The meeting of the Working Group on creating rules for the protection of children in the media, organized by the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, took place online on September 25, 2024.
The meeting addressed topics such as the impact of war coverage on children, ensuring gender equality in education, and countering gender stereotypes and prejudices in the portrayal of children in the media.
As Olha Herasymiuk, Head of the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, noted in her introductory speech, the topics of children and gender equality are widely discussed among educators and public organizations today. The National Council aims to give this movement greater momentum, particularly regarding media content produced by Ukrainian outlets today.
“Today, the global landscape presents us with new challenges, threats, and trials. We find ourselves facing one of these challenges: the threat of evil triumphing over democracy, which looms over the entire world. We are at the epicenter of this struggle for democracy’s victory over darkness. Therefore, our focus today — children, gender equality, and media coverage—is an essential part of this fight against darkness,” said Olha Herasymiuk.
She also noted that gender stereotypes are most often instilled in childhood and frequently passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, it is crucial to discuss gender equality with children in the context of choice — the ability to decide who they want to be.
One of the participants in the meeting, Daria Herasymchuk, the authorized adviser to the President of Ukraine on child rights and child rehabilitation, discussed the type of content on gender equality that teenagers would like to see in the media. She emphasized that children today notice a distortion in the information space: “There is a lot of talk about women’s rights and that a woman can do everything, but boys would like to see more content highlighting that men also have the right to everything.” This includes allowing men to express emotions, such as showing tears, asserting their boundaries with peers and adults, and overcoming stereotypes about physical capabilities, such as the notion that boys should be tougher and stronger than girls.
“They’re asking that all the content they consume be balanced with this skew in mind: what boys are entitled to and what girls are entitled to, as well as overcoming appearance stereotypes like “you look like a boy, not like a girl,” and advice on how to protect one’s borders and react to manifestations in one’s direction”, concluded Daria Herasymchuk.
During the meeting of the working group, Oleksandra Horchynska, the project manager of the Women in Media NGO, presented the Policy of Gender Equality in Media Content, developed by the organization in 2024 and approved by the Commission on Journalism Ethics.
“The Policy, developed by Women in Media and approved by the Commission on Journalism Ethics, includes general recommendations for the media, along with guidance on portraying women and men in media content without stereotypes, such as “a woman is a hearth mother” or “pink is for girls and blue is for boys.” It also provides recommendations for covering topics related to domestic and gender-based violence, with special attention given to covering conflict-related sexual violence,” Oleksandra Horchynska stated. The aforementioned policy can be implemented by editorial offices either in part or in full. She also emphasized that newsrooms implementing such policies should periodically revise them to align with current conditions and conduct internal monitoring of their media content.
During the discussions, the working group members proposed adding a section to the Policy that includes recommendations for creating gender-sensitive content about children in the media, addressing current challenges and needs. For instance, Liubov Naidionova, PhD in Psychology and President of the Ukrainian Association of Media Psychologists and Media Educators, highlighted that gender roles in the media are frequently portrayed in an exaggerated manner, either as hypermasculine or ultrafeminine.
“The media fails to represent the full diversity of men, focusing solely on the extreme of hypermasculinity. Similarly, it does not capture the breadth of women’s experiences, often depicting them only as ultra-feminine figures, resembling fragile Barbies,” she emphasized.
Liubov Naidionova highlighted that an important concern is the trauma children may experience from consuming media content, particularly related to the coverage of traumatic events occurring in Ukraine during the ongoing war.
Olena Nitsko, Executive Secretary and Member of the National Council, as well as Chair of the Working Group, emphasized, “To ensure that both children and their parents do not feel a sense of a dead end, there should always be contacts available for where to turn for help.”
Anna Povkh, Communications Manager of the Divchata NGO, also noted the need to combat gender stereotypes. The organization she represents has developed a manual for specialists titled “Education Without Stereotypes.”
This activity was made possible by the New Democracy Fund (NDF) and International Media Support (IMS) as part of the project “Breaking Down Barriers: Bringing together public organizations, media, and state bodies to achieve gender equality in the media space of Ukraine,” implemented by the NGO “Women in Media.” Any views expressed here belong to the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of NDF or IMS.