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Gender and Electronic Media

💻 Gender and Electronic Media: Who Controls the Screen?

In today’s hyperconnected world, the screen is everywhere — from phones and laptops to televisions and tablets. And just like cinema, electronic media doesn’t merely reflect reality; it also reshapes it.
The way gender is represented — in news, advertisements, television shows, and social media — quietly influences how people think, talk, and behave.

But as digital spaces evolve, so does the conversation around gender.

📺 From Representation to Reinforcement:

For decades, traditional electronic media — especially television and advertising — reinforced gender stereotypes.
Women were shown as caregivers, homemakers, or beauty icons; men were portrayed as decision-makers, breadwinners, and problem-solvers.

Consider Indian television ads from the 1990s: a woman washing clothes in a detergent commercial, a man giving career advice in a financial ad — both reinforcing “who belongs where.”
Even global media followed similar trends. As media scholar Gaye Tuchman famously observed, this creates a “symbolic annihilation” of women — where they exist on screen, but only within limiting roles.

Yet, times are changing.

🌐 The Rise of Digital Voices:

The arrival of social media and digital content platforms has opened new possibilities.
Women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and marginalized groups are no longer just subjects of stories — they are storytellers.

YouTube, Instagram, and podcasts have become stages for authentic voices.
Creators like Kusha Kapila, Srishti Dixit, and Dolly Singh in India use humor and satire to challenge beauty standards, workplace sexism, and everyday patriarchy.
Globally, digital activists like Emma Watson (with the HeForShe campaign) and Laverne Cox (a trans advocate and actor) use online platforms to blend visibility with advocacy.

Electronic media, once controlled by a few, is now more participatory and democratic — though not free from bias.

📢 Gender and News Media:

Even in the world of journalism, gender balance is improving but still uneven.
Women anchors are more visible on Indian news channels today than ever before, yet studies show they are still underrepresented in leadership roles.

In 2024, initiatives like UN Women’s “Media Compact” began encouraging newsrooms to adopt gender-sensitive reporting and equal representation.
However, sensationalist coverage of gender-based violence in Indian media still often slips into victim-blaming or objectification, showing that ethical progress remains a work in progress.

🎮 New Media, Old Problems:

Electronic media has also expanded into gaming and streaming platforms, where gender representation brings both progress and pitfalls.
Games and web series often reproduce gender clichés — the hypersexualized woman, the violent man, the queer sidekick.
However, creators are beginning to challenge this:

Web shows like Four More Shots Please! and Made in Heaven explore urban women’s agency and identity.
Telugu web series such as CommitMental (2020) and Maa Neella Tank (2022) attempt to show nuanced relationships and evolving gender roles.
Even online gaming now features female-led narratives (Horizon Zero Dawn, Assassin’s Creed: Mirage) that redefine power and heroism.

The shift shows how digital storytelling can question the hierarchies built by earlier forms of electronic media.

🧠 Gender Performativity and Media Power:

According to theorist Judith Butler, gender is something we perform — through repeated actions shaped by culture and media.
Electronic media plays a crucial role in scripting those performances — deciding what’s “masculine” or “feminine,” what’s desirable or deviant.

However, when new creators — especially women and queer voices — reclaim that script through blogs, reels, podcasts, or short films, they disrupt the performance.
The result? A slow but powerful rewriting of gender expectations in public consciousness.

💬 The Double-Edged Screen:

Electronic media is both empowering and exploitative.
While it offers space for gender diversity, it also hosts online abuse, trolling, and digital surveillance, especially targeting women and queer users.

The same internet that amplifies women’s voices also exposes them to harassment — a reminder that access doesn’t always mean equality.
This duality makes media literacy, empathy, and regulation essential parts of gender justice in the digital age.

🌈 The Road Ahead:

Today’s electronic media can no longer hide behind old roles.
Audiences expect representation, respect, and responsibility.
When an ad celebrates a father cooking or a digital series normalizes queer love, that’s not just entertainment — that’s evolution.

As India moves deeper into the age of digital storytelling, every creator, journalist, and viewer becomes a part of the gender conversation.
The challenge is not just to give everyone a screen, but to ensure every screen tells a story worth seeing.

✨ Closing Thought:

Gender and electronic media are inseparable — one shapes the other.
The question is no longer “Who is on screen?” but “Who gets to tell the story?”
And as more voices rise from every corner of the internet, the screen — once a mirror of stereotypes — may finally become a window to equality.

