IPS Asia-Pacific's Johanna Son introduces the glossary

MANILA - The need to teach students early about gender-sensitive language. Examples of how media reports pass on prejudices in some stories, and mistake gender blindness for political correctness in others. Some editors and writers’ discomfort with asking frank questions when they hear the word ‘gender’.

These are some of the topics that came up for lively discussion at the August 2010 launch of the third edition of the ‘Gender and Development Glossary’, held at the ISIS Intl conference room in Quezon City, Philippines. A mix of journalists, gender and reproductive health experts, professors and civil society advocates made sure there was a variety of opinions at the discussion around words, gender, language and media that day. Read more »

Chairman, chairwoman, chairperson or chair? Housewife or homemaker? What is so controversial about contraception, the word ‘family’ or ’sex worker’? Does being gender-sensitive in news mean hiding the genders and sexes of people who appear in them?

Whether you’re a journalist, writer, researcher or a news consumer, some gender-related words are bound to have gotten you wondering about whether, or how, to use them, or what they really mean. Read more »

Together with its partner Friends of the Earth International, IPS organised on May 28 in Prague a communication training around the issue of mining and oil and gas exploration. Former IPS editor in chief Miren Gutierrez discussed with around 25 NGO representatives ways to reach mass audiences through the mass media and how to promote investigative journalism. The participants also drafted a communications strategy and received hands-on media training. Read more »

The gender students from AIT

BANGKOK - IPS Asia-Pacific’s offices became a classroom twice in recent weeks as two classes of graduate students from the Asian Institute of Technology came to discuss issues of journalism, gender, environment as well as the media mindset.

On Mar. 30, a class of 16 graduate students in the gender and development studies module spent two hours at the IPS regional office in the Thai capital, with their professor, Babette Resurreccion. The students were from varied courses, backgrounds and countries, ranging from Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Nigeria. Read more »

On International Women’s Day, IPS news agency talks to Iranian Nobel Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi and new UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova about their efforts to champion women. Both are in New York, with thousands of others, to review what progress women have made since the landmark Beijing Conference on Women, fifteen years ago.

An international team of IPS reporters is in New York where the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women is meeting to review the Beijing Platform of Action, with the IPS global network contributing local voices and viewpoints. Read more »