Developing countries as well as western development planners look upon education as one of the most important instruments for social and economic development and modernization. Desired changes in literacy levels, attitudes, values and skills are to be implemented with the help of education: a) by changing and revising the formal education system, b) through various non-formal education programmes, such as adult literacy courses, education in modern agricultural techniques, health and family planning education, and c) bringing about changes in attitudes and values or reinforcing already existing ones informally through the media — radio, television, the press, literature, films and other means of cultural expression.

Education is the means through which a society perpetuates and spreads its own culture. From the point of view of the individual, education is the process of "bringing out" or "developing" an individual's natural abilities and interests. It is thus a basic right of every human being.

In both the developed and developing countries, the education system as well as the media help to reinforce the patriarchal values and attitudes existing in society. In the lower classes, women and girls have been, and still are, discriminated against: there is no equal access to educational opportunities or to the media. The contents of both reflect the narrow traditional male images of women as housewives and mothers, or as occupying subordinate positions in society.

Development education programmes, which are usually based on the western (male) patterns of growth, discriminate against women and girls. These programmes, though well meaning, often overlook the specific situation and needs of , women in developing countries, with the result that (economic) "development" of a community more often than not adversely affects the status of women in that community.

The Report of the International Workshop on Feminist ? Ideology and Structure, held in Bangkok in 1979, states:

"Most development efforts aim at restructuring the economic basis of society and changes in class relationships. Though occasionally these attempts may have some impact on the family form, family and social structures such as patriarchy are remarkably persistent and unaffected by intervention. The control of the female role and its definition by the males in the circle of a woman's relationships is such that economic changes in family status may actually worsen women's oppression. In many developing countries, improvement in the economic status of a class has led to more unequal treatment of women."¹ 
Women in the women's movement are working to expose the nature and extent of this discrimination against women, to show that it is a world-wide phenomenon and stems from the patriarchal nature of world culture which assumes that women are by nature inferior to men and so should occupy a subordinate social position.

Both in the west and in developing countries, women are increasingly questioning the very basis of these assumptions. Women are beginning to create their own knowledge and culture, based on their own experiences. We are no longer willing to accept male definitions of us and the world because we know today that they are biased and one-sided and come from a culture which has crippled and enslaved us for centuries.

As a result of women's actions internationally in this direction, society is slowly beginning to recognise the need to improve the social status of women. The re-evaluation of the education system in order to introduce changes benefitting women is one of the tasks which various national governments and development agencies have set themselves. Such views are reflected in the call - often seen in United Nations literature on development - to educate women in order "to integrate women in the development process." It is a fact that many third world governments are beginning to sponsor women's studies' courses in their own universities. But what is clearly lacking is the understanding that the root of the problem of women's low social status is patriarchal relations, which are still all-pervasive.

We have a long way to go before we can hope to achieve social conditions which allow for the full development of every individual regardless of sex, class or colour. It is absolutely necessary that development planners take note of, and learn from, the women's movement, if they want to create programmes which are oriented towards the real development of women. In Part 1 of this chapter, we examine the role of education and communication vis-a-vis women and development. In Part 11, we have elaborated on how women have responded to the discrimination that exists in the education and communications media by creating their own alternatives. Part Til of this chapter consists of annotated resources on education and the media. They include information on groups and organizations, as well as useful readings and bibliographies.

1. education and communication

In this section, we examine how the education systems and the media help to reinforce traditional social attitudes towards women. They help to keep women in subordinate social positions — deprived of their basic rights to full personal development and an equal social status with men.

formal education

(education through institutions such as schools, universities and vocational training institutes).

The type of normal education which is predominant in developing countries generally has a hierarchical teaching structure, like a pyramid with a base which is as diffused as possible. It is a schooling system based on massive free primary education, but with university as the final point of achievement and a lack of openings for other sorts of work at the intermediate level. In most cases, it is a continuation of the system established during the colonial period to serve the requirements of the colonizers. Very rarely does the system adequate
ly ly cover or even reach remote agrarian regions or the marginal populations of large cities, it is, above all, tailored for the urban middle classes who use it to achieve status and power, and as a mechanism for upward social mobility. The education system is unsuited to meet the needs of a dynamic modern society. Instead, it seems more suited to maintaining the status quo, catering to the interests of the upper and middle classes of society. In terms of accessibility and content, formal education in most developing countries discriminates against many sections of society, such as the rural masses, the lower classes and above all, women and girls. Studies of school text books in a number of developing countries have revealed that women are most often portrayed playing stereotypical roles as wives and mothers, or occupying subordinate positions in employment. This discrimination is evident at various levels of the education system. The following is an excerpt from an analysis made by Vivian Lowery Derryck on education in developing countries. She describes how formal education discriminates against women and girl.

women and education: the current assessment

"Recent studies by the World Bank and other international institutions have found that formal education is often discriminatory, inefficient and ineffective. The basic assumptions underlying educational priorities and policies should be reexamined, for analysis has proved these very assumptions questionable at best, untrue at worst.

Thus, many of our assumptions about the synergistic relationship of education and employment, the potency of education as a means of upward mobility and the importance of education as a democratizing agent have been severely challenged.

In addition to educational assumptions being challenged, the performance of formal education has also come under close scrutiny and been found wanting. Retention of literacy, numeracy and basic education cognitive skills, is depressingly low; in a follow-up study one to two years after completion of a two-to-three-year adult basic education course in Tunisia, 80 percent of the participants had returned to illiteracy. In a 1968 study in India, formal school leavers with 6 years of schooling had lost 20 percent of their skills, while participants in 6 years of literacy classes had a literacy lapse rate of 45 percent. 

In short, the formal education system, as currently constituted, is of questionable effectiveness and highly inefficient...

Having discussed current dissatisfaction with the formal education systems of developing countries, we now examine the role of women in education...

Women have not been part of the mainstream of educational activity anywhere in the developing world. An estimated 65 percent of the world's illiterates are women. Women and girls are less likely to enter school in the first place, and more likely to drop out because of social and economic pressures.

In the developing world, women do not have equal access to formal education at any level from primary school through to higher education.

