Our Shared Care podcast is continuing with epizode 7 - Care in media, where we talk with the journalist Margarita Encheva. She has also another role in her small community - to help women with cancer and it all started from the local media, that she have ran. Listen to us - at https://open.spotify.com/episode/3B3WgQD3yELwI6DLnDiGjk
Transcript o epizod 7
Hello! You are in Shared Care, where we talk about caregiving responsibilities and their equal distribution. Our podcast is part of the CAREdiZO project, which aims to overcome gender gaps in caregiving and promote equal practices at home, in microenterprises and small civil society organizations. In today's episode, we turn our attention to the media, which are, so to speak, the mirror of life, to see the reflection of care there.
When we talk about care, we usually think of something very personal, about family, about children, loved ones, all that happens behind the doors of the home. But care does not end there. It goes outside, into society, into the economy, into politics, and is actually an issue that affects us all.
But do we see her enough in the media? We ask these questions to Margarita Encheva, a journalist with many years of experience and also a public figure who has made supporting women with cancer her cause.
- Welcome to Shared care! What place does care occupy in the public conversation today?
- Care as a concept is too broad and is usually related to social relationships in society, not just in the family.
It's great that we are participating in such a project that the topic is still being discussed. If not everything is done, at least something is starting to be discussed. Unfortunately, there is an old saying in our society - my home is my fortress. And when it comes to family relationships, about who takes care of and the burden in family relationships, men usually say – “yes, I work, I have a higher salary, I earn the money for the family, my wife may not work, and if she does work, the fact that she takes care of the children, that she has to spend another working day when she comes home after work, is somehow accepted as something common, as something that a woman has to do anyway”. Unfortunately, it exists as a psychology in our society, in Bulgarian families. The good thing is that more and more young fathers, young men are taking on some of the care, at least for the children, if nothing else, taking on some of the care in the family, but this is still seen as some kind of exception, not a generally accepted practice or tradition.
So in the media, usually the media pays attention to the problem of care when it comes to some kind of incident, for example, something happens to the child, due to the negligence of the parents, or when it comes to caring for sick people in the family, sick parents or sick children, God forbid. Then the media tries to intervene and usually not very, how to say, delicately, but rather looking for a sensation. Unfortunately, the facts speak for themselves.
- Do you think the media somehow creates an idea of who should be cared for?
- Unfortunately, the media cannot educate. It is pointless to think that one publication, one report, one interview can change people's thinking. The media is the tool that reflects reality, i.e. what is happening today, what happened yesterday or what we expect to happen tomorrow. The media cannot educate the family. So, it is pointless to count on the media to create some new stereotypes. With examples and a special cause, the media could help create some new rules of care and attitude in the family, but this is not the main function of the media. The media reflects what is happening. They can hardly change the thinking of a person who, in any case, until his 20s, 30s, lived in a family in which there were some established relationships. He accepts the model of relationships from his parents, she accepts the model of relationships from her parents and anyway the wheel continues to turn. It's rare that people think they could change something. It all starts with the family, no matter how banal and traditional it may sounds.
- However, there is an indirect inclusion of the topic of care in media content. For example, in advertising, which are... advertisements are very influential when it comes to building, presenting certain images. For example, a woman in advertising can often be seen in the image of a housewife who cleans, washes and takes care of children. In this sense, in what way do advertisements, social media, influencers’ content also contribute to a stereotypical presentation of images of care?
- Maybe it's exactly like that, because the role of advertising is to sell, not to educate. This, no matter how commercial it sounds to us, is actually exactly that. The housewife mother, the mother in the role of the woman who can do everything, continues to exist in commercials, in advertising messages. This is perhaps the role of advertisers, when they want to be more original, they could, if they had such a goal and cause, influence public attitudes. That is, let mom be the person who not only takes care of the family, the person who needs to rest at home. Or let dad do the housework, and she can have fun with the children.
The other model is less commonly accepted. Mom cooks, mom cleans, dad plays soccer with the kids, for example, when there are boys. This is still some help in the family. Communication with the father in the family is really important. Especially when there are boys in the family. Communication with the father is extremely important, and so is with girls.
The role of both parents should just be somehow balanced. It rarely happens in our families. I'll come back to it again because of the tradition. Although it's very nice when you meet a father with a stroller. It already happens and this is some kind of step in a change in terms of care in the family between the two parents. In terms of influencership, because this is just a feeling.
Influencership, I'm sorry for the expression, is not a profession that can be learned, but it is an emotion. It is more like an emotion. And that's how I decide, and that's how I'll write it, that's how I'll share it. Nothing wrong with that. But the view from the side that - aha, she's an influencer - in society is a bit skeptical. That is - aha, instead of taking care of her children, she's busy publishing things on her own website, or on her Facebook page, or has created a network of followers. And who takes care of this woman's children? This is, how should I put it, a critical attitude towards people. There are good influencers who pursue a cause, but just to share, even the long-outdated website BG Mama, I'm sorry to advertise it like that, a lot of useful things, very practical things that can help mothers. The other question is that, perhaps by, how should I say, getting seriously into the topic of influencership, you're leaving childcare behind a bit.
My personal opinion is this, maybe it's not exactly like that, and it's not like that for everyone, but there is a vacillation from which, the family doesn't gain, the children lose. From communicating normally with their parents, not digitally.
- If the media can teach society something about caring, what should it actually be - in the direction of self-sacrifice or in the direction of shared responsibility?
- It definitely has to be a good example. A good example from our everyday lives, a good example of shared responsibility, a good example of not accepting a sacrifice from someone in the family who has taken on all the cares in the family.
The position of a victim is not well accepted by others. Although a person could find himself in such a position that he has to take care of, for example, children, a sick mother, or a sick father, or a mother-in-law, father-in-law. Usually all these worries fall on the head of the woman in the family. But more and more often men are also involved in such care. Perhaps a good example is the only thing that could create some kind of, how should I say, relationship of equality in the family between the sexes.
On the other hand, a good example is not profitable in terms of the media. Good news is always last in a, for example, television or radio broadcast. Good news is on the last page of the newspaper or on the website.
They don't sell, they don't sell, they don't contribute. Unfortunately, our society lives in such relations. So they sell the scandal, they sell the aggression, they sell something dramatic that happened. Such topics have been discussed for days. But something good? … There are such shows. I don't want to quote now - BNT has such a nice show, somewhere around five in the afternoon. But it requires an enormous amount of effort. Maybe because it is a state television - after all, there is some funding from the state. It can afford this luxury of making a show with good practices, a show with good examples from life, and not the other way around. Because, I will repeat again, good news does not sell. Unfortunately, that is the case. I watch it purely professionally. It is good to have such things.
But does the family pay attention to such things? I will share my experience. For example, on the website that we maintain, and on the Facebook pages in social networks, the most liked ones are the bad news. Unfortunately. But then, since you want to be popular, whether you like it or not, you have to publish them too.
I personally don't like writing about bad things at all. Internally, even though I'm a person with many years of experience, I write about heavy dramas, bad things, bad examples, very restrainedly, and that loses readers. You pay for your bias. Unfortunately, that's how it is.
- You said that you actually prefer good news and you have tried to provide a lot of good news all these years. Could you tell us about your experience in moving from journalism to a supported public cause, namely the creation of your association Chronicle Against Cancer? And how did helping women with cancer become your cause, with which you educate the community in the region?
Once a person is convinced that it is difficult to create new priorities in society with only media, he/she should try another way. Maybe the desire and the attempt to change something in society - that's what my daughters once helped me with, as young girls who think differently. The idea was theirs, not mine. "Mother, enough with this newspaper, try something different, make it so that people... can help them in some way."
The newspaper is small. A regional media, even then it was published both in print and on the Internet, it is difficult to help. The newspaper relies on advertising, of course, to sustain itself. There is no other income. Especially when it is already no incomes from sales, which have stopped for small media. Maybe this somehow motivated me to try to do something different. Still related to the newspaper. It sounded a little scary, a “Chronicle Against Cancer”, it goes a little like a war. But we want to fight a serious disease that over the years, thank God, is finding more and more treatments and a way out. Maybe that is why we created it. It was interesting that many women with... how to say, with public responsibility and well known in our small town, where the newspaper is published, decided to support this idea of mine and are with me to this day.
