The Auckland Star, September 19, 1893 ran the following headline: “The Woman’s suffrage Bill Assented to.”
The intro ran thus: “New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to grant all women the right to vote in parliamentary elections.”
No, suffrage and sufferance are not the same.
Now, we forget the by-line for this breaking story, but it is listed among the 100 headlines that changed the world.
Why? Because it deals with one of the most underreported and unrepresented group in mediascapes all over: our mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, aunties and nieces.
Now, wait a minute. This was not a quick-write story.
In fact, the original ‘beat’ of this story was a protest by a Christian women’s organization against their men’s heavy drinking habits – the kind that has inspired street protests in Central Kenya, albeit sexualized in our radio reports into “women say their men cannot perform in bed”.
Maybe this is how it would have ended had it been reported from our news desks: “Auckland women want the government to crackdown on alcohol, say it is affecting their men’s conjugal duties….”
But what started as a simple story about New Zealand’s Women’s Christian Women Temperance Movement morphed into the biggest story in the world, and produced one of history’s biggest women’s news stories. Kate Sheppard started a movement to fight for liquor prohibition, and ended up winning them the right to vote.
Back to our newsroom, our women are still struggling to carve a niche for themselves in beats that have been over the years an exclusive boys club.
We are speaking political beats; crime beats; sports, etcetera.
One very angry woman journalist put her frustration with what, for lack of a better name, we shall call gender pigeon-holing in our newsrooms. “Matters such as health are regarded as women’s beats.” Health! Can you imagine that? Health is everything! Yet someone in the newsroom wants to relegate it to a women’s beat!”
A very unhealthy situation right there!
But she was not done.
“You hear such quotes as “She is pregnant? Of all the time to be pregnant, an election year when we need every hand on board!”
Or even: “Why is she in such a foul mood? Is she pregnant?”
Yes, this came up as late as the 22nd century in Kenyan news desks where if some male chauvinists had their way, they would have a baby-making timetable for their female journalists that would include rules such as: “Please resist the temptation to fall pregnant around election-time-we need every hand on board”. Or “Painful periods shall not be accepted as a reason for not covering stories in the field…”
Such editors will raise their eyebrows when a woman pitches for a political or crime story. In their sexualized worldviews, women journalists ought to cover such ‘soft’ beats as health, more specifically, maternal health and universal healthcare, fashion and kitchen shows.
This probably explains the surprise on many faces during last week’s JK Live, which featured an all-woman panel.
Perhaps tired of the shenanigans of male panellists, Jeff brought in women politicians for a lively debate on everything – from the controversial revenue-sharing formula to why a military general has no business sitting in a meeting of Cabinet Secretaries until he is made one.
The show was captivating and fresh: no walk-outs; no name-calling.
Many, including Jeff himself, seemed surprised that women can make better panellists than men in a prime time TV talk-show.
