Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Her Media Diary Episode 22: "Gender Equality Advocacy Through Media Monitoring” with Dr Sarah Macharia
11 Plays6 months ago
Dr Sarah Macharia is a gender equality champion, women’s rights advocate, and the global coordinator of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), which is the world’s longest-running initiative focused on researching and promoting gender equality in media.
This episode unpacks the slow pace of change despite extensive efforts in advocacy and training, and the need to embrace incremental progress. From Dr Macharia's personal journey, rooted in her mother's resilience and advocacy, to her professional insights on the pervasive gender biases in media and technology, this conversation is a testament to the power of resolve and the importance of collective efforts.
Subscribe to Her Media Diary now on your favourite podcasting platform.
Learn about African Women in Media at https://africanwomeninmedia.com
List of Organisations/Resources to Support Gender Researchers/Scholars
§ Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES)
§ International Center for Research on Women
§ European Institute for Gender Equality
§ UN Women
§ Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE)
University Policies and Grievance Procedures (Available in different tertiary institutions).
Recommended
Transcript
Incremental Progress in Advocacy
00:00:06
Speaker
I was always troubled by, despite all the work that especially civil society has been doing in this area, trying to lobby, trying to advocate, so much training has gone into this, so much money has been poured into training, yet the change is so, so slow. And having been troubled by this lack of substantive or significant change, I came across a writing that said, you know, if you're looking for revolution,
00:00:36
Speaker
You'll be forever disappointed. You have to be satisfied with incremental change and incremental change is progress.
Introduction to Her Media Diary
00:00:48
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Her Media Diary, a podcast that captures the lived experiences of African women working in media industries.
00:00:57
Speaker
I am Dr. Yamasi Akimbobola, your host. And in this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Sarah Macharia, a gender equality champion, women's rights advocate, and as many of you might know her for the Global Coordinator of the Global Media Monitoring Project, otherwise known as GMMP, which is the world's largest running initiative focused on researching and promoting gender equality in media.
00:01:24
Speaker
In my conversation with Dr. Macharia, she shares the reflections on the existing gaps in gender and media research, development and advocacy. And throughout the series, we'll be in conversation with African women academics in the field of media and gender studies.
Challenges in Media & Academia
00:01:40
Speaker
Discussing our experiences, and I say our because I'm also an academic myself, our experiences in navigating academia, teaching and researching gender.
00:01:50
Speaker
and the challenges we face and how we've managed to navigate our way, despite the hurdles. So by inviting these voices into conversation, we hope to provide solutions to breaking down barriers faced by African women in media education.
Dr. Macharia's Early Life & Education
00:02:10
Speaker
So hi, Sarah.
00:02:12
Speaker
Dr. Sarah Macharia, great to have this conversation with you. I've been really looking forward to our conversation. The world knows you mostly, I think, for the Global Media Monitoring Project. So we're going to talk a little bit about that.
00:02:24
Speaker
I want to start off first by getting to know your background and where it all started for Dr. Sarah Macharia. Well, thank you, Dr. MVC. Actually, it is an honor and a privilege to be on this podcast. I've been looking forward to it. I've listened to all the phenomenal women who have come before me, and I'm glad that you have invited me for this. So it is a privilege. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so let's start with you growing up. Did you grow up in Nairobi?
00:02:54
Speaker
Also Mount Kenya. Yes. So I partly grew up in Nairobi. I spent my very early years up to when I was three, back in the rural area, a place called Niri, which is close to Mount Kenya. And yes. And then when I was three, my dad came back. He was traveling abroad. So when he came back, he moved us back to Nairobi. And I spent the rest of my life there in Nairobi. Okay. So you're a true,
00:03:23
Speaker
What do you call it? Nairobi? Yes. That's what you call ourselves, the Nairobians. And funny enough, I was in, is it Yankuri? I can't remember. I placed very close to Mount Kenya a couple of months ago. Nanyuki, probably. Exactly. I was there a couple of months ago. Nanyuki is popular with tourists, especially. Yeah, it's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
00:03:49
Speaker
So what was it like back then, growing up in Nairobi? Tell us more. Okay, so growing up in Nairobi, maybe I should start with growing up in Niri, because I remember very clearly my early years, I remember I was with my elder brother, I'm the second born in a family of many children, but the first born girl. And at that time, there was my elder brother, myself and a younger brother and my mother.
