The authors of the manual are experts of the United Nations Population Fund Irina Sidorskaya (Belarus) and Alina Radu (Moldova). The workshop materials contain recommendations on how to reflect social realities in media texts, including issues related to gender and domestic violence. All these topics are already being addressed by the Belarusian media.

“Media monitoring shows that the gender perspective and, in particular, the problem of domestic violence, is topical and important for journalists”, said Olga Lukashkova, Manager of projects on domestic violence prevention and ensuring gender equality  of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), at the opening of the workshop.“You are really doing a lot to ensure equal rights for women and men and to develop zero tolerance towards domestic violence”.

The workshop “Coverage of gender issues and possible topics for the media. Use of gender-sensitive language” reviewed the history of gender policy in Belarus, provided an overview of the current legislation on the prevention of domestic violence and gave examples of gender-sensitive communication.

“Gender-sensitive communication, like any other subject, needs to be learned, and it is not always possible to acquire such knowledge at a university”, says Irina Sidorskaya, Head of the Communication Technologies Department at the Institute of Journalism of the Belarusian State University and UNFPA National Expert.  “The objective of the workshop is to equip journalists with specific recommendations that will help them to cover gender issues in a more appropriate manner”.

A special section of the workshop was dedicated to gender neutral language. The knowledge about linguistic sexism is essential for journalists who write about social issues. A sports news or essay about cultural events are gender-sensitive and may contain sexist language. For example, linguistic sexism includes the “default” usage of “generic” masculine forms to address humans in general, derogatory connotations of women’s titles and jobs, degrading stereotypes of women reflected in idiomatic expressions and proverbs.

 “It is important to understand what gender-specific job titles imply: they implicitly indicate what social positions women should or should not occupy,” explains UNFPA International Expert in gender linguistics Alexander Pershai, Ph.D. (Canada – Belarus). “Linguistic sexism discriminates against women as a social group. It is necessary to use female grammatical forms and gender-specific job titles to make women visible in social life. In order to improve the current situation in Belarus it is recommended to avoid the default usage of generic masculine grammatical gender, use appropriate gender-specific job titles, avoid using proverbs and idiomatic expressions that reflect gender stereotypes and patriarchal attitudes.”

The second day of the workshop is designed for teachers of universities, where the course “Gender and the Media” is going to be introduced.

The workshop materials will be published on the website www.unfpa.by, and will also be available upon request by telephone at (17) 220 24 61, UNFPA Country Office.