Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2002, pages 52-55

Special Report

Arab Women Journalists Seek Ways to Improve Their Image at Home and in the West

By Delinda C. Hanley

More than 1,000 Arab women met Feb. 2 and 3 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates to discuss ways to improve both the media’s portrayal of their gender and women’s participation in the field of journalism. In addition to participants from the media industry, the Arab Women’s Media Forum drew scholars, political figures, and representatives from 22 Arab countries. The forum was the fourth in a series of meetings focusing on various women’s issues planned by the Extraordinary Arab Women’s Summit held in Cairo, Egypt in November 2000. The second Arab Women’s Summit will be held November 2002 in Amman, Jordan.

The forum’s media discussions couldn’t have come at a more critical time. Islamic nations face a hostile media campaign in the West that often focuses on Muslim women’s rights, implying they have none. Witnessing Muslim women journalists addressing the issues for themselves proved to be an eye-opening experience.

Covering the two-day program were more than 60 women journalists from the Gulf Cooperation Council and other Arab and Islamic countries, representing newspapers, magazines, satellite TV stations, and both Arab and international news agencies. Five U.S. and Canadian journalists or academics, selected with the help of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, in Washington, DC, joined 20 female journalists from the UK, Germany, Spain, and other European countries as guests of the UAE.

The Arab Women’s Media Forum, organized by the UAE’s General Women’s Union, was chaired by UAE’s first lady, Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak, a tireless advocate for women’s rights over the years.

Sheikha Fatima welcomed those participating in the event, including Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak, chairperson of the Arab Women Summit; Soha Arafat, wife of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat; Fatma al-Bashir, wife of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir; and Lala Hossnaa, sister of Moroccan King Mohammad VI.

A colorful celebration of Arab Women’s Day, held at Sheikh Zayed Pavilion the night before the media forum began, on Feb. 1, featured synchronized fireworks, a laser light show, fountains, and entertainment by leading Arab singers Mohammed Abdo of Saudi Arabia, Egypt’s Angham, and Ahlam from the UAE. The festivities included a parade of 22 women on horseback carrying the flags of Arab nations, followed by career women from a variety of fields, a procession of families and—to remind visitors of the strong traditional roots shared by all Arab nations—stately camels, whose ancestors helped unite the Arab world.

In her opening speech the next morning, Sheikha Fatima described the important task which lies ahead for the media. Declaring that the image of Muslim women as portrayed in the Western world is unfair, she told the conferencegoers that it was now up to women to correct false stereotypes. “We should have effective media organs capable of delivering the true message of Muslim women in Western countries,” she said.

The best way to highlight the role of women in public life, she noted, is to report the positive developments attained by women in the political, cultural and social sectors, as well as their engagement in trade unions.

The wife of UAE’s president Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan also chided the Arab media for shying away from controversial issues such as personal status law and the social causes of crimes against women.

Calling the National Women’s Council in Egypt one of the most successful and unique experiments in the Arab world, Sheikha Fatima praised its head, Mrs. Mubarak, for her many important achievements on behalf of women, including convening the first Arab Women’s Summit in 2000 and other forums. She also thanked the general secretary of the Arab League and the Hariri Foundation in Lebanon for their tireless work to make the media forum a success.

In an especially moving show of Arab solidarity, Sheikha Fatima—and, as a matter of fact, nearly every subsequent speaker during the two-day conference—commended Palestinian women for their patient endurance in the face of the violent occupation of their land. Palestinian speakers were prevented from attending the conference, Sheikha Fatima noted, because of Israeli border closures. She closed by expressing the hope that Arab and Muslim women would continue to meet the challenges of development and become complete partners in building their society in harmony with humanity everywhere.

Egypt’s first lady, Suzanne Mubarak, who also is president of the Arab Women’s Summit, urged attendees to “correct the image of Arab women, Islam and the Arab culture, which have been distorted lately.” Media in the Arab world, she noted, do not reflect the positive reality of the Arab woman’s many accomplishments. Arab women have opened many doors in order to participate in their countries’ political, economic and social life, Mubarak said, and now work in the sciences, arts and literature. With a smile, she noted that Arab women even have “succeeded in invading the political, diplomatic and judicial fields.”

Mubarak challenged the media to play a responsible role in establishing a social, cultural and political awareness in Arab society. The media, she argued, can steer the Arab world toward development and change the engraved negative images of old habits and traditions. “We want an Arab media that portrays our values, our true Arab principles,” Mubarak said, as well as “our great past, hopeful present and promising future.”

