Moldova needs a legal framework that would clearly define sexist advertising or gender equality, while a specialized body should authorize all the advertisements in the country. Gender education should be introduced at universities, especially at faculties of journalism so that the journalists afterward could identify gender stereotypes and would not promote them in their work. Such proposals were formulated in the first meeting of the mass media working group held within the public consultations on the new national program for ensuring gender equality for 2016-2020, IPN reports.
In the opening of the event, Diana Doros, of the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family, said the Ministry now promotes a draft decision that contains definitions of such notions as ‘sexist publicity’ and ‘sexist language’. It also worked with the Association of Advertising Agencies with a view to eliminating sexist ads.
Nadine Gogu, director of the Independent Journalism Center, said a recent situation showed that not only the students studying journalism consider that the lack of gender equality in society is a problem. The fact that this problem was included in the Millennium Development Goals shows that it is important. The world leaders also noted the important role played by the mass media in promoting gender equality. At European level, the women are underrepresented in news items, these being the protagonists of 26% of the news articles. In Moldova, the women appear in 22% of the news items, but are the least represented in politics (8%).
It was underlined that the journalists often invoke the lack of women sources for their materials. “This is an excuse for lazy journalists only,” stated Petru Macovei, executive director of the Association of Independent Press. A proposal was to introduce a gender education course at the faculties of journalism. As to the sexist ads, it was suggested that a specialized body should be created to authorize all the video clips, commercials and banners. The editorial offices in Moldova are poor and have practically to accept any type of advertisement, even the sexist ones.