00:04:17
Speaker
So I remember going to kindergarten from the time I was three in Neri and at that time the school was really what you'd find in a rural village with us writing on the on the floor on the way to school with pickup sticks which would be our pencils to write on the earthy ground. At that time we had no books no pens
00:04:43
Speaker
but only what nature provided. So I remember that very clearly. I remember being in the same class with my brother, my elder brother, and just because my mother did not want to keep both of us at home at that time.
00:05:01
Speaker
at the time I was three. Then when I was four, going to Nairobi, growing up there in a predominantly Asian neighborhood, an Asian part of Nairobi, and going to primary school, being in the same class as my brother. It was just a typical urban child. But what I remember very much was
00:05:28
Speaker
with my brother being very competitive because we were in the same class. We started school together. The thing is, since we were, we have an age difference of about a year and a half.
Influence of Gender Equality Awareness
00:05:39
Speaker
So I was able to compare, you know, how my brother was treated compared to how I was treated.
00:05:46
Speaker
And maybe I should even start by saying that I think I was hardwired to be a feminist and to be a gender equality champion from the get-go, maybe from the time I was in my mother's womb. Why did you say that? I say that because
00:06:04
Speaker
I see the same kind of resolve, maybe some would call it stubbornness, and a particular sensitivity to discrimination on the basis of just because one was born female, I see the same thing in my mother. And I see the interactions she has and even her
00:06:25
Speaker
her critique of the world, of the things, what she hears in the news, and even the relationships that she sees around her. And from very early childhood, I remember my mother just standing up for the women in her lives, and especially for me.
00:06:43
Speaker
I remember how the barriers that, you know, culture would have placed on me as a girl. My mother got rid of them for me. She was the buffer between culture and the world for me. So give me an example of that, like an example of where your mom did that for me.
00:06:59
Speaker
Okay, so I can give you one good example that I remember up to this very day. Since my brother and I were in the same class, and Kenyan exams are very competitive. In order to go to secondary school, to a good secondary school, you have to perform well to get to the school of your choice. You have to perform well to get to the university program of your choice.
00:07:26
Speaker
And so we studied a lot. Many children studied a lot. I studied a lot. My brother studied a lot. We were both, I would say, very competitive in that area. And when we were both studying for our primary and of primary school exams, and my dad comes and sees, you know, both of us are studying. My mother is in the kitchen cooking, and she tells me, you know, my home name is Wambui, which is my middle name.
00:07:55
Speaker
And he told me, one boy, go help your mother in the kitchen. And I tried to protest. I said, but dad, we have exams. He has an exam. Why are you telling me and not him? But you know, he wouldn't hear any of that. So I went to the kitchen to help my mother. My mother told me, one boy, go back and study. So those kinds of things, you know, she stood up. She stood up for me in so many ways.
00:08:18
Speaker
So, you know, same thing in primary school, many incidents like that. And then going to secondary school, I happened because you were so competitive and I
00:08:30
Speaker
guess I was a bookworm, I worked hard. And I went to one of the most prestigious high school, secondary schools in Kenya, not because which you go to not because you have money, but because you've performed well in your exams. So that was my experience. I'm curious of that relationship with your brother and that competitiveness. Was it a healthy competition? Like, how would you describe that relationship?
00:08:58
Speaker
Sometimes it wasn't healthy. He and I, because I wanted to assert myself a lot. I remember at one point when we used to watch movies together, I mean, as a family, and you'd watch what's coming, you know, even the programs on television. And when there was a movie from especially those days were Hollywood movies. And when the credits rolled up,
00:09:23
Speaker
it would say starring so and so and so. And my brother one time told me, women can never be starring. And when he said that, you know, I couldn't believe it. So I watched every movie, I watched every one, you know, those American soaps that came up, I watched. And for sure enough, they're in none of those roles, did you see a woman's name. And so that kind of
00:09:47
Speaker
you know me trying to prove that you know women could do could be girls could be just as good as boys uh women could you know have the same kinds of careers as boys and really that there shouldn't be any obstacle but you know many times i was proven wrong uh growing up from experience the lived experience when you went to uh when you took a bus for example
00:10:10
Speaker
all the drivers were men. When you saw people in authoritative roles, they were men. When you went to the doctor, they were men. So for me, I would say, so in some senses, it was healthy for me in the sense that it made me strive, want to strive
00:10:28
Speaker
to prove that women could be anything that they wanted to be. But I would also say that it was healthy because it kept me focused on my goal. And so what nature gave me from my mother, that resolve, that sensitivity to injustice,
00:10:47
Speaker
that seeing around and looking around and seeing that women got the short end of the stick. So that coupled with the other opportunities that were enabled largely because my mother made these things possible have led me to where I am right now. So for that,
00:11:12
Speaker
I would say in a sense, you know, competition helped in some sense. And I guess, you know, for the longest time, my brother and I were enemies, but now we are good friends. Okay, that's interesting. And I'm curious to know, because you seem to be quite aware, at least the way you're kind of telling the story, that you were quite aware at the time of this, but was there a point where that became
00:11:38
Speaker
Do you remember your earliest kind of light bulb moments when you realized there was some kind of gender inequality in this society? I can say that throughout my growing up, because my mother talked about it all the time, I cannot pinpoint any particular
00:11:56
Speaker
point where it happened. Maybe my life story is also my mother's life story. I can't remember any particular point because at every point I could see, I could see, for example, when my younger siblings were in diapers and my mother would tell my dad, why don't you change the diaper? And because she was so strong in that way, there was no arguing with her.