Arab women need to frame the messages and work with the challenges of globalization, Mubarak concluded. She encouraged the forum to establish an Arab Women’s Organization to work as part of the Arab League. Finally, Mubarak also saluted Palestinian women trying to reclaim their rights to their land.

Arab and American Women Share Similar Concerns

Many of the papers presented by Arab scholars, journalists, and political leaders could have been given by Americans describing their own media’s depiction of women in the United States. Arab women are as concerned as their Western counterparts about the media’s damaging portrayal of women. Experts fear that TV shows like “Bay Watch,” and even some Arabic programs that mimic Western junk programming, may promote sexual license, promiscuity and violence against women as they undermine family values. Will Arab women solve the dilemma that has baffled women in the West?

(After this reporter returned home from the conference she tuned into a local radio show and heard a similar viewpoint. A Washington, DC commentator noted that she hated to see the Winter Olympics end because, once again, there would be no TV for her to watch with her children, since American TV programming offers only sex or violence.)

The first conference presenter, Dr. Hassa Lotah, head of the UAE University’s media department, said that the media either focuses on a woman’s appearance or, equally damaging, portrays her as an emotional creature unable to think or make her own decisions. “The Western woman has suffered from this attitude for a long time,” Dr. Lotah noted, “and the Arab media has just imported the stereotyped image of women from the Western media.”

Afaf Al Merri, a member of the Sharjah Supreme Family Council, agreed that women’s bodies are being exploited commercially in many TV shows and advertisements. Al Merri warned that this crude view of women leads to consumerism among women to the exclusion of productivity, and also presents bad role models for teenagers.

Other speakers cautioned that a woman’s traditional family role should not be treated negatively. Lana Mamkegh, a Jordanian TV journalist, said that often women in television are portrayed as drudges—cooking and cleaning in their homes. Instead, in Mamkegh’s opinion, there should be a healthy blend. “The traditional role of a woman as mother and wife should also be appreciated,” she argued. “What is needed in the Arab world is an educated woman who can assume her pivotal role as a teacher and supporter of the family.”

A majority of speakers urged both the advertising industry and media organizations to rectify the poor images of women in the media and replace them with better role models.

Combating False Stereotypes In the West

After Sept. 11, there is new urgency in combating false Western stereotypes of Muslim women in the press, according to Dr. Jaber Asfour of Egypt’s National Council for Women. Many Westerners mistakenly view Taliban women as quintessential Muslim women, she said, adding that it is up to the media to convey the positive images of the pioneering Arab women’s movement.

After addressing media stereotypes, speakers tackled the social and cultural hindrances Arab women who work in the media face. While Arab women have made great progress in other sectors, said the UAE’s Dr. Mouza Ghobash, the dominant social culture still does not fully appreciate that a woman who works outside the home is a good citizen who wants to achieve national goals. Journalists and other women who are required to interact with the public face extra hurdles in a traditional society, she told her audience.

Magda Abu Fadil, director of the Institute for Professional Journalists at the Lebanese American University and a veteran news reporter, advised women to “do their homework and more” to become experts in their field. Their co-workers will be compelled to accept them as professionals as a result, and women will get past the glass ceiling. Abu Fadil advised women who want to further their careers to learn more than one language and study international politics.

Abu Fadil also had suggestions for waging a media campaign in the West. After Sept. 11, she said, the media often turned to American experts on Islam and the Middle East—many of whom were quite anti-Arab—instead of asking Arabs themselves. Just as Muslim American boxer Mohammed Ali was used to reassure his co-religionists that America’s war was not against Islam. She advised Arabs to get help from Omar Sharif and other fluent English speakers to tell Americans about the Islamic world.

“So far we’ve failed to figure out how to speak to America and the Western world,” she said. “We need to talk about our similarities and the values we share. We need to spend time, effort and money. We need to cooperate with Arab- and Muslim-American groups.”

Abu Fadil even proposed creating a news agency or Internet site for 8- to 18-year-old children around the world to speak to each other about how they feel threatened by a global war.

Kuwait University’s Dr. Kafiya Ramadhan’s paper highlighted the progress journalists have made in the last few years. Kuwaiti women used men’s pen names in the 1950s and ”˜60s, she noted, but women now work in many positions in every newspaper, including at least one editor-in-chief.

Women in Media Urged to Take Concrete Actions

Abdul Hafith Al Hirgham, the Tunisian director general of the Arab States Broadcasting Union, encouraged TV viewers and women’s organizations to criticize what they don’t like on televison. If women are concerned about the negative effects of exploiting women’s beauty to promote sales, he argued, they should simply not buy the goods or watch the shows. Programming and advertising will change to get viewers back, he said. When the role of women or their image changes in the Arab world, he concluded, their image abroad will improve.

Suad Bakkour, head of the Syrian Women Federation, agreed that media can be used as a tool of change to improve women’s lives and social development. When a population is uneducated it can fuel intolerance in a society, she explained. The media can be used to inform and educate, Bakkour said: “In fact, it can become a weapon more important than a military arsenal.”

At the time of World War I, Bakkour remarked, 25 Syrian magazines were owned by women. This era was probably the golden age for women in Syria, she said. President Bashir Assad has worked hard to enact laws to help women obtain fair insurance and inheritance rights, noted Bakkour. While Syrian women hold 10 percent of parliamentary positions, and 25 percent of journalists are women, she concluded, Syrian women must continue to work hard for greater opportunities.

Malika Malak, from Morocco, told the assembly that Arab women will help bring economic prosperity to their societies. If Arab countries can better utilize this half of their population, she argued, they can improve everyone’s standard of living and help achieve global development. Journalists could help clarify the political status of women and help correct laws that hinder their participation, said Malak. No woman should be the silent, obedient victim of injustice, she concluded, urging journalists to take up their pens to assist their sisters.

Dr. Hasanat Awad Sati of the General Federation of Sudanese Women noted that women are always present during the destruction of wars. They should also be present, she said, in times of reconstruction and prosperity.

UAE University professor Dr. Amina Al Dhaheri suggested studying images of marginalized women in video clips as a way to begin to change stereotypes.

University of Sharjah professor Dr. Ali Awad noted that every study of Arab women in the media concludes that there is not one image but multiple images. The problems faced by Arab women are the same facing women in the Western world, he added. Observing that most women on TV are between the ages of 18 and 40, he declared that younger girls and older women don’t seem to exist on the radar screen, and urged Arabs to resist the imported image of women.

Dr. Awad added that 73 percent of women now studying in the media field in the UAE are women, although this has not always been the case. Many women currently working as journalists had no academic preparation and entered the field because they knew someone, he charged. In his opinion, women need more education and training to become journalists. As in Syria, Dr. Awad said, in the 1950s and ”˜60s there were more women working in the UAE press than in the 1980s and ”˜90s.

Jamila Ali Raja from the Republic of Yemen advocated more talk shows to provide a better image of women than those available on satellite TV or in advertisements. “Being angry is a step toward taking charge of the situation and demanding change,” she said. “Let’s become active participants instead of angry spectators.”

In addition to a women’s league working with the Arab League, Ali Raja thought an association of Arab media women would be a good idea.

Ietidal Al Mejberi, from Tunisia’s Arab Women Training and Research Center, said that Arab women were facing two extremes or contradictory images: the expoited sexual object from the West or the homebound woman in hijab. The more accurate image, of an efficient member of society, is rarely part of either extreme, she noted. When the media is in the hands of men, she charged, it can become an influential tool to manipulate women to adopt a particular role. She suggested incentives for the media to promote the achievements of women.

Naziha Zrouq, a past Tunisian minister of women’s affairs, declared the need for a comprehensive women’s rights campaign that would target all levels of Arab society and help women progress as media professionals.

Media Stars Share Their Experiences

The final session of the conference featured well-known “media practitioners” sharing their personal experiences as working journalists.

Iqbal Baraka, editor of the Egyptian Hawaa, or Eve, magazine, started out as a war correspondent in the Sinai. She also writes a highly-charged political weekly column for Al Ahram. In Egypt, she noted, every woman goes to school, many obtain the best grades, and quite a few obtain top faculty positions. According to Egyptian labor laws there is no distinction between men and women, Baraka said. If you’re talented, she said, you can get a job—in all sectors except the government. “Only 10 out of 440 members of the Egyptian parliament are women,” Baraka told the audience. “Women are just too polite, and leave politics to men. But if women want better schools, health care, laws and roads, they’d better become politicians and make these demands themselves. There is no obstacle for a strong, qualified woman. There were none for me.”

“Arab women are moving backward,” Baraka opined. “We’re discussing the same problems and issues we were discussing in the ”˜20s. Unless women move forward now, the whole of society will be hurt. The Arab world will deteriorate and decline.”

Iqbal Al Ahmad, a chief editor in Kuwait, blamed women for permitting themselves to be exploited as a commodity. She said that men and women journalists are treated the same in Kuwait. According to Al Ahmad, the press is free to discuss women’s rights and any other issue. The only prohibition or taboo she could recall was the subject of rape following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

Mona bin Mahfouth Al Muntheri, a popular radio personality, said that her country, the Sultanate of Oman, is having a renaissance. Because of her radio show, she said, people all over Oman feel like she is part of their family. Sometimes she feels like she is only one woman surrounded by men in her field, she told the audience, but said she’s found co-workers very supportive.

Mahasen Al Imam talked about elbowing her way into Jordanian journalism 27 years ago. While she has often “crossed the red line” in her articles, she said, she continues her daily efforts to express herself.

Kawthar Al Bashrawi, who now has a show on Al Jazeera Satellite Channel, started out in radio in 1984. Both her beauty and talent helped her rocket through the ranks and become a popular TV icon, known for her fiery views in support of the Palestinian cause. Al Bashrawi said she always felt she had to work twice as hard as anyone else in order to prove that her success was due to more than just good looks. In the Middle East, just like in the West, she said, women’s screen careers can end too soon because of age.

Fatheya Adaleh has worked in Tunisia’s TV news industry for 20 years, making steady progress in her field in a country that guarantees equal rights for women. For all of that, she noted, in broadcast news it is mostly men who are the stars.

Nasra Al-Sadoon, currently editor of the Iraq Daily newspaper, was director general of Iraq’s Ministry of Information in 1997—a good indication of advances made by women in Iraq. As a result of the sanctions regime, she said, her 16-page daily is down to 4 pages. Printing presses have broken down and it’s forbidden for Iraqis to import computers, she explained. Even if they could import it, she said, there would be no one to work modern publishing equipment, because Iraqis cannot get training abroad. Once a source of pride in the days of highly educated Iraqis, she said, newspapers now are virtually worthless.

Al-Sadoon also warned that if Arab husbands and fathers don’t permit women to work at night, when newspapers are at the height of production, women cannot succeed as journalists in the Middle East. If a husband and children cannot fend for themselves when a breaking story keeps mother at work, she said, a woman may find this career is not a smooth sail.

Lebanese-born Nada El Muhtadi, based in London, who hosts a program focusing on Palestine on the Arab News Network, thanked all the presenters for their inspiring words. She asked all Media Forum participants to not merely file their conference notes and media suggestions in a drawer but to act on them.

The Abu Dhabi Declaration

At the conclusion of the forum participants adopted The Abu Dhabi Declaration, a powerful document calling for media organizations in Arab countries to remove any hurdles that impede women’s progress in the media industry. Since the media transmits a society’s thoughts and values, the declaration states, it has a vital role in shaping the social, cultural and socioeconomic role of women. The declaration also called for the media to focus more on reporting modern Arab women’s contributions to society and various professions.

Participants called for the enactment of laws that would increase the involvement of women in all spheres of life, and that would make it possible for them to take up various modern professions without provoking a clash within Arab societies. The declaration also called for a grand media strategy to chart a path for portraying Arab causes—the first being the Palestinian struggle for a sovereign nation.

The Abu Dhabi Declaration called for an annual media award to encourage journalists to write about women’s causes. It asked media establishments to try harder to maintain the dignity of women and to stop exploiting them for financial gain. Finally, the declaration called for the creation of a center for research and training for women in the media.

Each woman who attended this media forum left with batteries recharged. Every journalist was inspired to do her part to improve the image of those women in the Middle East who are taking a drubbing at home and from the Western press. Another conference bonus was meeting and networking with other journalists who share an obsession for truth in news reporting.

The simultaneous translation of Arabic speeches into English and French impressed visitors, who could not help but compliment the top-notch, U.N.-caliber young Arab women.

Few reporters could resist the opportunity to conduct interviews on the sidelines and discuss politics with their counterparts in far-away lands. Women wearing black hijab or colorful head scarves could be seen taping interviews in the halls. Others clad in suits or jeans could be seen lugging TV cameras and lights. The all-too-few Americans attending the conference unexpectedly found themselves trying to explain the U.S. war on terrorism to their counterparts, including several who feared that their country could well be the next target.

The United States would be well advised to sponsor a similar Forum on Women and Media. American journalists would learn a lot and be able to dispel myths about their co-workers and other women in the Middle East. By working together they could help improve the image of women in what has become a global media and, in the process, begin to transform television into an elevating educational tool.

Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.