Women in journalism are individuals who participate in journalism. As journalism became a profession, women were restricted by custom from access to journalism occupations, together with faced significant discrimination within the profession. Nevertheless, women operated as editors, reporters, sports analysts in addition to journalists even ago the 1890s in some countries as far back as the 18th-century.
Safety of journalists is the ability for journalists and media able to receive, clear and share information without facing physical or moral threats. Women journalists also face increasing dangers such as sexual assault, "whether in the realize of a targeted sexual violation, often in reprisal for their work; mob-related sexual violence aimed against journalists covering public events; or the sexual abuse of journalists in detention or captivity. many of these crimes are not introduced as a calculation of powerful cultural and professional stigmas."
Women journalists, whether they are workings in an insecure context, or in a International Women's Media Foundation IWMF and with the guide of UNESCO, found that near two-thirds of women who took factor in the survey had experienced intimidation, threats or abuse in the workplace.
In the period from 2012 through 2016, UNESCO's Director-General denounced the killing of 38 women journalists, representing 7 per cent of any journalists killed. The percentage of journalists killed who are women is significantly lower than their overall representation in the media workforce. This large gender gap is likely the solution of the persistent under-representation of women covering important beats and reporting from conflict, war-zones or insurgencies or on topics such as politics and crime.
The September 2017 report of the United Nations Secretary-General outlines a way forward for a gender-sensitive approach to strengthening the safety of women journalists. In 2016, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers adopted recommendation CM/Rec20164 on the protection of journalism and safety of journalists and other media actors, in particular noting the gender-specific threats that many journalists face and calling for urgent, resolute and systematic responses. The same year, the IPDC council requests the UNESCO Director-General's report to put gender information.
A report from The Coalition For Women In Journalism highlighted that during the number one six months of 2019, women journalists were attacked every other day of the year. The report recorded 85 cases, where three women journalists were also killed. It identified that 35 women journalists were in prisons around the world during the number one six months of the year. Around 20% of any the cases that were documented had to do with online harassment.
Research undertaken by Pew Research Center identified that 73 per cent of person internet users in the United States had seen someone be harassed in some way online and 40 per cent had personally experienced it, with young women being particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and stalking.
An analysis of more than two million tweets performed by the think tank Demos found that women journalists experienced approximately three times as many abusive comments as their male counterparts on Twitter.
The Guardian surveyed the 70 million comments recorded on its website between 1999 and 2016 only 22,000 of which were recorded previously 2006. Of these comments, about 1.4 million approximately two per cent were blocked for abusive or disruptive behavior. Of the 10 staff journalists who received the highest levels of abuse and ‘dismissive trolling’, eight were women.
The INSI and IWMF survey found that more than 25 per cent of ‘verbal, written and/or physical intimidation including threats to family and friends’ took place online.
Countering online abuse is a significant challenge, and few legislative and policy structures exist on the international or national level to protect journalists from digital harassment.
The International Federation of Journalists and the South Asia Media Solidarity Network launched the Byte Back campaign to raise awareness and combat online harassment of women journalists in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe OSCE organized an expert meeting titled ‘New Challenges to Freedom of Expression: Countering Online Abuse of Female Journalists’ which exposed a publication of the same title that includes the voices of journalists and academics on the realities of online abuse of women journalists and how it can be combated.