‘Women journalists continue to be trolled, threatened and subjected to abuse’

Women across the world have played pivotal roles in rebuilding and reshaping journalism by overcoming legal, social, and intellectual barriers, and in India, their work advocating for gender rights and justice has helped lay the foundations for the kind of investigative reporting many women journalists do today, said Padmaja Shaw, retired professor in the Department of Journalism, Osmania University.

But women journalists continue to face obstacles, their free and independent opinions are often not valued, even by the rulers of the day. She lamented that women journalists in the country face constant harassment, both online and offline, including legal threats, professional isolation and persistent online trolling.

Ms. Shaw was delivering the Prof.S.Bashiruddin Memorial Lecture, commemorating his 90th birth anniversary, here at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University on Tuesday. Her address was themed on the impact women had on journalism.

According to Ms. Shaw, women in the profession not only aspire for skills in journalism but also courage. But it still remains disproportionate and a daunting task.

During the Indian national movement too, she said, women journalists raised awareness in the press about the need for women’s rights and self-governance. From various regions, they never ignored what was considered ‘news’. They sharpened their craft and asserted that domestic work was economic task, marriage laws as legal inequality, education as citizenship, and violence against women as a public crime rather than a private matter.

Ms. Shaw remembered Bashiruddin, former Vice-Chancellor of BRAOU, for his visionary leadership in the field of journalism and especially for shaping women as professionals in a remarkable way.

She cautioned that it is a dangerous trend in the country that women are still prevented from having property rights and financial independence. In her lecture, Ms. Shaw remembered the lives of renowned women leaders and journalists such as Swarnakumari Devi, Pandita Ramabai, Malini Subramaniam and Ritu Sarin, among others.

Vice-Chancellor Ghanta Chakrapani, who presided over the event, described Bashiruddin as an icon of Indian journalism. He expressed concern that journalism of the day was not living up to its expected role in society and observed that journalists and media organisations should stand by the common man and focus on his problems.