Among the 35,000 plus women gathered in Beijing and Huairou in September 1995, ten were from The Feminist Majority. Here are on-site accounts that Feminist Majority Delegation members posted on The Feminist Majority Foundation Online throughout the conference. |
September 4, 1995 - Jennifer Jackman
Feminists Empower Women Through the Media Huairou, China - Strategies to empower women through mainstream media and to create alternative women's media spaces were the topic of the Feminist Majority Foundation's third panel session which featured statements from women media experts in Africa, India, China, New Zealand, France, and the United States.
Leading the panel, Feminist Majority Foundation Media Director Colleen Dermody described the how-tos of getting and influencing media coverage for feminist movement organizations. Maintaining media contacts, identifying organizational spokespersons, and developing easy-to-read issue fact sheets were strategies advocated by Dermody.
Describing her organization's journal, African Women, Sarah Mukasa Sub-Editor of the African Womens' Journal called upon women to create alternative women-controlled media in order to define feminist issues for the public. Through these alternative media, feminism will slowly penetrate the mainstream agenda, said Mukasa.
Upala Devi, of the Asian Network of Women In Communication in India, described the challenges that feminists face in a country with 9000 different dialects where the media is all controlled by huge media conglomerates such as Rupert Murdoch.
Catherine Euvrard, Director of Communications for Roussel Uclaf in France, stressed the importance of internal communications mechanisms within organizations as an additional strategy for the empowerment of women.
Schedule of Plenaries
Statistics on the Status of Women
Copyright 1995, The Feminist Majority Foundation and New Media Publishing Inc.
