A report by the National AIDS Council (NAC) has revealed that more Zimbabwean women are accessing HIV and AIDS literature and anti-retroviral treatment compared to men. In the 2010 report the figures show that a total of 1,612,388 people were tested in the past 12 months of which 539,162 were men and 1,073,226 were female. The existing gap of is very wide and saddening.

It is now mandatory for every pregnant woman to undergo HIV tests to help prevent the passing of the virus to the baby (Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission).  This reveals that when women go for these HIV tests their husbands do not go with them. Most men tend to rely heavily on the HIV status of their wives for them to hastily judge their own. If the wife is negative, they assume they are negative also. If the wife is positive, instead of assuming that they carry the same status too, like they would have done in the previous scenario, these men tend to leave their spouses and blame them bringing the virus into their homes.

In the same report it was also indicated that there was a decline in the HIV prevalence rate in Zimbabwe from 18.5% to 14.2%. This is something that is most welcome as it goes a long way in showing the fruitfulness of the efforts being made by the government and non-governmental organisations to curb the spread of the virus in the country.

However, even more can be done if more men take the initiative in going for HIV tests for them to know their status and prevent its spread to their partners.

“I know I didn’t get this job because I’m a woman; I got it because I’m the best qualified person,” she says. Nonetheless, what it means to me is that the executive editor of the New York Times is such an important position in our society, the Times itself is indispensable to society and a woman gets to run the newsroom — that’s meaningful.”

Jill Abramson is to become the first female editor of the New York Times in September. More

When I told my father I wanted to be a journalist he looked at me in shock and said, ‘But women journalists are loose…are you telling me that this is what you want for yourself?’ Never one to back down from a fight, that conversation ended in a fierce argument. My mother knew better than to intervene. I couldn’t understand how my father, with whom I watched Christiane Amanpour on CNN and Haru Mutasa on Al Jazeera, and who would sit with me and critique interview and reporting styles could possibly believe that journalism amounted to prostitution.

Having been in the field for a while now, I understand his position. Zimbabwe’s women journalists, more than women in any other profession, I think, suffer intolerable harassment and discrimination. It comes with the job. It really doesn’t matter which medium or establishment a woman works for, sexual harassment appears to be an industry standard. Scant attention is drawn to the sexual scandals that plague Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings; I suppose it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black. In 2009 numerous interns and women journalists filed harassment complaints against the then News and Current Affairs Manager Tarzen Mandizvidza and Reporters Manager O Brian Rwafa. A female respondent to a Gender Links survey regarding women in Zimbabwe’s media observed, ‘Where issues of sexual harassment or sexist language are concerned, women who raise these issues are often not taken seriously and in particular case of harassment, male bosses sympathise with those accused of harassment and at times try to underplay the charge at hand.’

This is aptly demonstrated by ZBH CEO, Happison Muchechetere who, at the time threatened to fire the women and labelled them ‘prostitutes’. ZBH sexual harassment issues are ongoing. This month the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists Secretary General, Foster Dongozi, told The Zimbabwean that there were escalating reports of female journalists being harassed on the job, especially at the state broadcaster where bosses were allegedly sexually harassing female reporters for roles as news readers.

New players in the media industry have also adopted the practice of objectifying and discriminating against women. Recently, Sokwanele reported that young female college graduates have lodged complaints that they are being asked on dates by some of the editors of the newly licensed media houses if they want to be employed.

The issues plaguing women in media are not confined to sexual harassment. A 2009 study conducted by Gender Links as part of the Glass Ceilings: Women and Men in Southern African Media Survey found that although half of Zimbabwe’s media houses had gender parity targets, there were six times as many men as women in Zimbabwe media houses surveyed. This is surprising considering that women constitute the majority of media and communication studies students. The survey also found that men were more likely to be given higher remuneration and better working conditions than women.

Moreover, while women in Zimbabwean media houses are under-represented in most areas of work, (constituting 17% of editorial departments), they are found in higher proportions in support roles in areas considered “women’s work”. These include advertising and marketing (40%) and human resources (58%).

Fed up with this state of affairs, female media practitioners issued a statement this year in March, demanding an end to these unfair practices. Again very little notice was paid to it by the media in general, almost as if in collusion. The media is very quick to point out the failings of the government, but is selectively shortsighted when its own practices are corrupt and degrading.

Sexual harassment is one of the world’s greatest bugs, that has overstayed its welcome. Sexual harassment and rape is a crime, which is perpetrated worldwide, on young and old women, decently or indecently dressed. Stories of rape cases of minors are being reported in the media and the most recent in Zimbabwe is of a 69 year-old man who raped a 14 year-old girl. This was not his first offence.

Women in the US have taken to the streets to protest verbal and physical violence against women. These protests were stirred by an insensitive statement made by Toronto police constable Michael Sanguinetti who remarked that women should avoid dressing “like sluts” in order to prevent themselves from being raped or otherwise victimised.

Termed Slut Walks, the protests began in Canada and have spread to Australia and other parts of the world. The theme of the protests is women castigating the sexual harassment they face as a result of their type of clothing.

With women across the world staging protests against sexual harassment, reportedly perpetrated by what they wear and how they behave, are Zimbabwean women going to join in the campaign?

Merit Rumema’s blog on the definition of fatherhood reminded me of a recent conversation with a friend.

She and her two teenaged children are South Africa citizens. They live in Zimbabwe with her husband, their father, who is not a South African citizen. She needs to get passports for her children, and for various reasons the embassy here will not process them. Instead, she’s been told to go to Pretoria to have them processed – and she’s been informed that the children’s father must be present. It is not enough even for him to write a letter, or to give her his ID to take with her – he must physically be present when they go to apply for their passports. She explains is as if they fear she might abscond with the children without the father’s permission. This is South Africa – with allegedly the most progressive Constitution in Africa (if not the world) and with a supposed respect for human rights and basic issues like gender equality. Why then is the mother’s presence sufficient “adult authority” to process these children’s passports? Why does the father (who isn’t even South African) count for more than the mother in this instance?