Female enrolments in less developed countries (LDCs) do not come close to parity with male enrolment figures. Although the number of females in primary schools has risen significantly in all of the developing areas, girls attend school from one-half to one-tenth as frequently as males of similar ages. In a rough division into developed and developing nations, girls in LDCs are more likely to be school dropouts than boys. For every 37 boys who dropped out of school in I960, 49 girls left school; for every 40 male dropouts in 1970, 46 girls left school. In access to vocational and technical education, females are again under-represented. A UNESCO report on female education and training noted: marked by a far-reaching numerical and sectoral imbalance, the opportunities open to'girls in technical and vocational education are still far from equal to those enjoyed by boys.' Moreover, girls are usually enrolled at the non-supervisory worker training level, rather than at the managerial technician one; consequently, they are trapped in low-skilled jobs and are not candidates for advanced training for positions requiring higher levels of education and expertise. There is other similar de facto discrimination against women in education. For instance, the percentage of educational expenditures allocated for higher education is invariably many times higher than that allocated to primary school. In Uganda, for example, in 1971 for every 470 shillings spent for primary education, 560 were spent for higher education. In the same year, for every 24 dinars spent on primary education in Tunisia, 986 dinars were spent on higher education. Female enrolments are in inverse proportion to the amounts spent. Indonesia reflects the decreasing female enrolments as one moves up the education ladder. Females comprise 46 percent of primary enrolments but, by university level, females are only 29 percent of enrolments, while males move from 54 percent of primary to 71 percent of university enrolments. Not only are females under-represented in first and second levels, but they also receive a proportionately smaller share of university monies, due to their even smaller numbers at the higher levels.

The university, however, is not only the institution on which the largest portion of the education budget is spent; it is often the place where critical development decisions are made. Institutional capacity-building is a continual thrust at most LDC universities. University students are tapped as researchers, field assistants and teaching assistants in the development and execution of in-country research projects. Females who dropped out after primary school have lost twice: first, the opportunity to acquire sophisticated cognitive skills and, second, the opportunity to expand their employment and social options.

Why and how did women's education reach this dismal state? The reasons for discrimination against females are varied and far-reaching, ranging from parents' distrust of the unknown school to vehement denial of the necessity of education for women. In many LDCs, parents are reluctant to invest in a girl's education because her major role is still viewed as nurturing children and remaining in the traditional sector of society. Moreover, in many societies, the monetary return on parents' investment in their daughter's education will be enjoyed by her spouse, not the family that sacrificed and faced the derision of friends and neighbors to send her to school.

Other reasons involve the fear of the changes in girls that education might bring. A young girl may become "sassy" or "frisky" or think that she is better than her family. Another fear, this one based on fact, is that the girl may see her options expanded by moving away from her parents and home, usually to an urban area. A related social constraint is the lack of separate residence facilities for females at boarding Schools. Parents will not send their daughters to schools that cannot guarantee that cultural norms of sex segregation will be maintained.

In the 1945 to 1960 period of nationalist sentiment, the number of girls and women educated did not increase dramatically. In 1960, the year of independence for many African states, girls and women comprised 37 percent of primary level, 28 percent of secondary level and 25 percent of higher education students. Since 1960, the situation has improved both in Africa and worldwide. Developing countries moved from 46 percent of school age populations in school in 1960 to 62 percent of school age populations' total enrolment in 1975. Although female enrolment rates are rising rapidly, major disparities between male and female enrolment rates still exist.

Despite the increases in enrolments, the current education outlook for girls and women is bleak. Nowhere in sub-Saharan Africa do female enrolment rates at any level of education equal male enrolment. Percentage increase may have been larger for girls, but in absolute numbers, female enrolments still lag behind those of males. Moreover, these disparities will increase in the decade from 1975 through 1985, according to UNESCO projections.

Access to school placement - "getting in" — is just part of the problem. Although she cleared the first hurdle, admission, seven-year-old Baindu, a west African schoolgirl, will find it difficult to continue her education. The difficulty will grow with each passing year. The dropout and wastage rates are usually three to four times as high for girls as for boys. Girls are the first to be asked to leave school if there is a financial squeeze in the family. Moreover, they usually achieve lower grades than boys, for a variety of reasons. First, in most cultures, they are not spared their household chores because of school attendance; they are usually physically tired. Second, the self-fulfilling prophecy is at work. Teachers expect them to achieve less than boys; they in turn internalize this sub-expectation and do, indeed, perform below capacity. Since promotion is based on mastery as indicated by test scores in most African nations, girls are often asked to repeat a grade.

Even if Baindu manages to overcome problems of access fatigue and lowered expectations, and manages to reach secondary school, she must now fight the education system in tracking. Most girls are tracked in liberal arts as opposed to the hard sciences, commercial and clerical skills courses as opposed to industrial training ones.

Vocational and technical training programmes present more obstacles to Baindu. Statistically, her chances of getting into vocational or technical programmes are one in eight. Education officers rarely encourage females to enter vocational skills training programmes. These males argue that it is useless to train women in vocational skills because no one will hire them, due to cultural considerations. Although response to this argument must be country-specific, employers, when presented with qualified women in usually tight labour markets, have in variably accepted the females in nations as diverse as Morocco and Liberia.

The vocational and technical school biases become more clear when one looks at access and enrolment figures. Until the mid 1970s, girls were actually prevented from participating in vocational and technical education programmes in several nations.

If Baindu has opted for a professional career, chances are 8 out of 10 that she will be a teacher. However, she cannot teach at just any level. Usually, she will become a primary school teacher. Although women comprise the bulk of the primary school teaching force in many nations, for example, in Brazil, Dahomey and the Philippines, women rarely become principals. Data from around the world confirms that women are discriminated against in administrative and decision-making jobs in education, in a US sample of 400 vocational school directors, males held 93 percent of the top administrative posts. In the Philippines, while 77 percent of primary school teachers are female, 22 percent of principals are women, 57 percent of secondary school teachers are female, but only 12 percent of secondary school principals are women.²

non-formal education

(including all organized efforts to educate individuals outside the formal education system, for example, most adult literacy and development education programmes).

