Media Representation and Framing of Feminists in Ghana - Pepper Dem Ministries - Research Paper Example

Media Representation and Framing of Feminists in Ghana - Pepper Dem Ministries Introduction In a general news article, Pepper Dem Ministries dismissed assertions that cooking for one's husband is oppression. The group states that it does not share this perception and does not endorse it nor align with it. The members of this groups argued that one of their associates advising husbands not to initiate rules for their females centered on choices made by their resolutions made by their wives was perceived wrongly (Ministries). The movement's statement arose on the civic backlash where some individuals interrogated the training provided to the women belonging to the Pepper Dem Ministries. According to the media, an associate if this groups argued via a Facebook post that cooking for her husband is slavery. However, in a declaration signed by the communications and media team of this movement states that the group has never made or supported such a statement concerning cooking for husbands and slavery (Ministries). In this piece of work, a research is conducted concerning the media representation and framing of feminist movements in Ghana based on Pepper Dem ministries. Methodology adopted PICO methodology was adopted to search for the obligatory articles for this appraisal of the research. The primary objective of using this method is to comprehend the measure of conclusions or experience of a gathering of individuals through asking inquiries about the feminist movements in Ghana as well as the media perception of these groups. Importance of this research Some of the journalist claim that they have collected enough information on the matter but sometimes it is not true. The media has been used by various government officials to influence information on other countries, particularly with regard to women. Regardless of whether the statement by one of the members of Pepper Dem Ministries groups in Ghana stating that cooking for husbands is slavery, there has been evidence of media framing and wrongly representing women in the society. Thus, based on Pepper Dem Ministries of Ghana, an assessment can be done to identify instances where the media has wrongly framed and represented the rights and opinions of women in the society. Rationale The perception of media language lacks a distinct definition despite its occurrence in books and studies. The concepts are commonly descriptively done in the books. Also, media language attempts to refer to the text characteristics more than depict the essential features which makes it different and unique. Media language was used to write the original text in the Ghanian native language. Translation of some of the words was therefore very challenging. Sometimes journalists use manipulations to serve some purpose (Tiwari 19). The western media also manipulate information to bring a reflection that the west people have intervened in the fight for women right to drive. According to the media, the western countries have intervened thus accelerating the need for women to drive. Due to media democracy, journalists can create a manipulated story about a country (Tiwari 23). There are various ways in which the media can create a narrative about nations. In most society today, the media has been given the power to collect and disseminate information from various parts of the world. Due to traditions and culture, women are not well framed and represented by the media as compared to men. Theoretical framework Major sociological theories of feminism movements The feminist theory acts as a lens that looks the world by gender equality more on inequality. The theory focuses more on female than their male counterparts while they are addressing the issue in connection with the female power. They are addressing more on the issue of women as they are maneuvering n their daily hassles and the challenges that they are facing (Mann and Patterson 64). It shows the battles that the women are fighting as they are struggling t fit into the world that is male-dominated. Some of the things that women rights that they are fighting for are sexual harassment, rights of voting and also sexual production rights. There are some of the assumptions that are put across by the scholars and also the scientists in connection to the movements that fight for the rights of the women. Some of the assumptions are true and very revealing to the eye not to mention that the assumptions; some of them are very true and evident to explain to someone. They are the same assumptions that are serving as the evidence or the truth bars to the sociological theories of feminist movements (Mann and Patterson 64). Most of the assumptions that have been put across by the researchers are however at all costs favoring women. However, for equality basis, there are some of the assumptions that are too true to assume at all; for example; gender is not just society which is comprised of male and female but also the composition of the social construction. There are some of the assumptions that the women movements are mostly favoring or focusing on the politic side of the arguments since most of their movements are in conjunction with some types of political movements (Mann and Patterson 67). The theory of the women movement is comprised or builds using the concepts; they are acting as building pillars of the theory. They are defined as the building blocks of the movements; they are responsible for the signs and also the ideas behind the movements. Most of the