A Media Minority - Women Journalists in Assam

According to this article, women journalists are in the "media minority" in Assam, India. Even as the print media has continued to develop an increasingly strong presence and "voice" there, women journalists tend to find themselves on the margins of their profession.

Since student agitation in the 1980s that mobilised newspaper reporters to focus more agressively on investigative reportage, print journalism in Assam "has witnessed a boom in recent years and is emerging as an attractive profession for hundreds of educated young people. The state capital, Guwahati is home to 20 dailies, more than half of which are in the Assamese language. It is estimated that the print media has created 8,000 jobs in the last decade and provided part time employment to 20,000 people throughout the state. Guwahati itself is home to over 400 working journalists."

However, "Despite the boom, women journalists remain a minority in this sector. Only 15 per cent of print journalists in Assam are women. Guwahati has only 50 full-time women scribes, of whom just 20 work as reporters, and five young freelance photojournalists. Barely 10 exist in the rest of Assam." In its over 100 years of existence, the state's leading daily (The Assam Tribune) has never had a woman editor.

Discriminatory attitudes are among the reasons being advanced to explain this trend of excluding women from a flourishing medium. Apparently, newspaper proprietors prefer not to hire women journalists; when female applicants are hired, they are assigned mostly to desk jobs. One reason: Proprietors do not think women reporters can cover conflict-hit areas. The National Commission for Women's 2004 report Status of Women Journalists in India confirms that most women journalists do not get promoted beyond the level of a senior reporter or senior sub-editor; a large number of them get salaries ranging from Rs 1,500-5,000 and some are not reimbursed for their phone bills and other expenses. The situation may be worse still in Assam; several women journalists there have alleged that their male colleagues sexually harass them. One young journalist with Amar Asom (an Asamese daily) who spoke out in 2003 found that, instead of taking any action, the management withheld her salary; after two years, the police have not moved on the case.