The journalist Rosa María Calaf, expert on issues related to gender of the Isonomía Anna Sales foundation, participated yesterday at the Social Forum of the Rototom in the debate "The mass media, is sexism the new formality?", moderated by Amparo Panadero, from the Mujeres Artistas Platform. The speakers manifested how the media, which works as socializing agent and forms reality, are impregnated by sexism, especially advertising.

Anna Sales gave some examples, like the uniformity of the woman image as mother, wife and housewife; the use of the woman body as continuous sexual object; the entailment of women health with an aesthetic canon; the corseting of men and women relationships or the trivialization of gender violence which is present in some programmes.

Rosa María Calaf explained how through her profession, which has taken her to inform from countries all over the world- has been able to see that gender inequality exists, to a greater or lesser extend, in all societies. Also in journalism because even the women presence is increasing in the media and the universities, "women are in the troop but not at the controls, not at the high hierarchy". Calaf dennounced also how nowadays the body is most considered than talent, circumstance that take us, in her opinion, to the lost of women's credibility. "When 30 years ago I appeared on television wearing a short skirt, I did it to claim my freedom and independence. Now, this is done in order to submit to the masculine beauty canon".

Therefore, the speakers coincided in that even we think we have reached equality between men and women, this is not true, because the differences still exist and the media is a good example of this. So the fight for equality is still today in full force.

Celia Naharro Salas | Translated by: Mª Paz Marcos Silvestre