concepts of the feminism movements, however, are not focusing their moves on some of the political movements or some forms of violence but instead they are focusing on moving forward and ensuring that all women are free of oppressions (Mann and Patterson 69). From the perception of the women movements, women are seen as citizens who are living in a world that is male-dominated. They are therefore seen as second class citizens while their male counterparts are seen as the first class citizens. There is, however, some of the sociology theories that have been put across so as to explain the movements themselves. Most of the feminist theories are trying to show different concepts in connection to explaining the feminist movements worldwide (Cho 312). However, there are some of the critics and shortcomings that are coming as a result of the theories not addressing the issue of race and ethnicity when it comes to fighting for the female rights and freedom worldwide. Two theories are trying to explain those theories at their best, for example, the theory of Marxism feminism and also the theory of Multicultural Feminism (Cho 314). However, the two theories are failing to explain the problem of facial colors or race and how they affect the life of the normal woman. Marxism feminist theory The idea behind the theory is all about capitalism and the equivalence of the power between the male and females in the world. He argues that for the women to be able to share the power with their male dominions, the fact that the Americans are having a wrong idea about women leadership should, therefore, be changed (Cho 317). Therefore, for the capitalism and equivalence of the power to occur, the American's ideology of power capitalism should come to an end. According to his theory, the more a person can obtain the power, the more that person becomes more and more powerful. The theory can show the relationship between the capitalism that is a person obtaining more power in reality due to the use of capital about patriarchy. Due to the existence of the patriarchy, there has been possible creation of two powerful classes that exist in the society, that is the female and also the male class (Pateman and Grosz 27). Therefore, in the world of commerce, the women are paid less in comparison to male counterparts who are paid more although they are performing the same work. Women are also down economically since they are left with jobs that are not playing well while the male counterparts are taking part or they are leading in most of the jobs that are well paying; for example, women are nurses mostly while men are doctors mostly (Pateman and Grosz 23). It is true that women are more in oppression than their male counterparts on the society as they are facing some of the oppression in society such as sexual harassment, economic hardships and also being depleted of their rights of exercising their rights. Women or feminisms are critical since they help to create awareness for other women by upholding the value that the patriarchy has taken from them. There are some of the sociology theories that are put in place; such theories include the theory of Marxists those talks about the oppression of women. However, it is difficult to use the theory since there are variance o social classes in the world. Therefore, the women movement would face major drawback as it tries to fulfill all the need of the women. Critical analysis Women movement or what other scholars refer to a feminist movement is simply a series of political rallies or campaigns that aim at addressing some issues that are affecting women such reproductive rights, maternity leave in the workplace, equal pay or the sexual harassment and sexual violence that women are facing in their day to day activities. The priority of the women movement varies from countries to countries or from states t states depending on some of the issues that women are facing (Baksh and Harcourt 47). Therefore, feminism movement is liberation movements that are trying to liberate women from their oppressors. The reason behind this movement is to try and to bring gender equality to their locality. Rural areas in Ghana have the capacity to rake in revenue for the country if attention is given the opportunities that are idle. Economic activities like farming, infrastructural development, education, and women empowerment can greatly contribute to a better standard of living for the youth living in rural areas. When these activities are factored into policies, Ghana can cut down on donor dependence and rely largely on revenue that can be tapped from the rural areas. Governmental policies hardly favor rural areas, leading to rural-urban migration (Baksh and Harcourt 52). The number of job opportunities in these poor remote areas is limited and therefore, the standard of living in rural areas is generally low. Farming activities which are taunted as the backbone of the economy are left to the old-aged to pursue since the youth sees farming as an activity for people who ‘have nothing to do’(Baksh and Harcourt 54). Rural poverty as an economic woe; eliminating poverty through agriculture and natural resource management, women empowerment, rural infrastructure, and education. The most form of movement that a person can be able to talk about is the feminist movement. The movement is trying to liberate women from their oppressors through forming acts that are going to be used against the women oppressors. The movement also tries to cover some of the important parts that are affecting the normal woman in general by addressing some universal