Writing from Inside Out: Accounts of Sudanese Women Working In the Media

Abstract

This paper examines the experiences of some Sudanese women working in the media. The paper brings to the center of analysis voices and experiences of women reporters, presenters, head of media sections, directors, and writers through adopting autobiographic and ethnographic research methods. The main question of this paper is how the “glass ceiling” metaphor-the invisible barriers that one, read women, can see through but not easily get through is applicable to the position of women in the media institutions of Sudan? Applying qualitative research methods, the paper found that Sudanese women journalists are constantly facing and negotiating gender disparities in work place, and poor working conditions; cultural/society’s perception of women working in the media; limited margin of press freedom in the country, and confronting the Islamist perception of the government of the Sudanese “woman”.