00:12:22
Speaker
So there was no particular point and I think I naturally gravitated towards gender equality and feminist work right from the get-go from growing up up to where I am at this point. I'm curious to know more about your mum actually like because it seems that again this was something that she was consciously trying to fight against and push back on. So what's her story?
00:12:48
Speaker
Well, my mother was one of five girls with two brothers, and she was brought up by parents, especially her father, who believed in equality, who made his daughters do exactly what his boys did. They were all up on the roof building their house, all up there with hammers
00:13:15
Speaker
and nails, nails and hammers. And I mean, they all did their work together. So my mother did not, you know, because of the treatment she had from especially her father, who was strong, who grew up during the independence movement in Kenya. And he was more aware about the importance of education. But at one point,
00:13:35
Speaker
when my mother, and these are the stories I learned later, when my mother was about to go into her secondary school because she had so many siblings and she was the third born, she had many who came after her. Her parents told her that they had no money to pay for her fees to go to secondary school and at that point they had several years of primary school, two years of secondary school and then upper
00:14:04
Speaker
and then the the rest high school and because of that she said okay so what she's going to do she's going to repeat the year even though she had performed really well she would repeat the year and hopefully by that time her parents would have found the feast for her she repeated the year they still could not find feast for her she repeated again and she was always a top student so i guess uh that led her to have
00:14:31
Speaker
maybe that strengthen the resolve in her to perhaps do better maybe for the next generation I'm not sure but that was her experience just not having access to the education she's so much desired and she's so much craved and then when she had many of us children in succession
00:14:50
Speaker
She ended up being a stay-at-home mother, but we know in our culture, there's nothing like a stay-at-home mother. Everybody's mothers at home are working, toiling away. And when her last child had flown the nest, there's some kind of, I would say, depression set in because she felt now what was her use anymore. And she and I, because I saw how much that affected her, feeling that
00:15:20
Speaker
there was no more use for her. I asked her what it is she wanted to do. At that time I was in university and she said she wanted to start a business and she started a small-scale business which is what most people, most women especially, whether they're educated or not educated, they start up something, whether they're selling vegetables by the side of the road or they're selling second-hand clothes, that's what they do. So my mother was doing that and that also influenced
00:15:49
Speaker
what I studied for my master's degree, my dissertation, then my thesis, my master's thesis.
00:15:57
Speaker
which was trying to understand what would be a feminist approach to governance of urban informal trade, because I saw just from her lived experience how punitive the encounter with the state was in terms of the city council, so the municipal police. So that was her just forging through despite the obstacles. And that's where she, I guess, found herself because then she was able to earn
00:16:26
Speaker
something for herself. I mean, my father was always present, but I would say he is a traditional African man in many respects. There are things that, you know, which to him were okay culturally, but my mother saw things in a different way. And she's influenced a lot of
00:16:47
Speaker
you know, what I am and what I've become. And tell us more about that influence because it sounds very much like all the youth kind of come to do, you can kind of see that journey of how your mom's history has impacted your kind of history.
00:17:03
Speaker
and therefore where you are today, right? So how would you reflect on that impact? You talked about an impact when you were studying, when you were in secondary school, primary school and all that. And then again, how it's influenced your master's degree, right? So when you reflect on the entirety of it, what has been the core thing it has ingrained in you? Um, resolve.
