78% of journalists don’t abide by gender balance, as they care about professionals, not gender - IMI research

78% of journalists who don’t abide by the balance of men and women in their stories argued that specialists are important to them, not their gender. These are the results of an anonymous targeted survey of media professionals, which was conducted by the NGO "Institute of Mass Information" on February 15-24, 2021 *.

Another 7% said they did not see any problem there, because mass media reliably reflected the picture with balance in society. 5% of media respondents who do not comply with the gender balance principle believed that women and men have their roles and that gender is “artificially imposed to us by the Western countries”. 

Another 2% of media persons said that Ukraine,was a country of disguised matriarchy, so there is no need to respect the gender balance in mass media **.

When asked what would motivate you to abide by the gender balance of experts and heroes in your stories, 37% of media professionals mentioned public support for gender policy at national level and the example of high-ranking officials. In second place they placed the requirements/ support of the media management (23%). And in third place, they said, if it would be a trend for the media community (22%). At the same time, 21% of media professionals said that nothing motivated them to respect gender balance in their materials. And another 15% of media professionals said they lacked information on gender balance to understand why they needed to comply with **.

* The survey was conducted using an anonymous online survey using an interactive structured questionnaire, a link to which was sent to potential respondents - journalists and editors. A total of 251 responses were received from the media. 88% are respondents from all regions of Ukraine, 12% - from the city of Kyiv. 73% of women, 26% of men and 1% of the opposite sex. The study was conducted during February 15-24, 2021. 

** The sum of the answers is not equal to 100%, because the respondents could choose several answers.