issues such as women being harassed sexually by their male counterparts. They are also trying to fix the problem that the women face while they are approaching the delivery periods through the creation of acts that will enable such a woman who is expectant to be given some time to go and deliver. Previously, women were afraid of giving birth while they are employed due to losing their jobs. The movement is beneficial in empowering women (Baksh and Harcourt 58). Women and Economics Women engagement in economic activities in Ghana is widespread. It is projected that 80% of the females in Ghana are actively involved in several forms of economic doings in the informal micro to medium scale farming. Other subdivisions of the economy with significant women presence are the manufacturing and service sector of the economy. Conversely, the contribution of Ghanaian women to the economic growth and development is not sufficiently represented since the bulk of their activities are in the informal areas characterized by low returns (Baksh and Harcourt 59). Besides, they are fundamentally subsistent. It is, however, noteworthy that the small micro and small-scale business sector is the strength of the Ghanaian economy given its contribution to economic growth, employment, and improvement of people's living standards. In light of the roles of women in the economic sector and the national growth at large, it is important that women enterprise be supported. In a nutshell, the role of women in the economy of Ghana is very fundamental and necessary (Baksh and Harcourt 63). Women participation in leadership Ghanaian women have faced exclusion from roles like decision-making in the public sphere. This practice has been around since precolonial eras and still continues in contemporary society. The roles of women in the political leadership Ghana can be traced back to the independent days. Women roles were vital in providing necessary assistance to the then ruling party of that periods, the Convention Peoples Party (CPP). It is proven that females traders were active and valuable groups to the political headship that also gave them financial compensations (Baksh and Harcourt 65). Despite these notable contributions, there is still a lot to be done with regards to women participation in every field of leadership such as business and corporate organizations. For a stable governance, it is imperative to increase women participation and strengthen them in every leadership avenue in Ghanaian society. Women Education Education, as a factor of human capital for any nation, is a huge step towards overcoming poverty and elevating the standards of living. Despite this great significance, the situation in Ghana is disturbing. There is a massive gap in the enrollment rate for males and females in the country. Despite the significant efforts, the government has shown in overcoming the gender gap in the formal education system, there is still a lot of work to be done (Bond 8). A lot of barriers to female education exist despite the fact that educating a female person is proving to be the most cost-effective measure a country can use to improve the standards of living. Thanks to initiatives by international organizations such as the United Nations, the enrollment gap between males and females has narrowed, and more female students are going to school (Bond 8). Public Service and Women Empowerment The government of Ghana has put in place legislation, policies and various programs aimed at enhancing actions of the community service department in strengthening females contribution in crucial activities. Such activities include decision making and general delivery of public services to the people. the government has been able to pinpoint various challenges faced in ensuring operative involvement of females in the civic provision (Bond 9). The necessity to make strategies in addressing these issues has also been realized, and this has been projected to go along with inclusivity and full contribution of males and females in this task. One of the problems that have been realized in ensuring women participation has to do with the understanding of the part of the constitution dealing with public service activities. Measures have been put in place to iron out everything and to ensure that participation of women is promoted and upheld. I do not know much about the women movement, but I know for sure that the movement is trying to liberate women from their oppressors (Baksh and Harcourt 19). They are trying to empower women through the creation of women awareness to women who do not know their rights. The movement should be supported at all costs. The fight for the women rights started about 70 years ago as the women were trying to fight their rights. The act leads to what is now seen as the women movements that are trying to fight for the rights of all women in general (McNay 78). When the act of fighting the rights starts, they were emphasizing solely on fighting the general rights for all and later on they solely started fighting for the rights of the women as they were in the oppression of their counterpart male gender. The movement of the women rights faced many oppositions as there are some of the arguments as to whether the women leaders were trying to fight for the rights of the women or they were just trying to reform from what was solely available from the ancient times (McNay 81). In the society today, there are certain cultural expectations that are labeled on men and women. These expectations impact the health of different genders in one way or another. In