00:17:26
Speaker
Resolve to keep on if you believe in something if you deeply and it's all politics really Hmm if it is something that you're passionate about then you have to forge ahead You cannot allow or you know in every obstacle is a challenge to be addressed so that's influenced I guess my entire
00:17:51
Speaker
career trajectory, even in terms of how I managed to proceed. For example, when I went on to after after my bachelor's degree, which was in Kenya, I studied French in education and I studied to be an instructor of French as a second language, as well as as secretarial studies.
00:18:20
Speaker
And when I worked with my first job in a Wendy's company that was based out of Nairobi just because of my French and I learned, you know, they told me, my boss who was very kind then told me that, you know, you cannot say that you speak French if you've not lived in a French context. And I thought, hmm, maybe I need to go somewhere. I need to go to France.
00:18:46
Speaker
And I had no money apart from, you know, what I was earning from, which was not very much. Uh, I learned that there was a program, uh, called the French Jean Fiope. Jean Fiope are girls who go to another country, uh, to learn another language. And in exchange for that, for their upkeep, they look after, they live within the family and look after the children. So I applied to be a Jean Fiope.
00:19:15
Speaker
So I guess that is all from my mother and not seeing, you know, seeing every obstacle as a challenge. I managed to then go to Paris for two years, as a Jean Filippin, where I studied, I, you know, continued studying French, and also studied to become an interpreter, French English interpreter.
00:19:38
Speaker
At that point, I guess I was still searching for my career path, but, you know, those feminist principles that feminist politics was always a part of me. And then, and then when I came back to, when I came back to Kenya, it gravitated again to working in an African feminist movement at the time. So I guess that's what I have learned from her. Yeah. I was going to say, what was that experience in France like? Tell us more about that. I didn't know that you'd
00:20:08
Speaker
spend that time in France. So I'd love to hear more. Yes. So in France, I was a young woman just having completed my bachelor's degree. I must also say that, I mean, you've lived in, from my understanding, you've lived in Kenya all of this time, right? So would this be kind of your first time going elsewhere to live or traveling outside the country? This was my first time traveling out of the country.
00:20:35
Speaker
I remember my father saying, you're going to look after white people's children. I said, no, I'm going to study and looking after French children is going to, is going to help me pay my way, pay my fees and my upkeep. So in France, my community, again, you know, being an international student was also international students. And my social circle were also French, Jean-Fiore Peres from Kenya.
00:21:04
Speaker
Jean-Pierre, meaning, you know, a young girl, an au pair girl. And that experience was, in a sense, I had to make sure that my original objective, my mission was not derailed by wanting to live in this context and, you know, forgetting what brought me there. So I always had that, you know, front and center
00:21:25
Speaker
that I needed to get this done and go back home and do what I wanted to do. So my experience was I would take cocooned. Cocooned in that sense. I was in a French family. They were nice to me. My social circle was my Kenyan girlfriends who were also doing the same work as I was doing.
00:21:45
Speaker
And having grown up, all of us grown up in the Kenyan education system, most of us were very attuned to education and wanted to do what we came there for, but went there for.
00:21:57
Speaker
And then there were the other international students. It was called the British Institute in Paris. So these were students from the University of London who were coming to Paris for their final year in French. So that was my community. So it was not so much, I would say, a typical Black person living in France, not that kind of experience.
00:22:26
Speaker
That was different. Okay. And so you obviously went all the way, right? Your undergraduate master's PhD in political science from York University from Canada, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And perhaps the thing that you're most known for is the global media monitoring projects, which is a review of gender in news media.
00:22:51
Speaker
And that gets conducted every five years since 1995. So how do we make that connection now between kind of your PhD in political science to finding yourself in this space where you're looking at gender and news media? Yes, that's a good question.
Gender as a Political Issue
00:23:08
Speaker
So, you know, one thing I had learned was that gender is politics.
00:23:14
Speaker
And I learned that if I wanted to study more. So before I even did my PhD, I worked at the African Center for Women, which was one of the divisions in the Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa. So I lived there for two years in Ethiopia.
00:23:32
Speaker
And when I was there, I saw how my colleagues who were all either masters, they had their masters or their PhDs. I mean, I really wanted because I was curious for knowledge right from the very beginning. I was hungry for knowledge.
00:23:48
Speaker
And I wanted to know what it is. What do they know that I do not know? They've gone, they've done their master's, they've done their PhD. So I need to do that too. And coming back to Kenya and understanding, okay, so gender is politics. I need to get into political science. So I found this very left wing university in Canada, which is York University. And there I went into the political science program.
