March 23rd and 24th, 2023
On Zoom
Journalists nationwide attended the two-day Laadli Fellowship orientation program on March 23rd and 24th, 2023. The program, supported by the United Nations Population Fund, included four sessions covering gender and patriarchy, climate change, disability, and the digital divide. Dr. Leena Pujari, Associate Professor and Head of Dept. of Sociology, KC College and Mr. Manas Rath from LEAP Cities led the first day's sessions.
The workshop started at 2:00 PM via Zoom. Dr. A.L.Sharada welcomed the participants and gave a brief introduction to the fellowship and the importance of the orientation workshop in order to get the fellows oriented with the themes. Ms. Pinky Pradhan, Communication and Media Specialist with the United Nations Population Fund in India, opened the day's events with an introductory speech. She started by congratulating UNFPA, Population First, and Dr. Sharada on their longstanding partnership and commitment to working with the media, publishing, and film industries to embody a positive gender perspective. She then provided a brief overview of UNFPA's transformative goals and how they address questions of gender equality by addressing regressive social norms that limit the potential of girls and women. Supporting the LAADLI campaign is a key component of the gender equality campaign. Ms. Pradhan emphasised the importance of all agencies and stakeholders, especially the media, coming together to create a more representative and gender-just world.
Dr. Leena Pujari began the day's first session by discussing three critical constituencies that play an important role in being changemakers: academics/activists, actors from civil society, and media practitioners. A layered and nuanced understanding of the genderscape is fundamental to the reordering of things in a transformed world. The presentation, titled "Sex, Gender and Patriarchy: Mapping Intersections," challenged traditional understandings of sex and gender, encouraging unlearning and relearning. Dr. Pujari explained that all identities are socially constructed, fluid, and a continuum. She discussed the concept of performativity in gender expression and highlighted the heteronormative nature of the world, which creates exclusions. In conclusion, she stressed the importance of adopting an intersectional framework to gain a better perspective and being aware of our own social locations. Following this, there was a brief Q&A session where participants asked questions about gender and patriarchy.
In the second session, Mr. Manas Rath from LEAP Cities discussed the relationship between gender and climate change. He emphasised that how one understands, analyses, and asks questions is more important than how much one knows. Conversations about climate change have increased after COVID-19. Mr. Rath explained the effects of climate change, including heat waves, rising sea levels, desertification, and melting ice caps, and the causes, such as rising CO2 levels due to industries, vehicles, agriculture, electricity generation, and digital warehousing. He also talked about a tool called Systems thinking for climate change and how areas impacted by climate change will affect women differently. For example, the burden of water security will fall mainly on women. Mr. Rath insisted that journalists blame humans, not the climate, and consider direct and indirect, long-term and short-term, and visible and non-visible impacts of climate change on gender. The session concluded with a Q&A for Mr. Rath and questions about the fellowship.
On the 24th of March, the second day of the event, we heard from Ms. Ritika Sahni, Founder and Director of Trinayani, and Dr. Farzana Khan, Head of Programs at MyChoices Foundation. Dr. A.L. Sharada welcomed everyone back and Ratna Bharali Talukdar and Neetu Singh shared their previous Laadli fellowship experiences.
Ms. Sahni then led the first session, focusing on the theme of gender and disability. She started by sharing the history of her organisation, Trinayani, which challenges attitudes towards people with disabilities. She emphasised the importance of recognizing the media's power in shaping our understanding of the world, and stressed the need for accurate and sensitive portrayal of different subjects. With 1.3 billion people worldwide having disabilities and India having the second-largest population of people with disabilities, she highlighted how misinformation and assumptions stem from limited interactions with them in schools and workplaces. She clarified the difference between impairment and disability, and discussed the marginalisation of both men and women with disabilities, which compounds for disabled women. She discussed the RPWD Act and how gender sensitive it is. To become disability confident, she recommended suspending assumptions and using transformational language, and provided some appropriate phrases to replace problematic language. The session ended with self-reflective questions, brief introduction to a game kit tool called Towards Inclusion, a music video celebrating inclusive education, and a Q&A session.
The second session for the day was by Dr. Farzana Khan, Head of Programs - Operation Peacemaker, MyChoices Foundation, India. The session discussed the impact of the gender digital divide, with 90% of jobs now having digital components. The unequal distribution of access to digital technology for marginalised communities was highlighted, with the Oxfam India Inequality Report 2022. The report also revealed that from 2018-2022, Indian women were 15% less likely to own mobile phones and 33% less likely to use mobile internet services. She talked about how women and girls are disproportionately affected by the digital divide due to cultural and social norms limiting their opportunities for education, communication, and economic empowerment. Another major focus of the session was how online violence and harassment have also increased against women in the digital space, with intimate partner violence and the use of tech in abusive relationships being a significant concern. The session concluded by discussing a report on the portrayal, participation, and representation of women in news media, which revealed that only 24% of those heard, read about, or seen in newspapers, TV, and radio were women, and only 4% of traditional and digital news challenged gender stereotypes. She shed light on the language that is used to report cases on violence against women and girls and how that needs to be changed. This was followed by a quick Q&A session.
The two day workshop concluded with a word of gratitude and encouragement from Dr. A.L Sharada.
Click here to watch Day 1 - https://youtube.com/live/Zv-T09sp-MQ?feature=share
Click here to watch Day 2 - https://youtube.com/live/zWggQEkAcWw?feature=share