SEXISIM IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY

You know what they say: “Girl it’s hard being a female in this industry.” Well is it? It certainly is, well at least at times. We all are aware that Trinidad and Tobago is a very small place where everyone practically knows one another, or knows of someone who knows someone. Get what I’m saying yet? Well to put it more simply, trying to get through with what you want to achieve in life in this country can be a b$#@h sometimes.
For as long as the Golden Ages women have been having to put up with the subjection from men and even other women in society. If you think that this may not be happening, believe me, it definitely is. Every single day a woman is rejected just by the mere fact that she is a woman. And to be in the media industry it is even worse. Constantly women either locally or internationally who are in the industry have to always prove themselves, to show that they are of good quality because there always seem to be a ‘fight down’ from the opposite sex. When this occurs, we have to think to ourselves sometimes “Is it because they feel threatened by our intelligence?”

Well, whether or not that is the case we must continue to strive for what we want no matter what. For the past few years that I’ve been exposed to the media industry I’ve heard my share of stories that are really hard to believe, but recently I came upon one that was upon ridiculous.

A friend of mine had to go to a job interview at one of the top radio stations in Trinidad. She seemed to be really excited when she got the call because she really wanted to experience the radio world of media. Little did she know what she was about to get herself into. As any job interview she prepped herself with all of the usual do’s and don’ts and went in with confidence, but the mood of the interview took a turn for the worst when the head of the radio station (who was the interviewer by the way) told her that she was too pretty for the job. WHAT!!!..............right, that was my thoughts as well.

Apparently the boss had a problem with hiring females in the past. His reason, you ask, well he explained to my friend that he ran into problems in the past with former employees having relationships with the male members of staff. I mean, how could you as an authoritative figure, who has over twenty years under your belt in the business, say something like that, especially in an interview. But the reality was that he did in fact say it. She told me he said, she was everything they were looking for, she was young and had the ability to reach out to the station’s target audience, but the only problem was that she was too pretty and she was a female. In his mind he had a fear that she might do something that would portray the image of the radio station in a bad light. I say why not have a very serious conversation with the male employees about their conduct, whenever a new female is hired.

Obviously he is taking sides and is supporting the wrong doing of his male employee’s. It is like when an animal see’s prey, its first instinct would be to prowl and it looks like to me in this situation that, this is what the workers of this industry are frequently doing to the females, but what we have to do is put our guard up and stop the nonsense that is taking place. If we don’t take a stance for what is right situations such as this one it will continue to occur and there may never be a stop to it.