When conversations about women in the Arab region reach global audiences, they often arrive through familiar stereotypical frames. Women are portrayed as victims, as symbols of resilience, or subjects of political debate. They are defined by what surrounds them rather than by who they are and the stories they own. However, when looking closer, women are defying this narrative. They are reporting from the ground under conditions most journalists elsewhere would consider unworkable. 

Women shaping narratives isn't new; storytelling has passed through generations long before today's media existed. What's changed is the scale and the formats now available to carry those stories further. So who are these women? What messages are they carrying, and who are they carrying them for? That's what a session hosted by Womanity at the Marmalade Festival (UK) in Oxford, in April 2025, set out to explore.

It brought together women working at the intersection of media, journalism, and gender — not to rehash familiar talking points, but to share authentic experiences, inspirational initiatives and formats and complex realities for women in the industry .

Around the table: Dr. Aida Al Kaisy , Academic Researcher and Co-Founder of Jummar Media , Maria E'layan , Creative Producer of Khateera , the Arab world's leading feminist digital platform; Maysoun Odeh , Co-Founder of Nisaa FM in Palestine; Dr. Zahera Harb زاهرة حرب , Director of Journalism Postgraduate Studies at City St George’s, University of London and former broadcast journalist in Lebanon; and Muna Bur, Institutional Gender and Diversity Adviser at IMS (International Media Support) .

The conversation spanned the diversity and complexity of women in media in the region, composing a mosaic of voices, initiatives, formats and networks that conveyed the richness of this media landscape able to interpret local needs while resonating regionally and globally and reinforcing a sense of belonging and community that went beyond the conference itself.

Digital content: owning the narrative, finding the audience

Maria Elayan’s platform, Khateera — meaning “dangerous woman” in Arabic — produces feminist content in colloquial Arabic using humour and satire and resonating across the entire region. 

“If I made you laugh, then I have convinced you.”

— Maria Elayan, Khateera

When they launched, the team braced for backlash. Instead they found an audience that was, in Maria’s words, “very thirsty for this kind of content.” Girls between 14 and 24 weren’t just watching; they started claiming the word for themselves.

The shift matters beyond creativity. For too long, conversations about Arab women’s rights have been conducted in English, in academic language, imported from outside the region. Khateera makes the same arguments in the language women actually use with each other and as relevant for them — and that shift is part of what makes the topics feel accessible rather than externally imposed.

In Iraq, the situation is more constrained. Jummar, Aida’s cofunded platform, operates in a country where words like "gender," "women's rights," and "women's empowerment" are effectively banned in the media. And because the entire team works from within the country,  journalists often cannot publicly acknowledge what they do. Yet, the audience appetite is overwhelming — because there is simply nowhere else to find this content.

Journalism on the ground

Maysoun Odeh founded Radio Nisaa — translated as Women’s Radio — in the Palestinian West Bank in 2009. 

“The station did not come in to fill a media niche. It came in to fill a silence." 

— Maysoun Odeh, Radio Nisaa

Palestinian women were present and active in public life, but their media presence had been reduced almost entirely to victimhood. Nisaa was built to give women a platform to speak about their own lives, achievements, and ideas, without asking permission.

The past two years have tested that mission in ways no one anticipated. As the war deepened, Nisaa adapted: more coverage of displacement, survival, maternal experience under siege. Their listenership grew from 19% to 32%. This illustrates something important about why women-led outlets matter in conflict — not as a symbolic gesture, but as a structural necessity. Women journalists access conversations and spaces that male colleagues cannot, and those conversations are crucial to understand the scars and the magnitude of conflicts and how they affect the fabric of civilian life.

Yet, Dr. Zahera Harb, who spent over a decade as a broadcast journalist in Lebanon before moving into academia, pushed back gently on the framing of "women journalists" as a separate category. 

“These are journalists. Being women adds a layer to their journalism.”

— Dr. Zahera Harb, City St George’s, University of London

Zahera's broader point was about nuance, the kind the mainstream narrative consistently misses. Women journalists in the region are not a monolith. They are war reporters, environmental journalists, investigators, editors. Many might not be reporting on gender at all. But their voice matters, as they are first and foremost journalists, simply doing the work with the professionalism required by the industry.

How independent media can be sustained: where is the money and who gets it?

Independent media, in general, struggle to be commercially viable and this is even more difficult in times of conflicts and when you add the focus on gender equality. And therefore, funding from international development assistance and philanthropy  is crucial to keep the sector alive. 

However, the funding landscape  is, to put it bluntly, in trouble. Muna Bur described official development assistance to independent media in the region as sitting at roughly 1% of total aid. In recent years, major contributors — including SIDA and USAID — have shifted priorities or cut funding with concrete knock-on effects: partnerships ended, staff laid off, and organisations forced to close.

But the harder question isn't the shortage. It's the funding infrastructure. When funding is project-based rather than core support to media outlets, funders effectively set editorial agendas compromising independence without entering a single newsroom. Donors like IMS are trying to shift this mechanism.   

“Funding from IMS is not meant to affect editorial decisions but we work with media partners on building self-regulatory mechanisms, editorial guidelines, and gender balance standards, if they want them.” 

—  Muna Bur, International Media Support (IMS)

The distinction between influence and interference, she suggested, is about shifting power and enabling transformational processes from within, paving the way for a new type of relationship between donors and grantees.

A room that kept getting bigger

By the end of the conversation, one thing was clear: the answer to who gets to speak for women in the Arab world is far richer and more complex than the question itself. But from what we heard in that room, it’s that they already do it for themselves. 

It is our collective mission across geographies, sectors and walks of lives to amplify this message, support collaboration, share stories and initiatives, make space for new voices and above all, refute, and always resist, media narratives on women that are passive, monolithic, unchanging and unchallengeable.