Gender Mainstreaming

Gender Mainstreaming: Making Equality the Default Setting

“Equality cannot be an afterthought; it must be the architecture.”

Have you ever noticed how policies, programmes, or even films claim to be “neutral,” but somehow end up reflecting the experiences of only one gender? That’s exactly the kind of silent bias gender mainstreaming aims to dismantle. It’s not about creating “extra” spaces for women or men—it’s about redesigning the whole system so that equality becomes built-in, not bolted on.

What is Gender Mainstreaming?

The Council of Europe defines gender mainstreaming as “the reorganisation, improvement, development, and evaluation of policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated in all policies at all levels and at all stages.”

In simpler words: every policy, programme, or project—whether it’s in education, health, film, or transport—should be designed with both women’s and men’s perspectives in mind. It’s not enough to “add women and stir”; mainstreaming means rethinking the entire recipe.

At its heart, gender mainstreaming is about fairness. It ensures that neither women nor men are disadvantaged by policies that were unconsciously designed from one point of view.

A Brief History

The concept took shape at the Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi (1985) and became a central strategy after the Beijing Platform for Action (1995). In 1997, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) formally adopted gender mainstreaming as a universal policy approach.

Since then, it has become a guiding framework across the United Nations, national governments, NGOs, and academic institutions to ensure that gender equality isn’t an isolated agenda—but part of the system’s DNA.

Why It Matters ?

Policies or institutions that don’t consider gender often create invisible inequalities. For example:

Urban planning may ignore the fact that women often use public transport while men are more likely to drive.
Healthcare systems may overlook women’s symptoms because most medical research has historically used male bodies as the default.
Education and media may perpetuate stereotypes that discourage girls from STEM fields or typecast women in caregiving roles.

As the Council of Europe puts it: “Decisions which do not fully take into account the needs of all final users may lead to inappropriate solutions and an inadequate allocation of public funds.”

Simply put, gender mainstreaming ensures smarter, fairer, and more effective decision-making.

The Four Pillars of Gender Mainstreaming

1. Gender Analysis

Before launching any policy or project, analyse how it affects different genders. Who benefits? Who bears the cost?
For example, in a college campus safety initiative, men and women might face different risks and use spaces differently—so both perspectives must shape the plan.

2. Gender-Responsive Planning and Budgeting

Include gender objectives, targets, and resources right from the planning stage.
For instance, gender budgeting tracks whether government funds actually advance equality rather than reinforce gaps.

3. Institutionalisation and Accountability

Gender equality shouldn’t depend on one enthusiastic individual or a “women’s cell.” It must be a collective institutional responsibility—supported by leadership, training, and policies that hold everyone accountable.

4. Monitoring and Evaluation

Evaluate impact continuously. Are both men and women benefiting equally? Have inequalities narrowed? Adjust policies based on data and feedback.

In Practice: Where Mainstreaming Happens

Gender mainstreaming can be applied everywhere—from government programmes to classroom activities.

In Governance: India’s Thematic Paper on Gender Mainstreaming in Governance (2022) highlights the need to evaluate all centrally-sponsored schemes for gender impact.
In Education: Curriculum and classroom practices can be reviewed for gender sensitivity—whether teaching materials reinforce stereotypes or offer balanced representation.
In Film and Media: As a cinephile, one can see how screenplays and character arcs often center the male gaze. Gender mainstreaming here means reimagining stories where agency, emotion, and perspective aren’t confined by gender norms.

Even a student short film competition can adopt this principle—by ensuring equal opportunities in casting, crew roles, and storylines that represent diverse gender experiences.

Challenges

Despite its noble vision, gender mainstreaming often stumbles in execution.

Tokenism: Adding “women” to a report or committee doesn’t mean the process is gender-sensitive.
Data Gaps: Many institutions lack disaggregated data to identify gender disparities.
Resistance to Change: Organisations built on traditional gender norms may resist systemic reform.
Intersectional Blind Spots: Mainstreaming must also account for how gender interacts with caste, class, ethnicity, disability, or sexuality—otherwise it risks being shallow or exclusionary.

As scholars note, mainstreaming requires “transformative change”—not just paperwork.