this paper, the focus will be on how cultural expectations of either masculinity or femininity play a significant role in a different role for either men or women (Bond 11). While doing so, there will be a critical review of the literature on the current health care approaches to the issues identified as well as the significant improvements that different policy or programs can use to address the effects. Further, recommendations on the proposed changes will also be given. Concerning the different explanations are given for the variances between females and males in regards to their health differences, the social roles, and the socio-economic levels have widely been researched. In fact, according to most of these research works, the non-physiological dissimilarities that arise amongst females and males are socially constructed and not geologically determined. The differences in the two genders come out clearly. Gender according to Colley et al., (385) is defined as the involvement of being masculine or feminine as well as the traditional communal characters that are tagged with either being a male or a female, that is, either being homemakers as the case for women against being resource providers as the case for females. In their work, Persson, Roger, et al., (595) notes that the social and cultural roles are important factors when it comes to the higher ill health witnessed in females. This is explained by the distinguished stressors and anxiety response that is induced. In society today, it is normal that men are considered for work as compared to women. This is mainly pegged on the notion that men are the providers of the family. It is therefore expected that men should fend for their families as compared to women. It would be very abnormal to find a man not working while a woman working to provide for the family. Eagly et al. (125) note that females who work linked to those who do not work faceless bodily and cerebral health complications. They are empowered and are in a position to provide care especially to the family members hence affecting both physical and mental health. Additionally, the women are considered to be so much care in the society in comparison to the men. Given that the society sees the women as more of caregivers they often play the role. As they are more of caregivers as compared to the men, they do stand a higher chance of being exposed to strain and this affects their health so much. In the society and especially at work environments, men are left to serve and take part in most of the complicated positions which most of them are senior positions. Nonetheless, with the increased participation of women in some of the duties in the society, the stress differences that occur between men and women are considered to have reduced (Eagly et al., 125). The stress level difference has an effect on the health of the men and women in society. Despite their participation at work, most of the duties that women play are tedious as they are found in the lower cadre of an organization. For most of the women, they occupy clerical positions while more men serve in the leadership positions in comparison to the women. This means that men are at a position where they have more control as compared to men and the result is less experienced stress while for those at the lower positions who are mainly the women they undergo more stress as they have very little or no efficient coping strategies (Eagly et al., 126) The end result is that the health of women get affected so much as compared to that of men owing to the high-stress level that they are exposed to. Men are usually subjected to hard and tedious work as compared to women. This happens because men are considered to be stronger compared to women and are better given some of the tasks by a society that requires so much of the physical strength. Notably, when the men and women work under different conditions, the level of stress hormones released are different, heart rate and experience of stress are also different (Mulhern 45). Additionally, when women get more educated and aged, the occupational stress levels disappear so fast in comparison to that of men. Over time, the physiological responses tend to be similar for men. In the society, individuals are taught on the best behaviors that they need to adopt. The behaviors are culturally passed and in most cases, they are gender oriented. Mostly, the behaviors are taught explicitly or implicitly in terms of which ones are desirable for men or women. For instance, it is culturally accepted that women are to take care of the children while men are to work. This then infers that some behaviors only happen for certain genders and starts right from the time when individuals are young, that is when they are children (Mulhern 47). For instance, girls are encouraged not to swear while boys are said not to cry. Later, the expectations that are set up by the society turns out to be approval or disapproval of the behaviors of individuals. The means that the social prospects are infused by persons into their individuality or sex characters and the kind of gender types either maleness or femaleness continue to follow their fascination (Mulhern 48). At this point, society defines masculinity as the customary interactive prospects for males while femaleness is the social outlooks for females. Different research that has been done has pointed out that there occurs an association between sex traits and health (Gianakos 1060). The same research has exposed that maleness is linked to better bodily and cerebral well-being. Thus, it is