How Should The Media Cover Sexist Remarks On The Campaign Trail?
A conversation with Neha Dixit and Raksha Kumar.
Just in the past week or so, we saw three politicians make remarks that showed their contempt for, or prejudice against women.
Dilip Ghosh, the state president of the BJP in West Bengal, spoke about his opponent Mamata Banerjee’s sprained leg. Among other things, he said, “If you want to put out your leg, why saree, wear a bermuda, it can be seen.” Later, he said, “a woman showing her legs in a saree is inappropriate.”
In Tamil Nadu, Dindigul Leoni, a veteran leader of the DMK said, “after drinking the milk of foreign cows, women whose hips were the shape of an eight have bloated up and turned into barrels.”
Tirath Singh Rawat, the newly-appointed chief minister of Uttarakhand said of a woman he met on a flight, "you run an NGO, wear jeans ripped at the knees, move about in society, children are with you, what values you will teach?" Rawal was criticised for not just what he said, but also for the tone he used and for "looking the woman up and down".
This sort of thing is depressingly routine in Indian politics, and I’m not here getting into the behaviour of these men who don’t seem to be restrained or critiqued even within their own parties.
Rather, the questions I’m focusing on here are: How should the media have covered these statements? Should they have reported the statements faithfully, with no attempt at interpretation? Should the media have used words like ‘sexist’ and ‘inappropriate’ in their headlines?
The award-winning reporters Neha Dixit and Raksha Kumar know the answers to these questions. They’re both reporters with wide experience in covering all types of stories, and have both devoted large bits of their careers reporting on, and combating sexism. They’re also both associated with the Network for Women in Media, India or NWMI.
I spoke with them on Thursday. Here are edited excerpts from the interview (which can be watched in full below):
H R Venkatesh:
Lot of people are going to look at these remarks and say, “yes it’s crude, it’s distasteful, but what’s the need to make a big deal of this?” Can you explain?
Neha Dixit:
This is exactly the problem. It’s been so normalised and so frequently used by all kinds of politicians across the political spectrum, from the left to the centre to the right.
And for women politicians, [these statements were] very often used for decades in campaign trails. In Uttar Pradesh, Maywati would face campaign slogans like, yeh hathi nahi hathni hain, Kanshi Ram ki patni hain. It’s been so normalised so which is why when we talk about a more gender-equal world, it is important to start holding these politicians accountable. So I think it’s high time the media turns the narrative and maybe create a report card of people who keep doing this and repeated offenders and maybe put it out.
Raksha Kumar:
These comments are not meant to be ignored and it’s not about “don’t report about it or let it go”. It’s about putting them in the right context and ensure they’re highlighted enough that they’re not normalised.
I come from the school of thought where I believe that the media shouldn’t just report. Context is of utmost importance. It’s very important to place it in the cultural context of the geographic location.
We also need to talk about why only NDTV or why only a few organisations managed to place this [statement] in the context of ‘shocking’ or ‘inappropriate’ or any other word.
Also it’s very easy for women to recognise this as a sexist and misogynistic statement, so it’s very important therefore to have a more representative newsroom … regardless of which political party, like Neha said. And it’s very important to have more women at managerial and editorial positions because I think the words that you’re talking about, “shocking”, “inappropriate”, these are words that are added at the editorial level.
H R Venkatesh:
Should media report such stories faithfully? You know, “this is this side of the story, that is that side of the story? [Or] does the media take a stand? At some level journalism becomes activism and it’s difficult to separate the two of them.
Neha Dixit:
If you’re making a misogynistic remark, there is no “this side” or “that side”. If you’re making a casteist remark or an elitist remark. If you’re making a remark that lampoons the marginalised there is no “side” to it. It is what it is. I don’t even think it’s activism. I think it’s the bare minimum ethics to talk about people in a fashion that is not discriminatory, not sexist or casteist.
The second part that is very important is sourcing. The latest research tells us that in terms of sourcing, only 19% of the sources [for stories] are women. Even then, their response is seen more in the context or used in the context of their own experience or as standing bystanders who have witnessed something. They’re not called as experts. Even if someone is reporting a story of sexual violence, reporters will go to the brother or the father of the victim/survivor mostly, or the main male cop. Even for something as simple as the budget, the media goes to the housewife and says - how has it impacted your house budget, as if she has no idea as to what is happening in the country. Even if we see a woman lawyer, it’s usually on some case of sexual harassment or sexual violence.
The other thing is that in the language we use, we have to stop using the passive voice, [as in] this person was humiliated by this. We have to start calling out names and start using active voice to point out to where [attacks are] coming from.
There’s also the media. The media has the tendency to villainise women more when they go out of the patriarchal “sacrificial woman” or “pure” image. If she has said something wrong, they will highlight that more than they will for a man. The expectation [is] that a woman is “chaste” and more “proper”.