Non-formal education arose out of the need in developing countries to compensate for the inability or failure of their formal education systems to reach the majority of the people. It is seen as particularly useful for adult populations which no longer have an option to use the formal system. The programmes are more flexible and can provide cognitive and manipulative skills directly related to the individual in his or her environment, at lesser costs and in a much shorter period than the formal system. It has become a key element in rural development projects.

Since women have been discriminated against in the formal education system, one would have hoped that the non-formal programmes for women would help to correct this imbalance. But they have, in fact, helped to strengthen the social oppression and marginalization of women.

As a result of a rather belated realization by development planners that it was important to involve women in any process of change, they have introduced varying non-formal education programmes for women. But, being guided by patriarchal principles, they took for granted that women's nature was to play a supportive and subordinate role in social and economic development. Women would stand by to help if necessary, they would be reserve labour in case of shortages, but their main role is seen to be at home, as wives and mothers.

Therefore, women are provided education in so-called "female" occupations such as health, nutrition, sewing, handicrafts, childcare, home economics. These skills, though necessary, in no way help to integrate women into the development process. They only keep them outside the mainstream of life and underscore their marginalized position. The western model of economic development with its emphasis on cash crops and the use of western agricultural technology, taught only to men, completely overlooked women's key role in farming, food processing and production.

The contents of the education offered women are often inappropriate and ineffective. There is very little effort made by the change agents to understand the real situation and needs of women. Examples in health education are the introduction of western medical practices and techniques in conditions where the necessary basic infrastructure is lacking, and the introduction of baby foods in regions where the conditions are unsuitable, leading to the death of thousands of children due to malnutrition and disease. (The section on hea:lth deals more extensively with these subjects.) Women have been robbed of their indigenous knowledge of the healing property of herbs and deprived of the degree of self-sufficiency they previously enjoyed in health matters.

The education offered in no way provides the stimulus and conditions for the real development of the inherent capacities of women, enabling the growth of mature and independent individuals, capable of contributing to social development, to the creation of a more balanced and just society.

Vivian Lowery Derryck describes the discrimination against women by non-formal education programmes as follows:

"The rationale usually states: since women have been discriminated against in access to educational opportunities, compensatory programmes should teach them much-needed skills that will facilitate their entrance into the modern, market economy and generally help to integrate women into development activities. Since they have been the victims of discrimination, they should be tracked in great numbers into compensatory and remedial programmes.

It may be that non-formal programmes offer women the best opportunities for literacy training and skills development, but discrimination exists in non-formal education as well. Females do not enjoy equal access to non-formal programmes. In many LDCs, women continue to perform the bulk of agricultural and domestic work while men attend classes to learn about labour-saving devices. Men are identified as participants to learn about new agricultural machinery, cooperatives and most important, credit and banking.

The pattern of sex-defined programmes in which women learned health and hygiene has been transformed: now women learn handicrafts and hairdressing and similar low-paying jobs. Meanwhile, men continue to acquire new skills in agricultural production, commercial and industrial expertise, new knowledge about cooperatives and credit.

The goal of non-formal education has been used to further exacerbate existing inequalities of opportunities and access for women. This discrimination has ranged from outright ignoring of women, to streaming them into male-perceived appropriate training — invariably, home economics, extension work or as assistant extension agents. Similarly, in Korea, women were included in agricultural development programmes only as spouses of male participants and provided home economics classes exclusively.

These disparities of content point up a possible danger of non-formal education programmes: a dual track system in which women are tracked into home-oriented training courses that do not offer them competitive market economy job skills, while males learn market economy skills and enjoy attendant higher incomes and earning power.

Evidence of this disparity has begun to appear. Women are entering the monetized economic sector in developing nations in record numbers. But they are the population most likely to be unemployed, underemployed and on the bottom of the wage scale.

In Brazil, women rose from 16.78 percent to 20.47 percent of the labour force between 1960 and 1970, while their percentage of national income rose from 10.94 percent in 1960 to 13.49 percent in 1970. In other words, 20.48 percent of the labour force earned only 13.49 percent of national income. Moreover, although both sexes showed average income increases of over 38'percent, in actual fact, males averaged 306 cruzeiros per month, while women made 186 cruzeiros on average per month. These World Bank compilations corroborate a similar finding by Glaura de Miranda that Brazilian women earn one third the wages and salaries of similarly employed men, per annum. These figures demonstrate that Brazilian women experience more unemployment, work for less money and receive lower wages for similar work than do their male cohorts.

In Liberia, the dual system in which women are the economic underclass, seems to be entrenched. The major occupational group, according to the 1974 Indicative Manpower plan, is Farmers, Fishermen, Hunters, Loggers and Related Workers; the group comprised 68.2 percent of the workforce in 1972 and is projected to comprise 58.2 percent in 1982. Female participation in non-formal programmes related to this sector is less than 5 percent. The second-largest sectoral occupation in the 1982 projections is Clerical and Sales Workers, who are expected to form 12.2 percent of the workforce. One would think that this is a natural market economy entry point for females, especially with the tradition of the west African market mammies. However, the urbanized market store owners and managers want literate sales persons, and with a female illiteracy rate of 93 percent, few Liberian women can meet the literacy criterion.

Perhaps the most flagrant and best known dualism occurs in rural areas in agricultural training programmes in which women's meager access to training programmes in no way reflects the overwhelming percentage of time that they spend in agricultural labour. Particularly in Latin America, an abundance of evidence has revealed that women generally spend a great deal more time in agricultural pursuits than previously realized. In fact, worldwide female agricultural input has been undercounted, while conversely, their representation in non-formal programmes which teach innovative techniques, introduce credit management practices and facilitate participant contact with the modern world, has been very limited.

These non-formal programmes have tertiary spinoffs. They provide participants with exposure to new ideas and often establish initial contacts with urban officials for rural residents, even if it is only through the extension worker. These ideas and contacts often translate in inter-personal communications skills that are useful in political settings. Women's projects oriented towards incorporating traditional skills and cushioning the impact of social change, often do a disservice by not forcing women to interact more in the modern world."³

Vivian Lowery Derryck's study clearly demonstrates that formal education has provided disappointing returns and nonformal programmes have discriminated against women,most of whom have not enjoyed equal access to any kind of educational opportunity. 

informal education

All of an individual's life, from the time of birth, is a process of learning which takes place mostly informally, in the course of everyday living, in relationships with members of one's family and society. Even before we enter into the formal or non-formal systems of education, even without participating in any such "organized" forms of education, we acquire the dominant (patriarchal) values, attitudes and norms of our culture and society. Little girls learn very early in life what is expected of them, and how to behave in a "socially accepted" manner.

