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Videaz 3: Women and Media in Malaysia -- Zohara Gany Mhd. Bathusha

Women and Media in Malaysia -- Zohara Gany Mhd. Bathusha

Sheryl Hamilton (snh@alcor.concordia.ca)
Wed, 13 May 1998 20:05:14 -0400 (EDT)

WOMEN AND MEDIA IN MALAYSIA
---------------------------
By Zohara Gany Mhd. Bathusha
TV 1 Controller
Radio Television Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Introduction:
------------
Ever since the First Women Conference in Mexico in 1975, issues on women
and development has been made a world agenda. Until today, studies on
women still show that women did not involve themselves fully in the
development process and they are deprived of reaping the full benefits of
development.

Women in Malaysia is slightly better off in status and development process
as compared to their other sisters in other countries. But where media is
concerned, I would say that we have quite a long road ahead.

Media, as we all know, not only informs, it influences. Every message we see
or hear shapes the way we see ourselves, our understanding of the world, of
issues, of what and who is important. Since media is a most effective agent
of change, it can either be used for social development or to reinforce
prejudicial stereotypes.

Background:
----------
Currently, there are four television stations, namely, Radio Television
Malaysia or RTM (which operates channels One and Two), TV 3, Metrovision and
NTV. RTM is government-owned and the other three are owned and run by
private companies.

Mega TV is Malaysia's first multi-channel 24-hour subscription television
service. And ASTRO is Malaysia's first satellite Direct-to-U (DtU)
broadcast services. It offers 22 channels in digital format.

Of the 40 radio channels in Malaysia, 29 are owned and operated by the
government through RTM. Time Highway Radio (99.3), Suara Johor (now more
popularly known as Best of 104) and CATS Radio (Kuching) are private radio
stations. Redifusion is a private cable radio station and ASTRO is a
satellite radio station with 8 channels.

In the print media, there are currently 47 newspapers - both dailies and
weeklies. Of these, 15 are in the English language, 10 in Malay, 18 in
Mandarin and 4 in Tamil. The three main English dailies in West Malaysia
are New Straits Times, The Star and The Sun. In East Malaysia, the most
popular English newspaper in Sarawak is the Borneo Post and in Sabah, it is
the Daily Express. But the most widely circulated newspapers in Malaysia
are the two main Malay dailies, ie, Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia.

Malaysia is fast moving in to the multimedia super corridor. This can be
another venue for women to make use to strengthen women's cause or to be
made use of.

Portrayal of Women:
------------------
Let us now look at how Malaysian women are portrayed in the media. The
media continues to be a male dominated bastion, manipulated by commercial
interests and does much damage through its portrayal of women as sex
objects and as a group that plays a secondary role to men.

In fact, the media seems bent on degrading women and portraying them as
objects of male gaze, male sexuality and male violence. Television carries a
combination of local and foreign programmes. Many of the local Malay,
Tamil and Chinese dramas portray women as emotional, weak and long
suffering, which has been the stereotypical image put forth for so long.

Exploitation of women is not a new issue. Despite public protests on
certain advertisements or programmes that degrades women's moral, there
seems to be an increase in the use of women in media to portray and carry a
sexist and sexual message. It seems to be a current norm and the
institution that encourages portrayal of such images, including advertisers,
writers and producers, are the ones that's earning huge profits. This is
indeed a frightening situation.

A 1993 study on women in the Print Media by the National University of
Malaysia's (UKM) Department of Communications and the Faculty of Social
Science and Humanities, found that articles on women confined them to their
traditional roles as homemakers, mothers and volunteer workers. The women's
pages of newspapers and magazines mainly focus on fashion and personal
accounts of women's problems.

In advertisements, the youthful and beautiful images of women are frequently
used to sell a product. The idea is that, women are expected to attract
the attention of men. At another level, women are strictly shown as being
housebound, ie, being solely responsible for household tasks.
Advertisements for food products, household cleanliness and domestic
appliances are all addressed to women.

In fact, whenever men and women are portrayed, the man is the achiever and
decision maker, while the women plays either a decorative or passive role.
It's time women are portrayed as productive members of society and regarded
as capable of making intelligent choices, which Malaysian women are.

RTM's guidelines for the local drama is that they should contribute to
positive nation building. There is strict censorship on anything that maybe
detrimental to moral values, but portraying women as secondary people in
strictly stereotyped roles of domesticity, denying their contribution to
economic growth, is not seen as detrimental to nation building.

Relevant Acts in Malaysia:
-------------------------
Let's look at some of the Acts and policies which have been formulated to
control unethical practices in media presentations and advertisements.

**Cinematograph Films (Censorship) Act 1952
This Act provides procedures and the guidelines in terms of censorship of
films for screening in Malaysia. However, the Act fails to address proper
guidelines as to what to censor. It's left to the discretion of the
censorship board, hence, exercising the power is subjective. One of the
problems faced by the Censorship Board is inconsistency in censorship. A
lot of films depicting intimate (sex) scenes, violence against women and
others are seen often on the screen.

**Malaysian Code Of Advertising
This code is meant to enable a sort of voluntary regulation by the
advertising industry, and is administered by the Advertising Standards
Authority (ASA). Somehow, the well-intent guidelines are often not adhered
to. Further, ASA is not a free and neutral organisation, it is
self-regulatory, hence, faces difficulties in monitoring market malpractices
among themselves.

**The Broadcasting Act
The Act is to vet all broadcast materials to be aired on TV and radio. This
Act is also quite loosely define, hence, the various degrees of
interpretations which is subjective.

