future in magazines. "Magazine journalism is more people and woman-friendly than a newspaper. If a woman is married - and especially when she has a family - a newspaper, alas, is a woman-unfriendly place."
But this has led droves of women to specialize in women’s magazines. Is the market not saturated? Lizette definitely agrees: "The magazine market in general, within the relatively small South African framework, is saturated. There is a war raging out there on the news-stands."
Ghosts from the past
Another war - against old prejudices - persists. Sarie’s profile interviewer, Hanlie Retief, says being a woman helps ... sometimes: "In some instances, people trust women more easily. But the prejudices generated by a chauvinist environment are also impediments: women are patronised. The man you are interviewing thinks you won’t understand what he’s talking about."
Newspaper columnist and magazine journalist, Nomavenda Mathiane, agrees: "As a woman, I am able to access news because although I am a journalist, society does not see a newspaper when they see me. They see a woman; someone concerned. When a man approaches an article, the male thing overshadows the writer in him and people get their backs up."
Women journalists’ tendency to pursue the 'human interest' angle sometimes leads to a better story. Freelance journalist and award-winning author, Marita van der Vyver, got her first front page story for this very reason. "My story was about the Springbok team going overseas. I preferred not to talk to 'the boys' about rugby, so I concentrated on the families staying behind. The next day the entire front page of the newspaper was filled with my stories and photographs ... all with human interest angles!"
Ruda Landman, Carte Blanche anchor and freelance journalist, believes "women are able to dig deeper, because they do it with charm - the man on the other side of the microphone does not expect you to pursue an issue exhaustively. After all, you are such a cute girl!"
But does being cute always lead to a story? Not necessarily. Nomavenda Mathiane remembers being relegated to women’s issues. "We were to write about recipes and fashion. Nothing serious or important. There were also horoscopes and love problems which female journalists had to solve. We were not even journalists, we were reporters. Editors’ secretaries were more important than us."
Hanlie Retief confirms this: "There used to be the old Nasionale Pers prejudices that women were only in journalism to catch a good man or for a few years’ good employment, before marrying and having children. Newspapers were - until recently - rather inaccessible in certain fields, for example politics. Women tended to end up in the 'softer' departments such as the women’s pages. This is slowly beginning to change, though."
Sowetan political reporter, Pam Dube, states emphatically, "It is not easy. We are still living in a male dominated world. As a political reporter, I find it extremely difficult to break the barriers and say 'I am here...and I am as capable as my male colleagues.'"
In certain journalistic spheres, access remains a problem, especially in an economy where employment opportunities are scarce. This means an all-out battle to secure a position in traditionally male-dominated fields, particularly management.
"Management is, by and large, pale and male, and breaking into this inner circle is difficult," says Paula Fray. "Women are confronted with indirect, subtle discrimination, rather than specific obstacles. This is much more difficult to counter than blatant discrimination."
Thembeka Nkamba of the SABC, confirmed suspicions that the media establishment remains the domain of men, who decide what is newsworthy. "Women still hold the lowest status in the organisational hierarchy," she said, addressing a conference on Women and the Media in June this year.
Does the male-dominated media in South Africa alienate women? If so, what makes them persevere?
Ruda Landman is motivated by PBS’s Bill Moyers, when he says, "A journalist enjoys a licence to be educated in public; we are the lucky ones, allowed to spend our days in a continuing course of adult education."
For Nomavenda Mathiane it is "being the eyes and the ears of the people" which takes precedence over everything else. "What excited me about the 1994 election was that I was literate and able to write about the whole process as it unfolded before me. The fact that, as a black person, I was able to chronicle history, made the 1994 election very special to me."
Pam Dube echoes this, saying she feels "informed...and having to get first-hand information, makes me feel privileged." Her "lust for knowledge" is her driving force.
Hanlie Retief enjoys "the licence to ask questions and poke my nose where I would not ordinarily have been allowed to. The licence to be interested in absolutely anything and the right to - in ignorance - make a fool of yourself. Knowing all the time you’re learning...the whole world is your playground. There is diversity; there are creative challenges; there is also the satisfaction of knowing you have portrayed someone accurately or that your article has made a difference."
Faustain bargains
While all of these women choose to stay in journalism, the sacrifices remain significant. Does a successful career necessarily entail a Faustian bargain?
SABC crime reporter and Artes award-winner, Hesley Harmse, attests to the difficulty of keeping one’s distance amid the horror of lives invaded by violence and crime. Empathy has disadvantages. Becoming emotionally involved in the lives of victims and their loved ones is draining and demanding.
"I get some safety blankets to hold onto for protection. I don’t want to look at dead bodies, but sometimes I have to." Having covered the St James Church massacre, the Heidelberg pub shooting and the much publicised 'Station Strangler' case, she has seen her share of horror.
"When a grandmother tells you her grandchild has seen more dead bodies than birthdays and a birthday present is a bunch of withering flowers on a grave, you know pain runs deep."
While personal sacrifices abound, money doesn’t. Pam Dube admits, "I was ruled by the heart, not the head. Some of my college friends still question my sanity when we compare our salary packages. Journalism is the wrong field for those thinking in monetary terms."
Poor remuneration aside, Fair Lady editor and mother of two, Roz Wrottesley says, "I console myself that my girls have a role model that will prepare them for a committed working life; I doubt that they will have the luxury of choosing whether to work or not. It is very difficult to reconcile the demands of the job with family life - but it does help that my husband works in the same field."
Also married to a journalist, Paula Fray, has one daughter and is expecting her second child. "Despite our arrangement (with the arrival of the first baby), the long, irregular hours did take its toll and eventually we made a decision that I would cut down on my working hours. The arrival of our second child and the subsequent break for maternity leave will probably be a setback. But, it is a choice I have made and a choice many professional women will have to make until companies take note of the specific needs of women."
The new dispensation places women in an exciting and potentially beneficial position. Legislation now encourages affirmative action to address structural inequalities.
Jane Raphaely feels women should use their attributes to their advantage: "Women in journalism have never experienced such opportunities for promotion, especially now that publishers are choosing to promote women."
Editor of Paarl Post, voted as South Africa’s best regional newspaper in 1994, Anne Kruger, agrees: "The new government emphasises non-sexism in the workplace, markedly improving the future prospects for women in journalism."
At an institutional level, media organisations would do well to follow the suggestions made at the Conference on Women and the Media. These include: deliberate policies aimed at increasing the number of women journalists; affirmative action scholarships for women journalists to prepare them for top positions; measures to make the curriculum gender sensitive at tertiary level.
Finally, Paula Fray, warns: "Now that the playing fields are beginning to level, I believe it is up to female journalists to fight for and grasp opportunities being offered. The challenge is to ensure that affirmative action is applied, not just with respect to race, but also in terms of gender and to ensure that women hold key positions in future."
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