Religion, the family and community and the media can be identified as the chief agents of informal education.

religion

Most existing world religions are patriarchal and define women as being either inferior or subordinate to men. It is considered to be the duty of women to bear children, to look after the needs of the family and to respect and obey the wishes of first her father, then her husband and, in some cultures, in old age, even her son!

Women are generally considered to be one of two extremes: either absolutely pure and good, or evil, to be guarded against. Various restrictions and taboos are imposed on women in order to keep them "pure." These conditions stifle the personal growth of women.

According to Mallica Vajrathon.

Tradition has forced women to conform to codes that restrict their behaviour and make them subservient to men whether fathers, husbands or brothers. These codes were enunciated long ago in religious texts and elaborated in plays, poems and stories. In China, for example, Confucius and Mencius instructed women to adorn themselves, to please, to do housework willingly and not to talk too much. In India. Hindu literature taught male supremacy and female submissiveness. Daughters were 'precious jewels lent to parents until their husbands claimed them'. In Latin America, the teachings of the Catholic Church relegated women to an inferior status and represented wives as belonging to their husbands. Buddhist literature portrays women as a cause of the craving, anxiety and unhappiness of men."⁴

In most of the Islamic world, women suffer from very severe legal as well as social restrictions. Discrimination takes the most extreme forms. Women are forbidden to participate in social, political and economic activities outside the home and, if they do appear in public, they are expected to hide themselves behind a veil or chaddor. Least priority is given to women's education; they do not have a choice; their role is clearly demarcated as wife and mother.

Christianity, with a few exceptions, denies women the right to hold religious office. A Hindu woman is expected to regard her husband as her god..A Hindu widow was, and still is, socially discriminated against and regarded as an ill omen. In the past, she was forbidden to remarry and was made to shave her hair and refrain from wearing coloured clothing and ornaments. Among some sects, she was even expected to throw herself on the funeral pyre of her husband and end her life as a "sati." A menstruating woman is still looked upon as unclean and there are innumerable taboos and restrictions on her.

Religions generally deny a woman control over her own body, which is viewed as the property of her husband who has a right to it when he pleases. Her duty is to submit and to bear and raise the resulting children. As Mallica Vajrathon says, "such oppressive 'codes' created by male-dominated societies 'kill without drawing blood' (as the Chinese saying goes). Their destructive effects have prevented women from realizing their potential for centuries."⁵

the family and community

The family and the community provide the environment within which socialization occurs. It is here that a woman internalizes social and religious values and attitudes. The nature of culture imposed on women is defined by the needs of others. Such are the 'female values' passed on by philosophers, religions, myths, literature, mass media and science. "An entire ideological apparatus, from culture, education, customs, language, dress etc., ... through to all spheres of society, has not only been imposed on her, but it has been accepted as the inevitable situation of women".⁶

In developing countries, most young girls hardly have a childhood. As soon as she is able, a girl begins to look after the younger children while her mother goes out to work. Soon, she begins to share in all the household work cooking, cleaning, laundry, fetching water, fuel, etc. By puberty, she is married off and goes to serve in her husband's house. A girl learns very quickly that her needs are of secondary importance in relation to her male relatives and that she is more a burden to her parents, who regard the expenses and effort spent to educate her a waste, since it is not they who will enjoy the benefits of her education.

According to Mallica Vajrathon,

"Masculine and feminine stereotyping exists in almost every culture. Men are supposed to be strong, logical, analytical, systematic, fearless and assertive, whereas women are supposed to be the opposite: soft, emotional, uncertain, timid, shy, intuitive and fearful...

From one generation to another, parents mould their sons' and daughters' personalities to fit such masculine/feminine patterns. Men grow up with the 'masculine mystique' motivating all their behaviour in society; the masculine mystique supports the feminine mystique and these mystiques are mutually reinforcing. Human beings with 'masculine' qualities dominate society. Rules and social structures are set up by men to suit their own purposes, which, even if this is seldom blatantly articulated, serve to keep them in permanent power and full control of the total human society. All superior activities are male activities. Whatever women do in the society is almost always looked upon as inferior. Male supremacy is drummed into women by all educational and socialization processes from the time they are born to the time they die. Boy children are given more sophisticated toys than girl children. Parents encourage boys to play with each other in organized activities and girls to play with dolls and cooking utensils."⁷

media

The mass media as represented by the press, television, radio and films, has become one of the most powerful instruments for the transmission of culture in the west and also, increasingly, in the developing countries. Its role is crucial in the development of attitudes and values and in the perpetuation of social aspirations.

In a rapidly changing society, with the breakdown of close family and community ties, the media is perhaps the cheapest and the most accessible form of entertainment available. Moreover, it is often the only means an individual has of keeping in touch with developments around the world. Yet unlike direct communication between individuals, the media offers a "one way only" communication, rendering its readers or audience passive participants. It is this growing centrality of the media in the lives of individuals which makes it so influential.

It is not an exaggeration to say that there is no neutral media. Most of the news and information in the world is owned and controlled by the western transnational news agencies. Television programmes and films are massively imported from the USA and other western countries by others who cannot afford to make their own programmes or develop a film industry. Right across the globe then, the media inevitably represents the interests and values of the dominant culture, which is both western and male.

But this is not the whole picture. Margaret Gallagher shows that

"although it is true that the particular sex biases expressed in the media of the United States can be detected in many countries of Western Europe, in certain Latin American output and in the media of countries such as those mentioned above (Philippines, Egypt, Yugoslavia and Finland), these account for only part of the total picture. The overall findings of at least one cross-cultural review that, from one culture to another - even in those countries which rely less, or not at all, on imports the media present a somewhat distorted picture of reality vis-a-vis the demographic characteristics of men and women, is of sufficient significance to indicate that media bias against women starts at home, even if this becomes reinforced and perhaps transformed by other foreign influences..."⁸

the mass media and women

In the following excerpt, Marilee Karl describes the role of the mass media in reinforcing and maintaining the traditional inferior social status of women.