00:24:15
Speaker
where I focused on women in politics and just as I was preparing for my, to write my dissertation after.
00:24:24
Speaker
This was, I think, around my fifth year of the PhD program. I saw this opportunity that came up, which was at the World Association for Christian Communication, to manage their gender program. At that time, it was a media and gender justice program. And, you know, I thought, you know, anything that has to do with feminism or gender equality, I am in. Doesn't matter what it is. I am in as long as I am
00:24:49
Speaker
fighting the cause, I am in. I was grateful to have been accorded that opportunity. I got into WACC, which is WAC in short. I got into WACC, and just by serendipity, the Global Media Management Project is the flagship initiative of WACC.
00:25:08
Speaker
And that's how I ended up coordinating the GMMP, which has been, I think this is, I've done three GMMPs so far. The GMMP, which is a global study on gender in the world news media, it takes the pulse on
00:25:23
Speaker
you know, the patterns of change, the direction of change in how gender equality dimensions are integrated in news reporting, you know, journalism ethics from a gender perspective. And it takes talk and tries to make comparisons across time and across regions. It's been running since
00:25:43
Speaker
1995 and 2025 movie, the seventh edition, which has been an amazing experience being in the GMMP. I'm curious for you as somebody kind of coordinating this global and well-respected project, what has been, what is that experience like for you? I'm just imagining other people who might want to go into these kind of
00:26:09
Speaker
spheres, how would you reflect on your experience? It's been amazing, it's been amazing being part of this global network and really being at the nexus of academia and civil society and also the media industry, just being at the center of this and engaging with all these groups. So it's been amazing just learning about, first of all, seeing how
00:26:38
Speaker
the issues are common across cultures, across the world, across regions. It's not something that is confined to a single geography or a single culture, but the issues of discrimination against women in the news media, the issues of gender stereotyping, of women's lack of voice, especially on issues
00:27:04
Speaker
that concern them most, such as reproductive health. I mean, reproductive health concerns everybody, but it concerns women more because it has a direct impact on them. So those issues are common across the board.
00:27:20
Speaker
It's been a learning experience knowing how to navigate different cultures. It's been a learning experience to learning how to build a network, what it takes to sustain a network. And it's interesting what you say because obviously I also do research in this area where you say about how there's actually the experiences
00:27:43
Speaker
cross borders, right? There's no kind of confinement to a particular culture, but there might be one aspect that's more pronounced in one of the other or more nuanced in particular ways, right? Yeah. So when you reflect on all the work you've done in this area, what is the one thing, one aspect that really keeps you up at night?
00:28:04
Speaker
What keeps me up at night? First of all, seeing that things do not change that easily. You know, I was always troubled by, despite all the work that especially civil society has been doing in this area, trying to lobby, trying to advocate, so much training has gone into this, so much money has been poured into training, yet
00:28:29
Speaker
the change is so so slow and then when we were doing the last GMMP in 2020 or the most recent GMMP in 2020 I was having been troubled by this lack of substantive or significant change I came across a writing that said you know if you're looking for revolution you'll be forever disappointed you have to be satisfied with incremental change and incremental change is progress and
00:28:59
Speaker
Yes, we have seen incremental change, very little bit by bit, but we have to be thankful for what has happened. And then in the past several years, we've seen this backlash against women's rights, against gender equality across the
Slow Progress & Backlash
00:29:14
Speaker
world. We've seen it coming out in the numbers that are published in the global data on different thematic areas on gender equality.
00:29:25
Speaker
And that is also troubling. That is troubling that, you know, we have to, it's like, we are going to start again from where we were, you know, at the last Commission on the Status of Women, which is, you know, an annual conference that, you know, where governments have to report on
00:29:42
Speaker
what they have done in terms of implementing their commitments from the Beijing Platform for Action at the last Commission on CSW in March of this year. It was palpable dissatisfaction. I can even say, not even anger the concern that we are having to rebuild from the beginning. Which can be disheartening?
00:30:06
Speaker
Then we have all these other movements, which I would say are counter feminist movements, that are detracting from our central goal, which is trying to advance progress for half of the world's population, which is women. So we have all these noises on the side.
00:30:28
Speaker
that are making gender equality, as you and women have said, it's an ever more distant goal. So these are things that concern me and also...
00:30:39
Speaker
other things that concern me, you know, being a media watcher, media observer through media monitoring, seeing all these spaces that have opened up online that have been pockets, big pockets of misogyny, big pockets. And unfortunately, there are women who also participate in these pockets of backlash against women, unheard of sexism.
