Sonia Bathla argues it is due to 'Brahmin-ical hegemony', or the deeply-rooted cultural orientation of Indian urban elite, which defines women's issues as belonging to some private space and not relevant to public debates of a democracy. She comes to this conclusion after analysing select English newspapers (292 in all) for four years—1981, 1985, 1989 and 1993—and interviewing select journalists and women's groups.
Bathla's research suggests the media, which forms a dominant part of the public sphere, has made women's concerns invisible. Press coverage of women's issues is predominantly event-oriented, focusing on violence and crime. Not because they happen more to women, but because the stories are easier to cover (information being available from regular sources). The crime-violence stories add to a social consensus and serve to keep women in their place. By reporting them merely as day's events the "abnormal" becomes acceptable.
Bathla's interviews with male and female journalists show that the "shrill" tone of feminists has alienated them from coverage of women's issues. She scratches the surface in analysing why women's organisations, activists and NGOs are hostile towards the media and suggests it's due to negative experience, ignorance of how media works and that middle class activists can lobby policy makers directly. In short, they feel they don't need the media. Most media, on the other hand, look down upon feminists and development activists, not seeing them as advocates of change.