"Women have always had their own informal communications systems whether it be exchanging news and information around a village well, or in a sewing circle, or through 'gossip' at the market, or handing down lore from mother to daughter. With the advent of mass communications and sophisticated technology, however, women have been left out. The control of the mass media ~ television, radio, cinema, the daily press, periodicals and advertising - is solidly in the hands of men.

Whatever little research has been done on the participation of women in the media helps to highlight the severe under representation of women on all levels of media organization except for the very lowest (i.e., clerical and secretarial). Women are almost completely excluded from key decision-making posts. This research has turned up cases of flagrant discrimination in recruitment, training and pay in both the industrialized and developing world.

Research on the image of women in the media is somewhat more extensive, although still not great. Much of this research has been initiated and carried out by feminist groups concerned with the impact of images of women in the media on attitudes towards women.

Some general findings of this research are true for almost every area of the world, both industrialized and developing, although their manifestations differ. They can be summarized as follows:

1. Women are virtually absent from the 'important' news of he world, whether transmitted by press, radio or television
2. Very little media coverage is given to women's work, achievements, situations or needs.
3 The media are responsible for perpetuating and disseminating traditional stereotypes of women. While there are variations from society to society, from culture to culture, the basic images remain the same: women are portrayed as inferior, submissive, subordinate, emotional, irrational, confined to home a^d to roles assigned by a patriarchal society. Women are also portrayed as sex objects and commodities.
4. When women are involved in organizing and action and especially when they step out of their traditional roles, the media often distorts and ridicules. The transnational news agencies have succeeded in portraying the women's movement in the industrialized countries as a lunatic fringe of middle class 'bra-burners', and as nonexistent in other parts of the world. The more progressive, but still male-dominated, media on the' other hand often describe the women's movement as 'bourgeois feminist', or as a 'diversion from the main issues'.
5. Women lack access to information they need and to which they have a right, information which would help them answer questions affecting their daily lives, problems and needs.

On the other hand, the mass media are replete with the kind of information a consumer, profit-oriented, male-dominated society wants women to have: the latest fashions, hairstyles, cosmetics, domestic appliances and household goods, cleaning tips, recipes for fancy meals. Even the poor are bombarded with the messages of the consumer society and instilled with aspirations for these things. Women's pages, magazines, radio, television and cinema all give women messages on how to behave.

The problem is compounded by the presentation of partial or falsified information. A case in point is the advertisement of infant formula to convince women that it is the best thing they can feed their babies. Another case is the selling of certain contraceptives without informing women of potentially dangerous side-effects."⁹

women and pornography:media violence against women

In the following excerpt, Roxanne Claire writes of the harmful effects on women of the increasing use of pornography by the media.

"Pornography, at the risk of oversimplifying, is the dehumanization of women, the presentation of women as objects of male 'pleasure' and male violence (the two are often indistinguishable). The message of pornography is, as Adrienne Rich puts it, 'This is what you are; this is what I can do to you.

... to question pornography is to question male attitudes towards women. That to examine pornography is to realize that 

it both glorifies the forms that male domination over women takes (even speaking cross-culturally) - rape, wife-beating, incest, genital mutilation, enforced prostitution and enforced heterosexuality - and expresses the underlying value system of those societies in which it is found. 

Today, pornography is becoming more and more a feminist issue, not only in the west but also in the developing countries, because

"Pornography is no longer restricted to seedy back street movie houses, no longer to be found only in unobtrusive 'adult' bookstores. Men now make films such as 'Dressed to Kill' in which a woman invites/seeks her graphically depicted rape/murder), intended for and indeed shown in 'serious' and even 'family' theatres. Men put it on display in comer drugstore magazine racks, where magazine covers show women going into meat grinders. Men use it in ads for slick-paged magazines, where a woman in seductive clothing and pose coos 'hit me with a club'. Men call it 'art' when the cover of a European photography magazine is a crotch shot of a woman with the muzzle of a revolver (cocked!) an inch or two into her vagina.

And there's more, no less dangerous because less blatant. Television programmes, movies and advertising use the female body for decoration, to 'attract the viewer's attention' and to sell products. This objectification of women too is violence against women"¹¹

media manipulation of women

It is a little-known fact that the media is used to manipulate and influence people's attitudes and that, often, women and influence people's attitudes and that, often, women are the prime target of propaganda in the political or economic interest of those who own and control the media. This is well illustrated in the following excerpt from a book review of The transnational order and its feminine model —a study of women's magazines in Latin America, by Adriana Santa Cruz and Viviana Erazo (Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1980, Mexico).

"This recently published book presents a picture of the way in which the transnational structure of communication plays on the culture of the region in order to involve and alienate Latin American women, through the message carried by women's popular magazines.

A thorough study by the authors shows how the transnational power system promotes particular images those which benefit certain economic interests. One of these is the 'feminine model' cultivated and manipulated through communications systems. Here popular women's magazines play a fundamental role, directed specifically at the urban middle classes who are in fact the end point of all transnational processes, both ideological and consumer.

Publicity is the financial force which sustains popular women's magazines (and so many other media) and is analyzed here as one of the factors determining the formal and ideological content of these magazines.

Women's magazines promote transnational products and at the same time depict styles of consumption which become more and more imitative and dependent. The success of this economic model depends on mass consumption of an enormous quantity of products, a lifestyle and culture based on consumerism and an image of women as functional - to be used to the utmost by the system. This functionality of women with respect to the system appears on several levels:

- as consumers (responsible for 75 85 percent of private consumer decisions)
- as wife and chief sustainer of the nuclear family
- as a productive, cheap reserve labour force
- as the most susceptible receiver of cultural values put across by the mass media, advertising, etc. and at the same time, transmitter of culture (education of children etc.)
- transformed into an object, she is a powerful decoy for the promotion of consumer goods
- as a reserve political force, activated only when the established order is threatened."¹² 

On 6 January 1974, the Washington Post published an article called "The Brazilian Connection." It said: 

"Women are a most effective political weapon... they have time, and a great capacity, to develop emotion and mobilize themselves rapidly. For example, if you wanted to spread a rumour that 'the president has a drinking problem' or 'his health is not good,' you would use women. The following day, the rumour would be all over the country... Women are the most directly affected by left-wing economics and politics which create a lack of supplies in the shops. The women will complain at home and can poison the atmosphere. And, of course, there are the wives of military men and politicians." (Cited by Gabriela Plankey.)