00:31:05
Speaker
um, sextortion. And I mean, it goes on and on tech facility to GBV. And we see it in all spaces. And, you know, I'm back in Kenya after having lived in Canada for almost two decades and seeing that this is, you know, part of everyday life, you know, in, you know, where I live and I see it, I see the children, I see how the children, even little girls in my neighborhood objectifying themselves
00:31:32
Speaker
you know, and putting themselves out there to be objects of, I can say objects of desire.
Representation Challenges in Media
00:31:38
Speaker
So, I mean, that really concerns me that, you know, we've taken, the world has taken, and is taking huge leaps backward. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think when I reflect on your story, right, the word that kept coming up to me was representation, the extent to which representation and the experiences of those around you
00:32:00
Speaker
was shaping who you were to become, right?
00:32:03
Speaker
And they're now thinking about actually now these young girls that you're talking about, not only do they have to contend with the people physically around them, they're also contending with technology and social media and the representation that they're seeing and the avenues through which these anti-feminist, anti-women kind of narratives actually kind of been coming to them and the extent to which they have the knowledge and the experience to be able to, you know, the media literacy to engage with these things. It's quite concerning.
00:32:33
Speaker
And I think also now we are, social media is not even the thing that we are now talking about AI. And my biggest concern is how do we make sure that as we're entering, which we're already in, as we're entering this phase of AI, that we're not carrying those same old baggage, those same old challenges into AI.
00:32:55
Speaker
right? And, and kind of just continuing that trend. How do we use this as a point of true stopgap to say, okay, this is the point where we make that significant change? What are your reflections on that? Yeah, I mean, that's an excellent question. And I've been thinking about this. In a study that I did recently, I mean, just a scan to see
00:33:19
Speaker
you know, we are the women in tech, you know, who's developing these AI products. And quite astounded that the situation is worse than I thought. The thing is, those who are developing these AI products, those who are developing technology, they're trained to develop technology, they're engineers. And of course, when what they bring into the technology is their own biases, their own thinking, you know, the way they understand the world.
00:33:45
Speaker
but where are the women who do this? I remember last year CSW it was all about technology and it was about developing feminist technologies and in every session I went to those who are developing the feminist technology it's almost impossible to see a woman of color's face in those who are developing these technologies so even those
00:34:08
Speaker
biases that come, you know, those ways of thinking, that orientation that comes from one's identity, they will cross over into the AI, into those technologies. So while, you know, well-meaning white feminists, technologists, very well-meaning, but there is something to be said for lived experience. Yes, absolutely.
00:34:34
Speaker
There's something to be said. I mean, if you haven't lived it, if you haven't walked in those shoes, then you cannot know. And it has to be us who develop this. So how do we make sure that the next generation of AI is moving towards what speaks for us as African women, as women of color, what speaks to our realities, that the
00:34:59
Speaker
that the algorithms or the information that is fed to train these machines or these technologies in plural, that this information is seeped, is part of our experience, is seeped with our knowledge, with our needs, with our interests. It has to be asked to do it.
00:35:21
Speaker
So I think the way forward and this is really something that I am really gravitating towards is to do what's possible to pave the way for our young women technologists to inhabit the space of
00:35:38
Speaker
building the Internet architecture. To pave the way for these women, young women technologists who know these things, to be part of those who are shaping governance. Absolutely. To be part of those policy discussions. They have to be there. Because without them, it will always be others who are developing technologies that they think we need. Right? I've seen examples of where we've had this
00:36:07
Speaker
Like in the case of Kenya, Kenyan young women who have say developed even applications that are speaking to say, for example, transportation from a rural area to just to meet those needs. So that's what we need. We need women not to be word processors, not to sell their baskets online.
00:36:31
Speaker
No, that's not what we need. What we need is for them to be part of the system architecture, to be those who say what's happening. And how can this be enabled? For example, I mean, I came across this talk where the speaker was talking about how philanthropy is biased towards, you know, has a, yeah, is biased and is unaware about the needs of
00:37:00
Speaker
And I guess it's the same critique that's been there about lack of funding for the work that women do in the work of women. And when it comes to technology, technologists thrive on venture capital. Venture capitalists, for them to fund the work, to support the work of African women technologists,
00:37:23
Speaker
The data shows that there is a huge, huge bias. And I guess maybe there might be some lack of capacity there, for example. Not capacity to do the work, but capacity to state your case, to state your business case. Absolutely.