On the pressure of editors commissioning such stories for their virality.
Raksha Kumar:
If a chief of a particular party makes a comment like he did, there is no way we would not report on something like that. The question is, how do we report it? The question is what kind of words you will use and what kind of context you will put it in. But having said that, there are also stories for the eyeballs. They’re just clickbait. There’s no need to highlight issues that are highlighted or certain stories that are highlighted just for eyeballs. Yes you need audience, eyeballs, page views … but I guess the more nuanced question is, How are we going to report these situations? How are you going to report the fact that MJ Akbar decided to appeal the judgement [that acquitted Priya Ramani of defamation]? How are you going to place that in context?
Standup comics are doing some fantastic work putting things in context. I think journalists like us are not. [Standup comic] Aditi Mittal’s headline to the MJ Akbar story is, “He just doesn’t know how to take it when women say ‘no’. He doesn’t know that no means no.” It encompasses everything. It’s not a clickbait-y headline. It can easily go on any of the newspapers next morning.
I think the thing we should focus on is "how do we report and how you put a headline to stories that are meant to be reported and which have news value and which cannot go unreported. And there Neha said…journalism 101. Use active voice. Do not say “woman raped by whoever”…you’re pinning the responsibility on the woman when it’s not her fault. Try not to talk about women’s clothing when talking about sexual harassment and sexual violence or even election reporting as it turns out. Please do not talk about women’s clothing! We’re not talking about men’s clothing.
The flip side of it is for the audience. How should audiences consume [the news]? I think that is a really crucial question. Most people are watching TV and they’re passively taking in the information. And it’s for us to ensure that they jump out of their seats and say, hold on I don’t think this word should have been used.
I think we need to focus a lot on language. Language counts. Intonation counts. Where do you actually put emphasis when you’re reading news of a particular kind. I’ve worked in television to know that ‘supers’ matter, cos everyone is watching on mute these days.
Neha Dixit:
If you got to any newsroom…even the most progressive newsroom. When you talk about gender equality, the only thing people understand is, gender violence or maternal health. As if there’s nothing else beyond it. We don’t have stories about the pay gap, all the conversation is about atrocities or some kind of maternal health. I’m not saying those things are not important, it’s just that they are not the only things.
What we need to plant in the media and through the media in the society is the word ‘sexism’. I think people don’t understand still that there’s something called sexism. People understand racism, classism. When I go back to my family and say this is sexist, half the people won’t understand. So I think the onus is on the media to start calling out that there is something called sexism which means, [for example] Narendra Modi can’t say despite being a woman the Bangladeshi Prime Minister has done this. It’s wrong. We have to start explaining that.
H R Venkatesh:
Should there be a code on gender from the Election Commission?
Raksha Kumar:
Expecting them to catch misogyny is asking a lot out of them. They haven’t done really basic things that they need to have done.
Let me quickly summarise two points that the media should do to keep a check on how they report the stories that are meant to be reported but have an angle of sexism, and two things the audience should do.
Two things media should do on a war footing:
Definitely have a more inclusive newsroom. Have more women. Have people from all backgrounds, caste, ethnicities, and ages.
Approach each story from a gender lens. Make sure that your stories on the economy have women characters represented, women experts represented. Take the extra time to find that woman expert. One more thing is that we need women characters [being interviewed as humans] and not just for being women.
Two things audience can do:
When you consume any news media content, speak to the women in your vicinity. Your family. Your friends. Don’t limit your media conversation. Don’t be like Hey I only want to talk about Holywood and style and fashion with the women in the family. Speak to your mothers, aunts, sisters, wives, girlfriends.
Make sure you are aware that you are consuming clickbait-y content if you are consuming it. It’s kind of mindful consumption. When you click on something, [say to yourself] I’m doing this for the kick.
The more we do that, the better we get as news consumers. These are things we can do right way.
Neha Dixit:
When I was writing [former U.P. Chief Minister] Mayawati’s profile [there was] this other thing about women being “stern” and “strict”. I interviewed almost 90 people and out of those at least 12 or 13 men claimed that they had slapped her before leaving the party. These kind of images built by the media also plays a huge role. If a woman doesn’t have a “warm face” or a “soft face”, [it’s represented as if] she is definitely authoritarian.
Also on the conversation about sexual assault and sexual violence. We’ve had two major incidents in the past: the Mayawati in the state guest house incident and Jayalalithaa, in her incident. Both of them were publicly subjected to violence which was obviously gendered in nature. When we talk about media doing better or talking about such statements, I think we need to bring back these things because such major things happened in the public eye and the people responsible for it never faced any action, which is why I feel politicians also think they can get away with not only saying things but doing things in public.
Watch the full interview here: