Restrictive boxes have always existed for women in different sectors and industries. Often, the damsel in distress, or the naive princess in need of saving archetypes cage women into untimely and unfounded narratives.
However, as women brave innovative spaces, rightful worlds come to exist, and in a shifting way, women in alternative media and journalism give invaluable meaning to “women empowerment.”
Feminist Media Into the Picture
Feminism is not a new concept. In fact, it is an idea that is fairly familiar to everyone. But to truly understand its definition, one must delve deeper to perceive its genuine advocacy.
Contrary to toxic masculinity's backward beliefs, feminism is not about establishing women’s superiority but rather rallying for equal rights, opportunities, and recognition.
When feminism merges with media and journalism—what could one anticipate?
Feminism In India (FII) editor-in-chief & founder-director Japleen Pasricha emphasized in one of her talks that feminist-centered media must exist “...to produce gender-transformative content and to develop self-regulatory equality policies, including access to decision-making positions, thereby creating gender equality in content, workplace, and management.”
In PUP Journalism Guild's recently concluded seminar, “PeryodisTalks: Women in Journalism,” Gabriela Baron from the Daily Tribune recalled that at the grassroots of alternative media is a grim inspiration from the lack of representation and reporting on women's cases of violence, abuse, and sexual harassment in dominant media.
At its very core, feminist media is an alternative that amplifies community stories that are unfortunately, and dominantly, shrouded in shaming or belittling of women's experiences.
Feminist media is not stories with bows and glitters that dominant media often stereotype; it lives on to create discourse on women’s rights and issues, and this platform makes musings anew.
Feminist Journalists Into the Bylines
Mainstream media is often subject to the limelight of typecasting women into specific roles: lifestyle writers, voiceover actresses, or showbiz correspondents. Gendered roles seem to not cease in existence, and in the newsroom, the show gets too real and riveting—in the worst ways possible.
The same extent of terrible treatment runs to the second-class treatment of women journalists that either goes unnoticed or is shrugged off. Regardless of a news agency or publishing company, female journalists get catcalled during press conferences, subjected to improper remarks, and berated blatantly and accusingly.
To say that the regressive culture of finding ways to shrink women into controllable displays of “diversity and inclusivity” is an understatement.
However, the ingenious style of women finding ways to uplift journalism into regaining stronger traction for fearlessness does not die at the hands of sexism from government leaders and blatant shoving from faux patriarchal messiahs.
From the dominant bylines to the alternative media spaces, women find ways to speak their truths, findings, and news on platforms that shoot like daggers against the system.
Feminist Powers Into Press Freedom
A resounding “Not all women are inspiring” still echoes from Pola del Monte’s, also known as @misschiefeditor on Instagram, speakership among aspiring journalists at her lecture in the recent PeryodisTalks. But the course does not end with the statement; a deeper context runs at play—recognition of racial privileges and the unlearning of systemic misogyny.
“Not all women are inspiring,” but perhaps all women can learn a thing or two from another. We do not celebrate every journalist as a feminist, in the same regard that not every woman counts as a feminist. In a nutshell, there is always a space for unlearning, learning, and relearning.
Feminist journalists, especially in alternative media, prize a deep sense of purpose that transcends mere reporting. A lot of esteemed names could make the list, from fearless investigative reporters to broadcasters who open difficult, but needed discussions.
When we speak of fearless journalism, one community journalist and editor-in-chief in the alternative media sector comes to mind: Frenchie Mae Cumpio (#FreeFrenchieCumpio) from Eastern Vista.
In the fourth year since her arrest in 2020, she serves as proof of how repression and censorship manifest into legislation like the “anti-terror law,” acting as a basis to create reasons to target and detain those in the field of alternative media who cover cases like impunity against other journalists, extrajudicial killings, and labor injustices.
The attack on female journalists mirrors the continuous rhetoric of whether genuine efforts are being put in place to ensure press freedom—be it in alternative, dominant, or even campus press sectors.
From online harassment to disgraced sexualization to determined disrespect, feminist media is actively on the onslaught of male-dominated media power-tripping. Still, the lens of feminist journalists transcends women’s issues because the inquiring eye of journalist documentarians and authors strives to bring stories to large-scale, progressive perspectives.
Feminist Perspectives Into Investigative Prospects
Patriarchal systems have always masked their disdain for women through sexist jokes and questionably playful tirades—but what they often discount is the ability of women to see through bullshits.
Looking deeper into these systems’ workings would reveal harsher revelations than fragile egos—behind female journalists, there are stories that empower women and dismantle broken systems.
A critically acclaimed memoir detailing former President Rodrigo Duterte’s crimes against humanity through his bloody “war on drugs” runs by the byline of “Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country” by author Patricia Evangelista. In this, a series of investigative legworks and interviews document her encounters in the faces of vigilante killings and gun violence.
The war on drugs and other administrative issues did not end with a chilling effect on reporting but rather became open with conversations and reports where there was no shortage of female journalists who pitched and pushed to bring stories to life.
Many investigative journalists who are typecast under the impression that women are too emotional to be in the field or too cowardly to work in pressured scenarios prove to be even better standards for what journalism should look like—fearless, critical with substance, and rooted in a humane understanding of societies.
To be a female, in a world that often pretends to value women, is a challenge on its own when divided. Being a female journalist, in a profession tagged as dangerous, is a challenge that should cease to exist.
Progressively, as women create and take up bigger innovative spaces in a transformative way, women in media and journalism live out an invaluable meaning to “women empowerment.”
Article: Sharona Nicole Semilla
Graphics: Aldreich Pascual
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