00:37:43
Speaker
Yeah, because especially as African women, it's ingrained in us. You don't speak, you're not out there, you're not vocal. So when it comes to speaking to a venture capitalist, it's a different kind of voice that's needed, the voice that men are trained in. And those who are trained to be assertive, those maybe even women and men from the West are trained to speak, even though whether they know what they're speaking about or not,
00:38:10
Speaker
They are trained to speak, but for an African woman to state her case, it's much more difficult, and I say maybe even women of color, where you're brought up in a culture that is so deeply patriarchal and so deeply against women speaking up and seeing what they need and having voice.
00:38:32
Speaker
So these are the things that work against us and for the tech sector to change, then this is what's necessary to get women into those spaces.
Gender Biases in AI
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. As you were talking, I was just quickly doing a quick search of a new initiative that I know just came up in Nigeria called the AI Collective.
00:38:53
Speaker
I'm trying to get the full name, but it's the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Nigeria just formed and they formed this kind of AI collective looking at now, how does the country, how does, you know, Nigerians kind of develop and, you know, take part in this evolution of AI. And I guess the message we're saying to such initiatives globally, right, is that make sure that we have that gender
00:39:23
Speaker
representation amongst those who are developing these technologies and these tools, right? Especially, again, in newsrooms, you are seeing the adoption of AI in content production, right? And often at a very individual level, so rather than kind of an organizational level policy, it's individual level use of them. And I think that, again, this is an important moment to make sure that we're not carrying the same challenges over into this new
00:39:53
Speaker
new technology, same issues, but different platforms kind of thing. Yeah. And then something else you said earlier on that really resonated with some of the work I've been doing is what you said about actually, yes, we had, you know, you said, yeah, the CSW event you went to that yes, there were female technologists in this space, but not women of color, right?
00:40:13
Speaker
and what you said about lived experiences, walking in one's shoes. That is the conversation within feminist scholars. You have the different forms of feminism, and in order for you to really understand the experiences of African women.
00:40:31
Speaker
So, so then you have that conversation of actually how does these lived experiences shape the kinds of gender equality and the kinds of feminism that exists in those spaces and therefore inform those kinds of environments where we're now developing technology and other tools and policies. So what advice would you give, right? To young activists, advocates who are really passionate about gender equality in media, right?
00:41:01
Speaker
And when you also reflect on the journey that you have been on and also what you said very importantly at the beginning there about how actually we're still seeing the same issues decades on. So what advice would you give to those coming up,
Advice for Young Advocates
00:41:15
Speaker
right? How do we really move that needle a bit further even if it's not all the way? Yes. So they're passionate. Passion is the first key ingredient because without passion, without passion you easily give up.
00:41:33
Speaker
It's important to not give up, to have the resolve. Imagine if those who are fighting for women's right to vote had given up. I think it took maybe a century or so, class. Yeah. So it's important not to give up. And if you want to see change, you have to measure it.
00:41:56
Speaker
take part in some kind of monitoring project, monitoring initiative. You have to collect the data. Without the data, you cannot make a convincing case. So for young people who are coming up, I think it is important, first of all, also to build your critical literacy, critical media literacy.
00:42:16
Speaker
It's more than being able to understand what the media is telling you, what this news story is about. It's more than that. It's the ability to see who's missing, what's missing, whose voices are missing, what issues are missing, what perspectives are we hearing? What is this cue? What is this slant? So building that critical media literacy and the GMMP, which really is a gem of the global
00:42:46
Speaker
movement for gender equality in and through the media, the GMMP has produced the tools that make it easy to understand what these indicators are and how you measure them, how you understand them.
00:43:01
Speaker
how you document them, and only by doing that can one see where there is a need for change, where there is room for change, where there is need for change, and then begin to reflect who do you bring in, who are the change agents. So for young people who are passionate about gender equality in and through the media,
00:43:27
Speaker
Media monitoring is the first step to this. Anyone can monitor the media as we say in the GMMP. We have high school students who do this.