"... it has been established that women's frustrations and fears, their state of being semi-childlike and dependent, can be clearly channelled for the system when it wants to sell: sell products, ideas, continuity or panic that some enemy force could alter this tiny world in some way.

Between November 1970 and June 1972 El Mercurio , the daily newspaper most representative of the Chilean bourgeoisie, dedicated 121 editorials to women. On Channel 13, the block of afternoon programmes for women, traditionally meant to entertain and advise housewives, became a potent focus for sedition, along with certain women's magazines (such as Eva). Radio programmes controlled by the bourgeoisie took on an exactly similar role. Together, they orchestrated a careful campaign directed towards instilling terror into housewives and later, to bring them out into the streets to defend what were depicted as their interests. The housewife was led to believe that it was her acquired power which was being affected, that her children would die of hunger or be 'robbed' by the 'Marxist State'. She was told that Marxism was sordid, and it was painted all grey; that she would have to wear a uniform, without make-up, that there would be no more hair-colouring and she would lose all her attractiveness; that the sacred intimacy of her home would be invaded by the necessity to share it with other families; that her children's education would amount to brainwashing; that because of scarcity she would not be able to shine as a housewife; that she would spend her life queuing up. In other words, she was being told that the imperatives of 'femininity' could not be fulfilled. The 'natural female' would be limited and find it impossible to satisfy her 'legitimate aspirations'. She would not be able to look at herself or the world around her as she had before. In short, the campaign of terror centred on the vulnerable target of women who are housewives and mothers.

The success of this operation was absolute. The women of the bourgeoisie and other sectors thus mobilized, wepe present at all the critical moments from the 'march of the saucepans' to the demonstration in front of General Prats' house — which led him to resign and thus opened up the way for the military coup."¹²

2. feminist response to patriarchal education and communication

After centuries of subordination to male culture, women have begun to question the validity of male notions. In all areas of life, women in the women's movement are recreating knowledge based on our own experiences, and are struggling to regain control over ourselves, our bodies and our lives.

In the field of education and communication, the development of 'Women's Studies' and the feminist press are women-oriented alternatives to the existing male systems. 'Women's Studies', women's media, art, literature, music, etc. are the beginning of the creation of women's culture. With regard to religion - the influence of the women's movement can be seen in the trend towards the creation of feminist theology amongst certain sections of the Christian church.

women's studies

Women's Studies came into existence in the late 1960s when women in the west began to realize that we had been left out of knowledge. According to Dale Spender, "... men had been the knowledge makers and they had validated their own knowledge - about us - by reference to each other." Women were in no position to create our own knowledge to "counter their false descriptions of us," thus justifying in male terms our inferiority.

"That we do not find our experience of the world affirmed in much traditional knowledge can undermine our confidence and magnify our doubts so that we have little alternative but to believe the myths men have created. However, when we engage in the task of making our own knowledge, we can appreciate that the deficiencies lie not in us but in a system that has excluded us...

It is not that women have not made contributions in the past, but that men have not recognized that which does not subscribe to their own view of the world...

We cannot accept the meanings which we have inherited  but instead  must forge our own, and in the process, we are learning things which are unknown and almost undreamt of within the male frame of reference...

We are demonstrating that the male view of the world is not the only view of the world .  It has  its origins in male subjectivity just as ours has its origins in female subjectivity."'¹³ 

Since it has been only men who have laid down the standards of excellence, any knowledge which women create which conflicts with the male viewpoint runs the risk of being classified as "inferior" or even dismissed. It is vital that women should create our own means for producing and validating knowledge which is consistent with our own personal experiences.

Women's studies are very different from male studies (almost all of the conventional curricula), both in their content as well as their processes. "In constructing this knowledge, we are engaging in revolutionary activity. We are discarding the forms of thought, the images, the symbols which restrict us and which men have constructed in the interest of maintaining patriarchal society."¹⁴

And this, Dale Spender says, is politics. She says that learning for women has been a dynamic process which has influenced even the way we live our lives. We are still resisting the pressures to have leaders, experts, "teachers" who can tell us "how it is," as in hierarchical educational models encoded by men; we define learners as autonomous beings discovering the truth of "how it is" for ourselves, based on our own experiences. These new models of education are more productive in terms of learning and more effective in terms of promoting social change.

Women's studies evolved because "Those who formed consciousness-raising groups or self-help health groups, or feminists action groups or self-help health groups, or feminist action groups were able to define their own needs and share their resources, accumulating information from each other, from their experiences within the group and from material sought in books, articles and experiences outside the group..."¹⁵

With enthusiasm and commitment, western women started to organize 'women's studies' courses in the institutions of which they were members. Initially, they faced great resistance and also difficulties, but today, women's studies courses are springing up all over - in universities, at women's resource and research centres, women's groups and adult education courses. Many developing countries have also begun to promote the introduction of women's studies into their universities. Feminists feel that one of the few sources for generating meanings that oppose patriarchy is with women's studies. This is one of the reasons why adult education courses in women's studies are vitally important.

However, this sudden interest in the theme of women and the incorporation of women's studies into many university faculties and specialist centres also holds the danger of coopting women's problems into the system and reducing them to a subject of study. The following quotation describes these dangers well.

"There is a danger that in becoming part of these institutions, women's studies may lose the desire for change which was fundamental to its origins. If that happens, we will have gained nothing. If the problems are not brought into the open, the dangers are twofold. The first is that feminist theory will hived off into women's studies options, leaving unchallenged the bulk of knowledge produced by academics and presented to students. Women's studies thus runs the risk of becoming another quirky subsection of sociology rather than a radical challenge to the whole of patriarchal learning. The second danger is that women's studies become increasingly remote from the women's movement. If such issues as the political implications of theory, the "objectivity" of academic standards and the ways in which assessment creates hierarchies are treated as unproblematic, feminists themselves may soon come to regard women's studies as irrelevant to the liberation of women, and as easily accommodated within the status quo. The women's liberation movement has given rise to an enormous amount of intellectual activity over the past few years; it would be a pity if the knowledge thus gained lost its usefulness to, and its connection with, the movement that mothered it."¹⁶

In fact, such courses on women's studies run by the traditional educational institutions, could serve the goals of feminism if they are not isolated, but rather linked to courses making women-centred knowledge. According to Dale Spender,

"If women control women's studies and use it to produce new knowledge about women, then it is likely that women's studies will be a powerful force in transforming the present inequitable power arrangement in our society. There can be no more radical educational goal than transforming the inferiority of women into independence and autonomy. The potential that adult education affords for the achievement of this goal is great. When women come together and question and query the arrangements under which they are required to live, the basis for the construction of women-centred knowledge is being laid; the learning is obvious, the changes are predictable. This is a form of political resistance in a patriarchal society."¹⁷

women and popular education

The women's movement has also resulted in changing the methods used in some of the non-formal popular education programmes being run by and for women in developing countries. The aim of popular education is to transform social S structures through consciousness-raising and organization of -S the popular sectors of society (the people). This is especially important for women since they are already calling for lasting social change. In brief, this type of education presupposes the construction of a new society and a new culture.

In Latin America, a variety of groups and organizations are working in the field of popular education with women in the poorest sectors of society. The main object of most of these organizations is to organize women in the ongoing process of liberation. They are trying to achieve this central object through education and the building up of women in their capacity as leaders and their ability" to analyze and denounce reality by investigating women's problems and finding solutions to the immediate problems. To try and achieve this, many women are using the methods of Paulo Freire. This includes discussion about one's own reality, with or without the aid of other material such as publications, the use of popular techniques in communication, such as social drama, puppets, audiovisuals, etc. They also organize courses on specific themes such as nutrition and health.

This type of education takes as its starting point the need for women first to investigate the social sector to which they belong and to examine their own problems and organization.

An example of one such popular education programme is the project "Research education for women" carried out by the Centro Dominicano de Estudios de la Educacion of Santo Domingo. The following is an extract from the methodological part of this project report:

II Method

1) Introduction

" The result of our research is not meant to be a definitive statement on the position of women in this country. It is a piece of work on education which leaves a lot of questions open for further study. This project uses a method whereby those who make up the OBJECT of research become its SUBJECT, so they themselves assimilate and profit from the research, criticising, perfecting and complementing it. In the end, they transform the KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR REALITY INTO ACTION IN ORDER TO TRANSFORM IT.

2)  Central aspects of the method used can be summarized as follows:
a. Taking into account the context of the Dominican Republic as a dependent capitalist country with its own specific conditions, the project has come close to the reality of WOMEN (workers, peasants, housewives, domestic servants), starting from their perception of their own reality
b. This research should be handed back to WOMEN from these same sectors of society which gave rise to their testimonies
c. The material was structured in a certain way so as to serve women, give them deeper knowledge of their reality also provide one more element they could use in their task of organizing.

3) Procedure employed
a. The whole project was based on direct recordings: of women's testimonies as well as photographic documentation of the situations being described.
b. Recordings were transcribed in their entirety.
c. The material was then codified and labelled.
d. Testimonial statements were elaborated op the basis of this material. Furthermore, the same material was used in the work of the Cuadernos de Reflexion, an audiovisual programme and a play.
e. This material was first returned to its original source before a group of 50 women, most of them representative of the groups studied, i.e., workers and housewives from urban and rural areas and domestic workers.

We did it in a workshop as a form of COLLECTIVE APPRENTICESHIP, the collective work being the work which would direct the practical application of this project material."

feminist response to the traditional media

Women in the women's movement have realized how important it is for us to try and change the image of women as portrayed in the traditional media, to create a space where women could speak for and about ourselves. The following two sections entitled "A Strategy for Change" and "Feminist Publications and Networks," by Marilee Karl, give a good account of how women are trying to create our own alternative communication networks. She also deals with the different ways that women could act in order to overcome the negative influence of the traditional media on the image of women.

a strategy for change

"Women must devise an overall strategy for change in the information and communication order of the world. Our goals are clear: we want media which are responsive to our needs as women, which enable us to communicate with each other about our lives and experiences, which give us the information we need to make choices and decisions, which do not distort, belittle or demean women or confine us to stereotyped behaviour and roles; media in which women participate and share in determining the content, in decision making and control.

How can we obtain these goals? Is it possible to obtain them through the reform of existing mass media structures or will we need to radically change these structures? Or should we try to create and strengthen alternative structures, such as independent women's networks and publications? Is it desirable and possible to work on several levels at once? Some voices are now calling for women's participation in the new international information order in what seems to be a process similar to that of 'integrating women into development', i.e., integrating women into the information and communication systems of the world. This call has been raised mainly because of two interrelated factors: the pressure exerted by women and women's groups on the information and communication circles and the growing recognition of the need for women's participation if a new order is to succeed. The implications of integrating women into either present communication structures or a new order to be created must be carefully analyzed. Otherwise women may end up being 'integrated' into a new international information order as detrimental to themselves as their 'integration' into much of 'development' has been...

The massive presence of women might be helpful in bringing about changes in the media's treatment of women. However, the 'integration' or participation of women in a male - dominated system is not sufficient. Other basic changes are needed as well.

Another approach being taken is that of trying to get more media coverage about women, more stories and positive images of women, especially in the press. The goal is to help change attitudes about women among the public and the self-images of women themselves. This is certainly a goal to be pursued, but again, attention must be given to the quality of the coverage as well as to the quantity. The media could very easily increase the amount of information about women without becoming any more responsive to the needs of the vast majority of women. Even the increase of positive images of women in the news will not by itself be very helpful. A few success stories of women who have made it in a basically oppressive society will do nothing to change that society which keeps most women in chains. This approach must give careful consideration to the content of media coverage.

Closely tied to efforts to increase women's participation in the media industries and media coverage of women is the pressure being exerted from outside to influence or force the media to discontinue those practices most damaging to women. Here and there some small victories have already been won through the pressure and action of women's groups: sexist advertisements have been removed from a magazine, editorial policy changed in a local paper, guidelines handed down on the use of non-sexist language in journalism, more attention given to women in programming. Yet, by and large, these represent only a small dent in the huge anti-women bias of the media.

Hand in hand with these efforts is the patient work of research and documentation of the anti-women bias of the media and the collection of data on the negative images of women in the media, on the lack of appropriate information, on the discrimination of women in media jobs. This is the new material for consciousness-raising and changing public opinions. So often these images are taken for granted and accepted even by women themselves, who have incorporated these into their own self-image. Awareness of this is a first step for enlisting support and organizing to bring changes in the media's treatment of women.

All of the approaches described here could be carried out within either a strategy for reform of the present media structures or in a strategy which aims at radical restructuring of the present media system. If they remain at the level of reforms, they could result in increased participation of women in the media and improved coverage of women without changing the basic structures... The very same reforms could be much more effective carried out within a long-term strategy for basic change. Women currently organizing around these issues must give more thought to developing a long-term strategy and to involving more women...

feminist publications and networks

If we opt for strengthening the independent women's press and communication networks, great efforts will have to be made to move out of the 'ghetto' and into a wider circulation. We must try to avoid the dangers of becoming marginalized or restricted to a small circle, a new elite. We must find ways to make a greater impact on the rest of the mass media. There are no easy solutions to this. On the other hand, if we choose to work within existing media structures, we must be constantly vigilant to avoid all the danger involved, not the least of which is cooptation...

The upsurge in feminist publications and communications networks reflects the reawakening and renewal of a militant feminist movement in many parts of the world. Although still young, these networks have already succeeded in carrying out some effective international actions. Some examples are the spread of information about the harmful side effects of depoprovera, an injectable contraceptive; the sharing of knowledge of alternative health measures; investigation and mobilization of support for women in the textile and electronic industries in southeast Asia. Women are beginning to share their experiences and knowledge without distorting intermediaries of the establishment mass media...

These feminist publications and networks suffer from lack of money and technological resources. However, since they are independent of male-dominated organizations, they do not have to compromise their positions or content. Their circulation and reach are as yet tiny compared to the transnational media systems, but they are beginning to act as a leaven among women around the world."¹⁸

women's culture

Women have begun to challenge the truth of traditional patriarchal beliefs and practices by creating our own positive alternatives in the form of women's knowledge through women studies, women's music, women's art and literature, touching every aspect of life. All this we see as contributing to the creation of a women's culture which is essential for the development of a more human culture and society. We conclude by presenting one of the most fascinating definitions and descriptions of women's culture, given by Robin Morgan in the book Women's Culture: The Women's Renaissance of the Seventies, edited by Gayle Kimball, 1981.

She defines women's culture as a "new women's renaissance," arising from the feminist movement, revolutionary and vital for the preservation of the planet. It expresses the half of human experience not much heard of previously with "tremendous energy, passion and a quality of daring to speak the unspeakable."

She feels that the obsession with love that has been women's reality should not change, but hopes that it is catching to men: "... unless the whole species begins to be obsessed with it on a philosophical as well as a practical level, we're doomed." She speaks of a fierce, cleansing, purgative, revolutionary kind of love that demands change - profound change.

With regard to men, she feels that women's culture will of necessity go through a period where it is separatist. It is necessary in order that we discover and develop our own voices and that we try to unlearn what Honor Moore has called the "Male Approval Desire Syndrome." She expresses the hope, however, that "1 do hope this is a phase though, mainly because I think that what women have to say as artists, as cultural beings and as political sensibilities is capable of transforming the entire species, and has to. There comes a sort of suicidal point if we insist only on talking to ourselves and on leaving outside and unaffected all those who happen to have power, money, munitions, "materiel" and the means of ending the planet... ultimately we will be speaking to - not as primary audience but as an addendum audience - men as well as women."

She sees the feminist revolution as the next step in human evolution, as the state that will finally propel the human species into another evolutionary curve.

More concretely, she says it is also going to take arm twisting in the back rooms of legislatures, it's going to take getting out on the streets again, it's going to take arrests, it's going to take its own form of real confrontation. It is, after all, a battle about power. But power in all senses of that term and not the way the male left or right settles for power.

Footnotes

1 Report of the International Workshop on Feminist Ideology and Structure in the First Half of the Decade for Women. June 24-30, 1979 (Kuala Lumpur: Asian and Pacific Center for Women and Development, 1979).

2 Vivian Lowery Derrek, The Comparative Functionality of Formal and Non-formal Education for Women - Final Report (Washington: United States Agency for International Development, 1979), pp. 60-65.

3 Ibid.

4 Mallica Vajrathon, "Toward Liberating Women: A Communications Perspective," Women and World Development (Washington: Overseas Development Council, 1976), p. 95.

5 Ibid

6 "La Mujer en la Sociedad y en la lglesia" Mision Abierta. vol. 73, no. 3 (June 1980).

7 Vajrathon, Women and World Development, pp. 95 and

8 Margaret Gallagher, The Portrayal and Participation of Women in the Media (Paris: UNESCO, 1979), p. 5

9 Margaret Gallagher, The Portrayal and Participation of Women in the Media (Paris: UNESCO, 1979), p. 5. 9 Marilee Karl, "Alternative World Communication?", ISIS International Bulletin, no. 18 (1981), p. 26.

10 Roxanne Claire, "Women and Pornography," ISIS International Bulletin, no. 18 (1981), p. 24

11 "Media as Manipulation," ISIS International Bulletin, no. 18 (1981), pp. 18-21.

12 Dale Spender, "Learning to Create our own Knowledge," Convergence, \o\.i, no. \-2 1980 pp. 15-16

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 "Women's Studies Part II," Broadsheet, no. 87 (March 1981), p. 24.

16 Ibid., p. 54.

17 Dale Spender, Convergence, vol. 8, no. 1-2, p. 22

18 Marilee Karl, "Alternative World Communication?",/S/5, no. 18, (1981), pp. 27-29.