Bringing It Home: Gender Mainstreaming in Classrooms and Campuses

For teachers and students, gender mainstreaming can move from theory to practice in small but significant ways:

Encouraging balanced participation in discussions, leadership roles, and technical tasks.
Using examples in lessons that feature both men and women equally.
Re-examining institutional policies—such as leave rules, mentoring systems, or safety mechanisms—through a gender lens.
Promoting student film or theatre projects that consciously deconstruct gender stereotypes.

When these ideas enter the classroom, equality shifts from being a slogan to a lived experience.

A Quick Checklist for Practitioners

Before implementing any project or policy, ask:

Have both women’s and men’s perspectives been considered?
Do our goals and indicators reflect gender equality?
Are decision-makers trained in gender sensitivity?
Do we have gender-disaggregated data for monitoring?
Are there mechanisms for accountability and feedback?

If your answer to all five is “yes,” congratulations—you’re already practising gender mainstreaming.

Conclusion: From Policy to Practice

Gender mainstreaming is not a luxury or a “women’s issue.” Gender mainstreaming isn’t a slogan; it’s smart design. It’s a framework for justice, efficiency, and sustainability. When gender becomes a natural part of policy thinking, equality stops being a side-project—it becomes the system itself.

Whether drafting a college policy or writing a film script, in classrooms, offices, or film sets, gender mainstreaming invites us to ask one simple but radical question:
“Who is missing from the frame/picture—and how can we bring them into the in?”

A Shoe, a Court, and a Society Losing Its Calm

From Rage to Reflection: Learning from a Courtroom Incident

CJI B. R. Gavai (Left) & The Lawyer Rakesh Kishore (Right)

I was shocked when I heard that a Supreme Court lawyer, Rakesh Kishore, actually hurled his shoe at CJI (Chief Justice of India) B. R. Gavai in the Supreme Court, shouting slogans about Sanatan Dharma. And the reason he gave — “God made me do it” — was just as unsettling as the act itself.

From what I’ve read, the lawyer believed that some remarks made by the CJI last month about a monument of Lord Vishnu were disrespectful to Hinduism, though it seems those statements were misrepresented or taken out of context, and were clarified by the CJI himself later on to mean no disrespect to any religion and that he is a secularist.

What makes it even more troubling is that the lawyer appeared to focus not just on religion but also on the CJI’s Dalit background, using it as a reason to justify his actions. It really shows how easily caste and religion can be twisted in people’s minds, turning misunderstandings into anger — and in this case, even violence.

What’s even more disturbing is that Kishore reportedly showed no remorse or regret, defending his act like it was some kind of divine mission. That’s what makes this more than just a single outburst — it’s part of a worrying trend where religious sentiment and rage seem to replace reasoned discussion. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time a public figure has faced such contempt — politicians, judges, journalists — each incident deepening divisions.

The bigger question isn’t just about one person’s misconduct. I can’t help but wonder: what fuels this kind of anger? Have caste and religion become tools to manipulate public opinion? Are leaders and influencers subtly encouraging outrage, turning every debate into us versus them?

We often see politicians exploiting identity lines — caste, religion, region — for quick political gains, forgetting how much it harms the fabric of our democracy. And let’s be honest: a shoe thrown in a courtroom isn’t just disrespecting a judge; it’s disrespecting the very idea of civility.

When faith turns into fury, and ideology overshadows empathy, society loses its moral compass. The judiciary, the media, and all of us have a role to play in resisting this slide into intolerance. The courtroom has to stay a place for justice, not a stage for rage.

I also feel like this incident should make all of us pause and reflect on where we are heading as a society. People seem to get angry faster than they try to understand. Instead of talking things through, we argue; instead of listening, we shout. And every issue — whether it’s religion, caste, politics, or even movies — somehow becomes a reason for division and outrage.

On top of that, there’s this hunger for sensationalism — the desire to grab instant attention or fame overnight, even through reckless acts. When someone acts out like this and gets headlines or viral attention, it just encourages others to chase the same fleeting spotlight.

It’s scary to think that as a society, we might be forgetting the value of patience, reflection, and respectful dialogue — the things that really hold a democracy together. Anger and publicity can’t replace respect, responsibility, and basic decency. And until we recognize that, incidents like this will keep happening.

- Ashok's Musings

Edutainment - (Educational Resources + My Musings)