By Dr Mohamed Kirat
Mahatma Gandhi once said, “if you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate an entire family”. This means that education is one of the prime needs of women for their development and empowerment in society.
Though alternative media can act as a platform or bridge to surpass the barrier of essential communication and information; education is a fundamental prerequisite for all human beings.
Women, especially at the grassroots level, are often ignorant and uneducated and seldom speak out about mistreatment, exploitation, harassment, marginalisation and segregation.
Community radio stations, alternative newspapers, developmental journalism, citizen journalism, social networks, and new media can help highlight their problems, concerns and rights.
Women who are deprived of basic human rights can access various helplines through the initiatives of various media groups and functionaries.
The various challenges of today’s society prompt women to be a part of the public sphere and civil society and to share the diverse programmes that the state engages in.
Women need more action and policies which help in understanding the various mechanisms, peculiarities and prospects of media, taking into consideration that women’s empowerment is necessary for society. As far as gender equality is concerned, its values are being accepted and promoted in almost all parts of the world.
A nation’s overall development depends greatly on the inclusion of women in its development process. The importance of gender equality in development is well recognised and accepted.
Men and women cannot achieve excellence and optimal results without mutual cooperation.
In the context of the knowledge sphere, the issues of gender equality, equity and empowerment of women become even more significant as women have a strategic role in incubation and transfer of critical knowledge, which often forms the blueprint for survival of communities to minimise their risks in adverse circumstances.
Women, because of their biological and social roles, are generally more rooted than men in the confines of their locality. They are therefore more aware then men of the social, economic and environmental needs of their own communities. Women play an important role in the development of the society and the nation.
In this century, in various developments processes in the scientific and technological era, the status of women is changing at a fast pace, but at the same time we cannot ignore societies where women are marginalised, discriminated against and feel oppressed because of different gender-related issues.
Empowerment of women has emerged as an important issue in recent times and the process of development is incomplete without the active participation of women. Women are the transmitters of culture in all societies. The status of women in a society is a true measure of its social, religious, cultural and spiritual levels.
There is a need to highlight factors like independent decision-making, economic independence, health and sanitation, participation in collective decision-making, awareness and exercise of rights, and political participation, which can help the progress of women in society.
It is undoubtedly true that empowerment of women can be made possible by education through mass media. The mass media has played a pivotal and vital role in empowerment of women. It has reached out to large audiences through print, radio, television, cinema, the Internet and new and social media.
Life today is conditioned by the mass media. In today’s world, people cannot live without the media and cannot air their concerns and make their voice heard without the media.
Societal and political transformations sweeping the world have empowered large segments of the world’s population. The Internet has tremendous potential to bring about greater social equality and empowerment and improve everyday life for those on the margins of society. Marginalised members of society incorporate computers and the Internet into their daily lives in ways that are meaningful to them. The proliferation and expansion of the Internet, social media and new media throughout the world is moving very fast, opening the door of emancipation, knowledge and participation to everyone.
Social media could enhance women’s participation in economic and political life and allow them to expression themselves and promote social change, and this is a strong belief that has emerged in society. Social media tools now expose aspects of millions of people’s daily lives and thus affect the way they interact with the government, do business, and engage in civil society movements.
However, women face barriers in real life that hinder them from participating in social media and seeing the impact it has on their lives.
One of the barriers is ICT literacy, which is the ability to use digital technology, communication tools, and/or networks to define access, manage, integrate, evaluate, create, and communicate information ethically and legally in order to function in a knowledge-based society. Women in most countries are not literate, or not literate enough in this matter. This lack of education can be overcome by training.
Other kinds of constraints that are highly significant are social constraints. These include family and societal barriers and stereotyping of women, especially in places where female users operate. This leads to the issue of literacy in general. In the Arab World, there are more than 80 million illiterate people, of whom over 70 percent are women. Then there is the issue of media literacy, which countries should take seriously.
These are two major obstacles that hinder the process of empowering women through the media. However, the future is very promising as the status of women in various countries is changing and improving rapidly.
The Peninsula
The writer is a professor of public relations and mass communication at the College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University.
