It is however a positive indicator that 39 per cent of the survey participants said that there were policies in place to deal with gender discrimination. In response to the 39 percent of that said they were aware of the existence of polices dealing with gender discrimination and to ascertain the effectiveness of these polices that were present in media houses. We asked about the effectiveness of the mechanisms in place for dealing with gender discrimination; a majority of the participants stated that these mechanisms were ineffective. This is shown in figure 13 below. Figure 13: Effectiveness of policies and mechanism This is not surprising as 39 percent of the media workers feel that mechanisms barely existed, nor were they enforced. Respondents also stated that for policies to be effective there needed to be effective management. Some of the explanations given behind this sentiment are: “Discrimination has continued despite media houses effort to take steps in preventing it e.g. employing few female reporters, camera women etc. Women are still being discriminated, a women cannot be assigned at night based on the fact that she a woman.” – Respondent “The mechanisms are there. What brings in gender discrimination is the type of person managing an institution. I must point out that some media heads have managed to accord equal opportunities to every individual.” – Respondent “ To begin with, mechanisms and methods of dealing with gender discrimination seem to be non-existent even with their being available. However, the mechanisms are not effective because they do not respond to the needs of the female gender. There must be explicit mechanisms and methods backed by policies that should be employed to fight gender discrimination in newsrooms.”- Respondent “In my view mechanisms and methods of dealing with gender discrimination are effective since most employees and employers are obliged to comply. Though, to greater extent compliance is usually limited to once upbringing and societal construct, as certain cultures regard females as a tool or helping hand both in a homestead or workplace.” – Respondent If gender discrimination in Zambian media workplaces is a big problem and the mechanisms for dealing with it are ineffective as clearly articulated above, then the question is; what could be done to reduce gender discrimination in the country’s media workplaces? 24