New Delhi: Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore on Saturday said his comments on women journalists at Indian Women's Press Corps were wrongly interpreted.
Rathore, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Jaipur Rural constituency and an ex-Indian Army officer, was on Friday quoted by a news agency as saying that women in media would be better off pursuing off-field roles like that of news analysis as opposed to field reporting in view of safety, challenging conditions and odd hours of work.
However, the BJP leader took to social networking website Twitter today to clarify his comments.
He wrote: “I've the highest respect for women personally & professionally. My 6 month pregnant soldier wife was on battlefield after parliament attack (sic)”
Here are Rathore's tweets:
I've the highest respect for women personally & professionally. My 6 month pregnant soldier wife was on battlefield after parliament attack
— Rajyavardhan Rathore (@Ra_THORe) February 14, 2015
Every one who knows me or has met my family knows that I stand for women at par with men. My wife is an ex soldier who has served in field
— Rajyavardhan Rathore (@Ra_THORe) February 14, 2015
As per IANS, Rathore had on Friday said women in media would be better off pursuing off-field roles like that of news analysis as opposed to field reporting in view of safety, challenging conditions and odd hours of work.
In contrast to the "reducing importance" of factual news business practiced by TV journalism, Rathore called for women scribes to take to print that is more about "analysis of the implication of the news".
In print, "your (women journalists) role could be far better utilized without going out in the field. Not that you should not go out. In the sense of safety and security, the working hours, conditions, and different roles attached as a mother, sister, or a wife," Rathore told women journalists in a media interaction at Indian Women's Press Corps here.
Stressing the fact that his suggestion was free of any gender bias, he said avenues "like sports, battlefields, Maoist-infested areas become issues for women journalists to be present there".
