'Where are the women?' Why media must change its lens

Media leaders and digital creators undertake a gender-sensitive media trainininga at Sleeping Warrior camp in Elementaita. [Sourced] Dearest gentle reader. Allow me to tell you how an email found me on a chilly Wednesday last week and transformed into the best two days of my month. Over the weekend, I joined an inspiring group of media leaders and digital creators at the picturesque Sleeping Warrior Camp in Elementaita to discuss how we see, hear and cover women in public leadership. It was no ordinary meeting. More importantly, the conversations over those two days left me rejuvenated and determined to help tell women's stories more fairly and fully. The theme "See Her, Hear Her, Cover Her," said it all. Convened by the Africa Leadership and Dialogue Institute (ALADI), in partnership with the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development, the gathering examined the media's role in shaping narratives, how women's stories are told, whose voices are elevated and how the gender gap in public leadership can be narrowed. The statistics are sobering. Women hold only 20 percent of editorial leadership roles in Kenya, despite making up nearly 40 percent of the media workforce. A 2025 study by the Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications found that women account for just 11 percent of top business leadership positions in Kenya. Globally, women occupy about 34 percent of editorial leadership roles, according to a 2025 Reuters Institute study. The institute further noted a weak positive correlation between the proportion of women working in journalism and the number who rise to top editorial positions. In short, women may enter the profession, but too few reach the summit. Yet beyond the numbers, it was a question posed during one of the sessions that lingered with me long after the retreat ended. "How are we talking about women public leaders?" asked Noella Ngunyam, communications officer at the EJS Center. It was a simple question, but a piercing one. Coverage of African women in leadership often leaves much to be desired. The State of Women in Media 2025 report by the Aga Khan University GSMC captures this reality starkly: "Women in politics, especially female candidates are often subjected to more negative and gendered assessments of their communication skills, intellectual ability and political expertise than are male contestants. Coverage of women politicians has often been pronounced when they are involved in scandals and conflict." This disparity, in both newsrooms and national leadership shapes far more than headlines. It influences hiring, promotions, decision-making and workplace policies, including responses to sexual harassment. It determines whose perspectives matter and whose concerns are sidelined. When women's voices are absent from the table, lives are diminished or placed at risk. Stereotypes flourish in silence. Bias hardens into culture. The media plays a powerful role in deciding which stories are amplified and how societies understand themselves. If the media fails women in its framing, it fails society. If it neglects women's voices, women's issues or even the language used to describe them, it has failed half the population. "Let's be the people to change this culture," ALADI President and CEO Julie Gichuru said. And on that note, I made a quiet promise to be part of that change. Because one woman's voice ignored, distorted or erased is one voice too many. The writer is the Editor, Radar Desk, and President of the Standard Group Women Network.

'Where are the women?' Why media must change its lens

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