**Indecent Advertisements Ordinance, 1953 (revised 1981)
This is a specific Act for films, photographs and advertisements that are
indecent or obscene. If found guilty, the person maybe sentenced to prison
for not more than one month and fined not more than RM 50. Even in this
Act, the terms 'indecent' or 'obscene' is not clearly defined. So its up to
the enforcement officers to review each case separately and of course
subjectively.

**Women and Young Girls Protection Act 1973
This Act is to protect, especially the women from being threatened or
harassed, cheated, sold or even rent for sexual acts except in marriage or
prostitution. In this case, besides the pimps, film and pornographic film
producers maybe charged under this act.

**Printing Presses and Publications Act 1986
Under Section 4, whoever prints or reproduces or helps (causes) print a
publication or document that is indecent/obscene or against public decency
and if found guilty, maybe charged, not more than 3 years imprisonment or a
fine of not more than RM 20,000 or both.

The words 'obscene' and 'public decency' are not defined. Therefore,
again the enforcement officers makes their own subjective interpretation
of whether the printed picture or document is obscene or indecent. This
does not offer much protection for the women. Furthermore, most law
enforcers are men, with a mind-set of their own and more 'open-minded'
than the women.

**RTM Code of Advertising
This code is from the Ministry of Information and applies to all TV
stations, including cable and satellite. The advertisements are not
censored by the Film Censorship Board but by a group of officers from the
Ministry based on the guidelines formulated. This code is well implemented
except for some loose ends where women's issues are concerned.

**Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines for the Print Media.
This guideline serves as a reminder for the print media not to print
photographs and advertisements that shows women in revealing clothes,
topless women, women in bikinis or women in their underclothes. These
guidelines not only covers newspapers but magazines and comics.

Guidelines remain as guidelines, and the reality is that, no action or I can
say rarely, is taken by the various Ministries to those errant offenders.

Weaknesses in the Law:
---------------------
Although the laws and policies exists, ie, to control and monitor how women
are portrayed and used in the media, they are seldom used. Hence, why do we
have laws if they are not enforced?

Most clauses under the law are general. Concept and specific words are not
clearly defined. Interpretation becomes subjective and usually up to the
discretion of the enforcement officers. This is where the difficulty and
root to the problem lies.

Further, the various codes and policies are not always consistent in their
guidelines. For example, alcohol advertisement is prohibited in the
electronic media, but not in the print media or cinemas. The RTM code
prohibits the use of scantily clad female or male bodies to sell products
but the Home Affairs code for the print media does not carry such a clause.
Even within the Film Censorship Board members, there's inconsistency between
stations. For example, the FCB group assigned to RTM banned Baywatch and
Model Inc. but the FCB group in Metrovision passed those two titles.

While all the codes and Acts are concerned with indecent exposure of human
bodies, there is no policy regarding the stereotyped portrayal of women,
including domestic violence and abuse.

Women are under-represented in all regulating boards. To quote a case, I am
involved in amending the Film Censorship Act 1952. I came in , in the last
four meetings of the drafting. Prior to that, the quorum (13) is all men.
The final draft was approved by the working committee last Monday, that is
the day before I left for this conference. And when the chairman asked if
there is anything that we need to include, I pressed the speaker button and
said, "Can we include a clause on negative portrayal of women". The Chairman
replied, "Is it necessary?"

And before I could reply, a senior legal officer, a male asked, "What
portrayal" and on my reply, he asked again, "Do you know the meaning?" And
he was smiling sweetly to me, which is irritating and that makes me go on my
long explanation and quoting examples. And oh yes! On that day, a guest,
another very senior legal officer from the Attorney General's office came to
help check the final draft. And that guest happens to be a lady. I was
surprised that she did not even open her mouth to help me, in fact, had the
courtesy to smile when her male colleague made some remarks. Well, anyway
to continue, I was cross-examined (that was how I felt), received snide
remarks, cornered but not giving up, and finally the chairman said, "Can we
incorporate the negative portrayal of women in the guidelines to the FCB
committee". So I said, "That's a good start, since this is the only Act
that controls the content of a story and if you say yes, I'll say thank
you". But deep down in my heart, I said that's not the end. The final
draft has still to go to the Attorney General's office and to the Parliament
for endorsement so I'm still hopeful. I will have to get hold of NACIWID
and NCWO to help me draft the clause. And I have also made an appointment
to bring a few women to brief the FCB members on the issue of negative
portrayal of women before October.

Coming back to weaknesses in the law, another is the sentences. It's too
lenient. As I have mentioned earlier, the fines are peanuts as compared to
the income that the suppliers are getting and the prison terms are too
short. So all in all, we have to tighten up the present codes and Acts.
We have to give clear definitions and increase the sentences. And as
consumers or audience, we should not wait for others to voice out their
protests first, we should all come together to give our opinion.

Conclusion:
----------
In conclusion, I would say that what is happening in Malaysia is quite
common in other countries. I may sound like as though I am anti-government,
but actually I am just trying to make us aware that there are flaws and
loopholes in the codes and Acts. And we have to rectify this in order to
help improve the women's plight. Those in the government are there to make
policies but they need help from the outside too.

They need watchdogs to tell them if something is not right. Nobody is
perfect, so let's work more closely together, the GO's and the NGO's, in
scrutinizing the present Acts and Codes and see which clauses needs to be
amended.

Let's give our support to the few women decision-makers and political
leaders who can help make changes for the good of all women and human beings.

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