Ho, March 12, GNA - Dr Audrey Gadzekpo, a Senior Lecturer at the School of Communication Studies, on Tuesday said Ghana's political culture was as a major factor that deterred women from politics. "Late night meetings, and insults which have characterized politics in the country are disenabling to women", she said Dr Gadzekpo made these comments at a gender forum in Ho to commemorate International Women's Day celebrations. The forum was organized by the Ghana Media Standards Improvement Project (GMSIP) in collaboration with the Ghana Journalists Association and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), with sponsorship from the Royal Danish Embassy.

Dr Gadzekpo said that though women outnumbered men in the country, only few women were courageous to contest in parliamentary and district level elections due to 93the kind of politics we do here". She described the situation as worrying and said affirmative action was necessary to ensure equality between men and women. She said that there was a lot of trivialization and sexualization of women in politics in the media and urged the media to be proactive in the coverage of gender issues.

Ms Ajoa Yeboah-Afari, GMSIP Coordinator urged the media to be in the forefront of sensitizing the public about the importance of women in gender considerations.

She said by doing this, the disparity gap between women and men in all sectors of the country's economy would be closed. The forum was also used to disseminate research findings on the coverage on issues pertaining to men and women in the Ghanaian newspapers.

The findings indicated that only 15 per cent of women's issues received media coverage in 2010, as against 85 per cent for those of men during the same period.