Media Alternatives in Sri Lanka
Sunila Abeysekera
The construction of femininity in the mainstream media that is, for the most part, controlled by the State, is a reflection of the existing standards and opinions regarding women and their roles in modern Sri Lankan society. The heightening of the economic crisis and the growing rate of unemployment has meant that we have seen more emphasis placed on the 'self-employment' of women; in our context this means strengthening the traditional role of woman and her subordinate position as a 'secondary income-earner'. Along with this we see the stress on 'good motherhood' as a cornerstone of civilisation. The mainstream press and the women's weeklies, as well, are replete with these stereotypes. While within the mainstream media there have been several, albeit isolated, attempts to examine the role and image of women more realistically, what is really interesting to note is that with the growth of several women's groups throughout the country, there have been attempts made by each of them to address themselves to the issue of stereotyping.
The Progressive Women's Front, based in rural south-western Sri Lanka, works mostly among peasant women. Since 1982, they have been publishing a journal, Kantha Maga (The Woman's Path) in Sinhala and English; the Sinhala issue is a quarterly, the English, a bi-annual. In addition, in 1984, they began a small bullet titled Athvala (Guideline), which is a monthly and contains news and information on activities of the PWF as well as other women's groups, and also focuses attention on problems regarding women covered by the press. In the last few months they have concentrated particularly on the issue of violence against women, culminating in a public meeting held in August at the Town Hall in Kurunegala, the provincial capital. An interesting feature of this meeting was the performance of a street play prepared and presented by a women's drama group which has grown up around the PWF. It dealt with the plight of a village girl who gets caught in the vicious circle of needing a job and having to offer herself sexually to those in power in order to get it.
The Women's Centre in Ja Ela, which works mostly with women workers in factories in the heavily industrialised area just north of Colombo, has also been issuing a newspaper entitled Sthree (Woman), on a regular basis.
Kantha Handa (Voice of Women) is one of the oldest women's groups in the island, and its journal (also called Voice of Women) has been coming out in Sinhala, English and Tamil on a regular basis now for over four years.
The most recent additions to the groups involved in printing and publishing for women are the Women's Education Centre that has put out several pamphlets in Sinhala, English and Tamil on the situation of women in Sri Lanka in different sectors, and the Women and Media group, which has put out two pamphlets in a series entitled 'Feminist Theory', which attempts to translate, into Sinhala, new trends in feminist thought in other countries. What has become more and more apparent to all those women who are involved in printing and publishing is that lack of technical knowledge and experience make them almost totally dependent on others (men) when it comes to actually getting their material out of the press. Thus, there is growing awareness of the need to learn the skills of printing and publishing and start a process whereby women can control that aspect of the media as well.
As far as other uses of media are concerned, the Women and Media group has produced two slide shows so far in collaboration with the Centre for Society and Religion; one of them, called Double Day, is available with the commentary in Sinhala and English; it explores the two-fold exploitation of women who work both outside and inside the home. The other is Woman and Her Body, a basic explanation of the reproductive process, with some photographs of a live childbirth at the end.
The Open Art Circle, a street theatre group, has been working in close collaboration with the Women's Action Committee, a federation of several women's groups. At the meetings organised to celebrate International Women's Day (March 8) in 1983 and 1984, the group presented plays related to the issues of the women's movement in Sri Lanka. They are also working to build up more women's drama groups associated with the different women's groups.
All the groups are convinced that the development of alternative forms of communication is a must for the growth of the women's movement in Sri Lanka, both to build up skills and foster creativity among the women themselves, and also to launch a sustained attack on the traditional and conservative roles and images allocated to women by mainstream media.