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Final conference of bianet’s “Gender Based Journalism” project was realized at Cezayir Assembly Hall in İstanbul yesterday (May 14).
Swedish feministisktperspektiv.se Women’s Newspaper’s founder and Editor-in-Chief Anna-Klara Blatt and IPS Communication Foundation Training Counsellor Prof. Dr. Sevda Alankuş joined the session as speaker. The session was moderated by Kaos GL Media and Communication Program Coordinator Yıldız Tar.
Anna-Klara Bratt and Sevda Alankuş had a chat before the session
Answers were sought for questions such as “How and how much are women and LGBTIs covered in medi”, “what sort of language is used in news articles”, “how is LGBTI and woman oriented journalism practiced”.
Project coordinator Öznur Subaşı made the opening speech of the session. In her speech, Subaşı talked about the “Gender Based Journalism Workshop”, which was initiated on October 22, 2016 in İstanbul.
Işın Eliçin introduced the Gender Based Journalism Library
After that, Gender Based Journalism Library’s editor Işın Eliçin introduced the online Gender Based Journalism Library.
The session started with Yıldız Tar’s speech. Then Anna-Klara Blatt took the stage. In her speech, Bratt said, “If we as women are covered by the media one day, we are ignored for 99 days. #MeToo movement has been very useful in being more visible and on the agenda in Sweden”.
Bratt said that Sweden doesn’t have issues in law making but in practice, the problems persist: “We have very developed laws in Sweden to prevent sexual harassment. However, despite that, we’ve seen that in many workplaces and even among lawyers, half of the women have been subjected to sexual harassment”.
Prof. Dr. Sevda Alankuş stated that masculine structure of news rooms and the news themselves being in masculine form are the main parts of the problem in Turkey: “When we look at Turkey, we see patriarchic news centers. The women journalists who defend their rights are being marginalized. They are described with word like ‘frigid, witch’”.
After the two speeches, Yıldız Tar posed the question, “How will the glass walls caused by gender inequality in the media be removed”.
The session ended with question-and-answer part.
About Anna-Klara Bratt
Anna-Klara Bratt is a Swedish journalist, founder and editor in chief of online newsmagazine Feministiskt Perspektiv (feministisktperspektiv.se) (2011-). During 1999-2004 she was the first female editor in chief of weekly, syndicalist newspaper Arbetaren (The Worker) that, at the time, went through a serious prizewinning program on gender balance having 50/50 men and women in the editorial, staff and journal columns. She released a book called "Gender Equality" in 2007.
Sevda Alankuş
From Faculty of Communication at Kadir Has University, Prof. Dr. Alankuş is the BİA Training Advisor. Graduating from Faculty of Political Sciences at Ankara University, Alankuş completed her Master’s and doctorate degrees in field of Political Science and Public Administration at the same university. She continued her academics studies at Leeds University during 1988-89. She worked as research assistant and lecturer in the faculties of communication at universities of Ege and Ankara from 1982 to 1999. She received the titles of Associate Professor and Professor in Communication Sciences. She founded Center of Research and Communication for Peace during the period (1999-2008) when she served as dean of Faculty of Communication and Media Studies at the Eastern Mediterranean University. She worked as editor of IPS Foundation publications as counsellor of the trainings of Bağımsız İletişim Ağı (Independent Communication Network). Subjects such as alternative media, peace journalism and feminist media criticism are among her research fields.
Yıldız Tar
Tar was born in Boğaziçi University in 2010 when he announced that he refused the name and gender that his family and society gave him. He hosted an LGBTI discussion program called “Gökkuşağı Sohbetleri” (Rainbow Conversations) at Özgür Radyo (Free Radio). He served as correspondent at Etkin News Agency. He is the author of the book “Yoldaş Ben İbneyim: Solun LGBTI ile İmtihanı” (Comrade I am Faggot: Test of Left with LGBTI” published by Ceylan Publications. He edited the books "Dönmelere Doyamadık" (We Can’t Get Enough of Transsexuals), "Medyada LGBTİ'lere Yönelik Nefret Söylemi" (Hate Speech in Media Against LGBTIs) published by Kaos GL and Pembe Hayat (Pink Life), and “Çalışma Hayatında Ayrımcılık” (Discrimination in Working Life) by Kaos GL. He is currently working as editor at KaosGL.org. (EÜ/HK/TK)