00:43:35
Speaker
with their teachers. Anyone can do this. So being part of this, being part of a movement, you know, in the GMMP, because gender and media tends to be really at the margins of gender equality struggles, because what's at the core are issues of, say, women's access to good health care, women's access to education,
00:44:00
Speaker
you know, enrollment rates moving on to the next level of schooling, you know, women's political participation, women's economic empowerment, but media tends to be at the margins. When one takes part in a movement on gender equality in the media,
00:44:17
Speaker
then it becomes clear that there are many others around the world who are doing this. So it's no longer a lonely effort, but it becomes an effort that is one of a network, a global network, a global community. So be part of the movement, be passionate and trust your intuition. Continue to hold those who should be held into account, hold them accountable. When you see these injustices happening, especially
00:44:43
Speaker
You know, young people are all on social media. They are online. They're doing something. They're on TikTok, on Snapchat, on everything else. When you see something, say it. Say it, say it. Yeah. Bring it to the attention of those who have been elected to uphold issues of democracy, of equality, of gender equality, issues of justice.
00:45:10
Speaker
those who have been elected to this or appointed to do this in communication commissions, for example, they're responsible for broadcasting, for example, bring it to the attention that this is happening, there's this incident that has happened, there's this video that has been posted online. It's those small things, they may appear small, but it's those things that lead to change and that lead to these issues becoming
00:45:37
Speaker
not an accepted norm but something that is challenged that is discussed as part of the public discourse whichever way it goes you know it's part of the public discourse and it gets these things not to slide under the radar as something that is normal
00:45:54
Speaker
And that's just the way the society is. That's just the way, you know, girls who dress in that in that way are treated. That's just, you know, boys will do what boys will do. So just don't be part of normalizing it, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And
00:46:12
Speaker
As we round up our interview, I'm very interested to hear from you. Obviously you've been in this space for a long time, way longer than I have, and you've kind of, well, you know, worked in this area globally. If there was areas of best practices or things that you see are quite significant that we need to kind of latch on, right? And kind of build on to what would you say that was?
00:46:36
Speaker
areas of best practice. Yeah, like examples of organizations, initiatives that are doing really well, right? That you see, actually, if this was a model and approach that others could take, you know, things could improve quite significantly. Are there any things that
Joining Global Movements
00:46:54
Speaker
come to mind? As the person who has been working on the global media monitoring project for a long time, I would say be part of the GMMP. Join a monitoring team in your country.
00:47:05
Speaker
If there's none that exists in your country, create one. So that's one thing that can be done. And then be part of the networks. There are so many networks coming up. I mean, AWIM, the African Women in Media Network, is one that has brought together
00:47:20
Speaker
all these who in one way or the other work with or in or on the media. So be part of a network. So it becomes not an isolated task, but it becomes part of a network, part of a movement. If you want things to change, it has to be a movement that does this, not to any one person. Yeah, absolutely. So what next for you, Dr. Sarah Materia?
00:47:48
Speaker
Well, what next for me, we have the GMMP that's coming up in 2025. So I mean, we see when you've been in the GMMP, it's for a lifetime. Even those who started it in 1995 are still part of it in one way or the other. So in one way or the other, we will always be part of this.
00:48:05
Speaker
But again, I have seen the need to nurture a tech ecosystem that is responsive to the needs of African women. And I really would like to be in one or the other part of initiatives that bring African young women front and center
00:48:31
Speaker
to building the internet, the tech infrastructure that is going to work for us. So that's where my heart lies at the moment. We say AI is a future, but I think without African women there, then it cannot be our future, a future that works for us.
00:48:52
Speaker
Brilliant. Thank you so much, Dr. Sarah Macharia. It's been a pleasure speaking with you and hearing your expertise and I look forward to further engagement with you. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure being part of this and thank you for inviting me. Dr. Macharia encourages us to take part in monitoring initiatives to see who and what's missing and then decide whether there is a need for change.
00:49:19
Speaker
According to her, we cannot make a convincing case without data, hence the need for media monitoring. She also suggests and highlights the importance of a collective approach to tackling gender equality in and through media.
00:49:35
Speaker
And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. So send me an email at GMSC at AfricanWomenInMedia.com with your thoughts. And also, if you'd like to join me on an episode of this podcast. To find out more about what we do at African Women in Media, visit our website at AfricanWomenInMedia.com. In the show notes, you'll find a list of organizations and resources to support you if you have experienced any of the topics we've discussed today. And don't forget, join the conversation using the hashtag HermediaDiary.
00:50:06
Speaker
Her media diary is a product of African women in media, an NGO advocating for gender equality in the media industry. And this episode was hosted by Dr. Yemisa Akimbabbala, produced and edited by Blessin Ujobasi as part of a five episode series on women in academia. All music featured in this podcast is by Nana Kwabena. Thanks for listening and join us again next time.