To reach this level of success, she has had to raise her voice, balance priorities and defy stereotypes.
“A lady, a lady,” she once screamed in a room filled with male journalists at a press briefing held by the national petroleum corporation. Clara Nwachukwu was trying to get the attention of the moderator who had yet again singled out another male journalist to pose the final question. The spotlight turned to her and Nwachukwu was able to ask her question, which yielded a response that made headlines throughout the media. Soon after the event, she was nicknamed the “Iron Lady” out of gained respect.
In a sense, her new name highlighted the continuing prejudice against women - she received a nickname because she was unique and stepped out of her feminine mold and thereby, reinforcing stereotypes.
Women journalists in Africa have made inroads over the years, however, stereotypes continue to beset many of them from assuming high position jobs or from taking on hard or prestigious beats. “There is a glass ceiling in the media, in Africa and the rest of the world,” described Kathleen Currie, director of the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), to RAP 21, on the difficulties of moving upward.
The IWMF is pursuing several key projects in Africa as an effort to bolster the position of women journalists. Projects include in-house training programs where women can acquire key skills and defend their rights to working on the Global Report on Women in the News Media, which would for the first time provide concrete statistics on the visibility of women in the media. “Through the IWMF network we empower women journalists, create leaders and pioneer change through a number of projects,” said Currie.
In another IWMF project, Reporting on Agriculture and Women: Africa, telling facts were revealed about the position of women in the media. The study found that even though women produce 70% of food in sub-Saharan Africa and make up half of the region's population, just 11% of the sources in agriculture stories and 22% of the reporters are women.
“Certain beats are considered very tough like energy, even the industry, worldwide is male-dominated, so rightly or wrongly, editors believe it would take an equally tough person to cover them,” Nwachukwu said to RAP 21 in an interview.
In Nigeria, the energy sector is run mostly by men and likewise, covered by mostly men. But, she reminds: “There is no beat a woman cannot cover effectively if given the chance. Women too should stop selling themselves short by believing there are soft beats and hard beats.” She says this, though, without forgetting the ever-present barriers facing women journalists, both in the newsroom and on the frontline.
“Initially, men tend to patronise you and make you feel like you belong, until you are able to prove to them that you can do the job as well as they can, if not better and then they respect you,” she said.
In 1996, Nwachukwu started her career in journalism at the now-rested Post Express newspaper in Nigeria at the Women's Desk. Within a year, she moved to the Saturday edition covering society and entertainment and then became the first woman to cover commerce and industry issues for the newspaper. In 2004, she left to work at The Punch, the country's oldest newspaper and was transferred to the Nigerian state Imo, as the state correspondent and head of office administration.
“This was the first time a woman would be heading an outstation of The Punch, and I remember the chief accountant refusing to pay my transfer allowance, because, “it was not in our tradition to send women to the outstation,” and he needed to clarify the issue,” recounted Nwachukwu.
Two years later she returned to Lagos to report on energy issues, the first woman to do so in all of the paper's 30-year history. In March 2009, she transferred to the newly launched newspaper Next to act as the assistant business editor.
Women have largely been absent from the high-ranking echelons in the media. Though, Next is trying to change the gender paradigm of the media. The paper, which was launched by Pulitzer prizewinner Dele Olojede, has hired Kadaira Ahmed as the country's first editor of a national daily, and many other women are heading strategic positions.
“Thirteen years on in the profession, I realise that I have remained because I wanted to make a difference, especially as there were very few women in key media positions,” Nwachukwu said.
Article published courtesy of RAP21