concluded that masculine persons have better general health and they show very little signs and better psychological fitness and in most cases, they do not visit the doctors so often. Thus, masculinity has a positive correlation to the physical health and healthy behaviors of persons. In general, the outcome of maleness on the bodily well-being of individuals is affirmative with exception of the coronary heart illness, which, in fact, explains the greater humanity rate for the case of men. In regards to the mental health of persons, masculinity has a negative correlation to anxiety, tiredness, and depression. A study that was commissioned by Gianakos (1063) affirms that masculinity is mostly linked to better mental health. On the other hand, feminineness is also positively connected to the different deeds that promote healthy living. Nonetheless, different research done shows varied outcomes in regards to the relationship that exists amid femaleness and fitness. Femaleness is directly linked to the sophisticated chances of risks of despair occurs in females and to better as well as worse physical outcomes as determined by the studies. There are different policies that have been put in place to address the gender differences that occur in regards to the health. For instance, women are encouraged to go for more disease screening as compared to men. This is because more of the disease occurrence is related to the women gender. For instance, diseases such as dementia, depression, and arthritis are mostly in women while men are known to contract the cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer and suicide (Germov 23). The interpretation of the medics into a policy framework is that there is variation in the health complications for the genders hence having gender-specific medicine. As much as there are differences that are inherent in both genders, there is need to encourage coming up with common medicine and the overemphasis on the differences that exist with gender need to be reduced given that biologically there is less difference between male and females. From the study, it has emerged that in the society, individuals are taught on the best behaviors that they need to adopt. The behaviors are culturally passed and in most cases, they are gender oriented. Mostly, the behaviors are taught explicitly or implicitly in terms of which ones are desirable for men or women (Germov 27). .For instance, it is culturally accepted that women are to take care of the children while men are to work. This then infers that some behaviors only happen for certain genders and starts right from the time when individuals are young, that is when they are children (Germov 23). Additionally, the society sees the women as more of caregivers they often play the role. As they are more of caregivers as compared to the men, they do stand a higher chance of being exposed to strain and this affects their health so much. Conclusion The research paper concerns media representation and framing of women in Ghana. The articles used in the assessment were retrieved by the adoption of PICO technique. Due to their vulnerability and traditional cultures, women have severally been wrongly framed and represented by the media. One of the members of Pepper Dem Ministries was accused of posting on Facebook a statement suggesting that cooking for husbands is slavery. Nevertheless, the entire group came out to deny the statement arguing that the movement does not support such a declaration. The research depicts that, when compared to men, women are typically not represented and framed well by the media. Works Cited Baksh, R., and Harcourt, W. (Eds.). The Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements. Oxford Handbooks. (2015). Bond, Johanna. "Pluralism in Ghana: the perils and promise of parallel law." Oregon review of international law. (2008): 1-12. Cho, Seehwa. "Politics of Critical Pedagogy and New Social Movements." Educational Philosophy and Theory, (2010): 310-325. Colley, Ann, et al. "The short form BSRI: Instrumentality, expressiveness and gender associations among a United Kingdom sample." Personality and Individual Differences 46.3 (2009): 384-387. Eagly, Alice H., Wendy Wood, and Amanda B. Diekman. "Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal." The developmental social psychology of gender (2000): 123-174. Germov, John, ed. Second opinion: an introduction to health sociology. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2005. Gianakos, Irene. "Gender roles and coping with work stress." Sex Roles 42.11 (2000): 1059-1079. Mann, Susan Archer, and Ashly Suzanne Patterson. Reading feminist theory: from modernity to postmodernity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Ministries, Pepper Dem. We never said ‘cooking for your husband’ is slavery - Pepper Dem Ministries« . 27 January 2018. https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/We-never-said-cooking-for-your-husband-is-slavery-Pepper-Dem-Ministries-629684. 2 December 2018. Mulhern, Gerard. "The Short Form BSRI: Instrumentality, expressiveness and gender associations among a UK sample." (2009). McNay, L.Gender, and Agency: Reconfiguring the subject in feminist and social theory. John Wiley & Sons. (2013). Pateman, C., and Grosz, E. Feminist challenges: Social and political theory. Routledge. (2013). Persson, Roger, et al. "Physiological and psychological reactions to work in men and women with identical job tasks." European journal of applied physiology 105.4 (2009): 595. Tiwari, Geeta. Media and women . New Delhi: Mahaveer & Sons, 2010. Read More