The academic lecture themed “gender and media” was held by School of International Education on Nov. 14th, 2017. The lecture was given by Ms. Cai Yiping, a gender equality expert. 2017 Mofcom Foreign Aid Degree Program students from China Women’s University (CWU) attended the lecture. The lecture gave the students an idea of the representation of gender in the media in China, as well as what the media could do to contribute to gender equality. Ms. Cai Yiping began the lecture with the questions of “what is the Chinese female like in the foreign students’ eyes” and “what are the females like in Chinese media”, which aroused the students’ strong interest. Then, Ms. Cai showed everyone the charm of the Chinese women and the diversity of traditional Chinese culture through explanation of many typical female images in Chinese media. She also criticized some existing inequality and analyzed the gender stereotypes in the media. For these existing stereotypes in the media, Ms. Cai introduced one of the results of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which is the strategic goal of women and media, as well as China’s efforts since the conference including activities of NGOs, the establishment of women’s media and the media guide for gender balance reports.
The students shared opinions on many serious problems about media and women in their countries, and mentioned some solutions for those problems, like participation of international organizations, governmental organizations, NGO’s and so on. The students were very interested in the topic of the lecture and had a deeper understanding on the field of media and women.
