The role and portrayal of Women in the media & Photography field as a Journalist & Photographer too.!!

The status of women in India has been subject to many great changes over the past few millennia. From equal status with men in ancient times through the low points of the medieval period,to the promotion of equal rights by many reformers, the history of women in India has been eventful.

 Media is considered as a traditionally male job and generally it is thought that women journalists can not skip the glass ceiling phenomenon. India is another minefield of challenges for journalists, especially female journalists. The problem prevails mostly in electronic media scenario as women are making more appearances on screen with the boom of private TV channels. They are considered less prominent. Female journalists working in developed countries are also facing such problems but still female journalists are in the initial stages towards progress.

In India, with the advent of increasing number of private TV channels, female journalists quite often appear on our television screens. Anchor women, foreign correspondents, and special correspondents are omnipresent in the main broadcast news shows and in current affairs programs. They are considered beautiful and successful women, as well as trend-setters with respect to clothes, make-up and hairstyles. Print journalism, where the physical image is replaced by the reporter's name, this phenomenon is much less prominent than electronic media.

In spite of the large entrance of female personnel into the professional work of information, women on top of editorial staff are still a scanty minority: this is, however, no different to Western countries. Thanks to television, female journalists have acquired great visibility.

The phrase ‘woman photographer’ now seems outmoded, but in the 1970s and 1980s, certainly in Britain and North America, there seemed a need to emphasize women's participation. While the term was resisted by some as belittling, for others its use was political, drawing attention to female activity while also implying distinctive styles and subject matter. A number of women-only organizations, including archives, were established as spaces for women photographers and for stories told from women's perspectives. For instance, women-only agencies not only gave some priority to women's lives in their coverage but also aimed to support female photojournalists' efforts to retain influence over the use of their pictures. Likewise, community-based photo workshops offered opportunities for women to work together to explore themes outside the dominant modes of formalist aesthetics and decisive-moment documentary. A preoccupation with the domestic, with family relations—both ‘normal’ and dysfunctional—and sexuality, typified much of the work.