B'lore: Gender Justice & Media - National Conference with Difference
from Jessie Rodrigues
for Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore (GA)
Bangalore, Mar 3: NBCLC hosted a three-day national conference on Gender, Justice and Media from Thursday February 28 to Saturday March 1. The conference was held with the intention of widening and deepening its mission among the people, with the support of Vimochana and in collaboration with George Sebastian SJ from Thanmaya Medical Centre, Anthony Kalliath CMI from NBCLC, Francoise Bosteels SDS from NBCLC
It was held to create awareness and analyze how media programmes – films, serials, websites and other media expose, motivate and persuade to a lifestyle of consumerism, individualism, greed and violence. To explore the nuances of the shift from word culture to the visual culture in the present discourses and identity definitions, to search a new media ethic which upholds gender justice for a new humanity, to conscientize and enable educators, grass-root workers and the youth on the importance of media and culture and to evolve modules for media education.
Participants were from all over India –women and men activists, media persons, film makers, teachers, pastors, students, formators, those engaged in non-formal education especially for the women and children and members of various women’s movements participated in the conference, majority of them being women.
Today, Media is the maestro. Identities are constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed by the media, be it the world of advertising, cinema,journalism or the web.
Indeed, gender justice is a keenly debated discourse in the media that is engendering a new public meaning of the issue, reconstructing gender relations and equations, often subverting human values.
On the first day, Sr F Bosteels SDS delivered welcomed address; this was followed by invocation dance ‘God as Mother’. Fr Kalliath CMI theologian enlightened the participants with the concept of media culture and the intricacies of the shift from the texts to visuals. Keerthana Kumar highlighted how myths are recast and reinterpreted on the media so that they vibrate with the contemporary issues and how they are contributing to the reconstruction of the new identity of women in the present ethos with the help of myths which are the instruments of oppression and subjugation of women in the cultural and religious traditions. The documentary “Father, Son and the Holy War” by Anand Patwardhan depicted how media could be used to conscientize the crucial problems on religious and cultural fundamentalism which fragments social harmony and peace.
The second day brightly started with ‘In step with you’ invocation dance, after which Radhika showcased power point presentation on how media ca be creatively used to bring about political possibilities to deconstruct as well as reconstruct feminist identities and empower women so that they become transforming agencies in the society.
Sr Rekha in her presentation pointed out how a feminist reading of the Biblical stories would indeed empower the women in an enduring way from the faith consciousness and make them theologians and prophets for radical transformation of religious identities in which both men and women participate in terms of human dignity and human rights.
Later Sr Francoise showcased how ‘Dolls’ can make human beings grounded in social justice and gender equality and collective responsibilities.
In the afternoon session, documentary on ‘Women Adalat’ Deepa convincingly drove home the idea as how the gender justice can be brought in the villages through an exercise of commonsense, justice human solidarity and goodness.
Final day began with invocation ‘Women heal the earth’, followed by ‘Serializing Destructive Feminities’ by Padma. Meena briefed on the visual culture on print media. During the final talk on ‘Transformed by Technology; women in the Web’ Namita drew everyone’s attention to the modern age of technology.
All sessions were followed by interaction sessions.
Fr Thomas D’Sa, director of NBCLC had a brief evaluation session wherein the participants expressed the benefits they achieved by this conference and also put forth their suggestions for future programs.
Sr Francoise, the coordinator of the conference proposed vote of thanks concluding three-day conference with lunch.