On December 10 we published a short letter to the editor from one of our regular letter-writers, Sukha Singh, of Labasa.
In it Mr Singh suggested that popular MP and Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Lenora Qereqeretabua had “picked up a lot of weight” and should “start training”.
The letter has set social media alight.
It has been condemned by women’s organisations as patriarchal and discriminatory.
Many people in public life and leadership positions have contacted us to express their dismay.
The Minister for Women, Lynda Tabuya, has condemned the letter.
Interestingly, and despite the backlash, Mr Singh insists to us that he has done nothing wrong.
He says he did not mean to cause offence – he was just expressing his opinion – and isn’t that what we are all free to do now?
Earlier this year the news media celebrated – passionately – the repeal of the Media Industry Development Act.
For 16 years, Fiji’s independent news media had been censored, threatened, prosecuted and shut out of Government advertising contracts.
The Media Act forced us to carefully choose our words, always having to second-guess how the Government would react to what we said, truthful or not and fair or not.
Now we are learning rapidly what many in the media and elsewhere are also learning – that freedom of expression in the 2020s has many layers.
New controversies erupt when the exercise of free speech is alleged to be offensive, threatening, or unacceptably discriminatory and there are examples around the world.
Let’s face it then, negative things may be said or written about women which some men may consider trivial, unimportant, or not worth bothering about.
However, we must accept that other considerations are also important.
We can and should be able to understand that women bring a different perspective to different scenarios.
Many women – including women leaders – complain that they are singled out over their appearance in a way that men are not; and that their political views are taken less seriously than men’s because of their gender.
These are viewpoints we should listen to and try to understand the underlying causes.
Mr Singh, at this stage, is unmoved by the complaints.
So how can he and anti-discrimination advocates be able to reach a meeting of minds?
Only when we discuss these issues in the open!
When people exercise their rights to free expression, there are chances they may offend others.
Traditionally, that has been regarded as an acceptable price for that precious right.
Now free expression is challenged as sometimes having the potential to threaten or harm the safety of others, or to have a discriminatory effect on others.
A debate of this kind would probably not have happened 20 years ago.
It is a sign of the times that attitudes are changing.
These are new issues we must confront.
We hear the criticism that we have received, that what we published demeaned and discriminated against a female leader, even as the author of the letter says that he meant no offence.
We want to invite not just women leaders, but women in all walks of life, to write to us to contribute to this subject, to tell us their stories and help us to understand the perspective that they can bring to it from their personal experiences.
As an organisation, we are committed to empowering women.
It is unfortunate that this issue may have negatively impacted Ms Qereqeretabua.
But this isn’t a reflection of the men and women who are part of The Fiji Times and who are committed to doing good for our nation.
Part of our role as a leading media organisation is to reflect the views of people around us – and to make sure that we, too, are thinking more
carefully about what we publish.