We help, yes, we help. The satisfaction is great, the pressure is quite high, but we are glad that people support us. Not only the members of our association, but society as a whole.
All our fundraising initiatives, which are simply a sign of human attitude, a sign of this word, empathy, as we say. People get involved from the heart and this somehow gives a person strength and ambition to move forward, although it is very difficult. It is perhaps more difficult in working with women with cancer, but thank God, they are already opening up, trying to share what they have experienced, so that other women who have somehow encountered this disease can share their experience, learn something good and different.
And my greatest satisfaction is that … 4-5 years ago we started expanding our activities and invited schools, kindergartens to join our major initiatives, of course with a program, with something different or with the participation of families who will prepare something at home and present it at our bazaars. Seems the society has opened up to this topic of charity and people do it not out of obligation, but simply from the heart. We cannot even afford to pass by, not to hold such events, which are actually our main source of income, so that we can then help women with cancer.
This is perhaps the satisfaction of this work. So caring for women with cancer is part of all our activities. Not just caring, but the empathy of society for their problems.
That is, we are trying to teach people on charity, especially children.
- In fact, this is a very important step in helping and educating the next generations to be empathetic. We imagine that in the home of these women who have illnesses, caregiving demands much more for their families and for themselves. What are the challenges facing women with illnesses when they have to simultaneously take care of their families and, in some cases, continue to work?
- It really becomes very difficult then. I wouldn't say that it's easy for someone to work and be treated for illnesses. When they are already in remission or when they have recovered, then it's completely different. We have such women who then join us, who have experienced the illness or have loved ones who have not been able to fight the illness, who join us as volunteers. And these are the best volunteers in this aspect. An illness is a big burden on the family.
The care must be taken by someone else. If the mother was the one who took care of everything, life simply requires, no matter how much you don't like dealing with such things, you are forced, life requires you to accept that you have to take on the other care as well. The other care, the one that your already sick partner, for example, cannot take. I have observations about families that are close to me. When there is a sick person in a family and usually a sick child, this has a very bad effect on the partnership. Usually fathers, I hope this doesn't sound too feminist, but they are afraid. There are even fathers who run away, leave the mother to take care of the sick child alone, it ends up in divorces, separations and so on. It is very difficult. It is very difficult. Women... I don't want to stumble in this direction again, but women, as if we feel more flexible, more resilient, I would say that this is a way out of the situation. On the contrary. On the contrary. This is supposed to... some problem bring the family together, but this very often negatively affects family relationships.
- And do you observe understanding from employers, from various institutions, from organizations, when it comes to vulnerable groups? Is there a demonstration of such social responsibility?
- The employers would rather provide financial assistance. These are my observations. There are organizations in which ...., usually these are some administrations or other institutions that set aside some fund with which they would help in a certain situation their employee, their worker, when they find themselves in such a vulnerable situation. But there is still the practice, which is unfortunately common, that it is difficult for us to hire a woman who has small children, because we know what could be expected. We could expect her to be absent, sick leaves... Even in the aspect of the fact that we now have the opportunity to hire a person who can work from home. So employers are also people and would also like to use the labor of a certain professional, and at the same time to leave her/him the opportunity to take on cares that life has imposed on him anyway, that she/he must perform anyway. This may be the good that Covid left us - the good that it left us: the possibilities, the ability to create flexible working hours for a person who has somehow found themselves in such a situation, so that they can be useful in their work and at the same time be useful in their family.
The good thing is that we are opening up more and more people to think that yes, this happened to one family today, tomorrow it could happen to my family. Just empathy. No matter how the word sounds like it's not that Bulgarian.
- Indeed, empathy seems to be the key word in everything, both in care and in life in our society.
Thank you for sharing your strong example of how media is at the heart of building a more responsible environment for people with health problems, for women with cancer, and for families affected by these problems. In this way, we actually showed the common ground. Media, society, social responsibility, and care.
- And I thank you for this interview. When such projects exist, as I said at the beginning, they help society in a very special way. That is, there is a problem and we don't sweep it under the rug, we talk about it, we try to change something.
Our work is a small part of what is happening in society, but with such tiny activities and small initiatives, maybe the big change will happen. Let's be optimistic.
- With optimism and the good model from media to care, we are parting in this episode of Shared Care.
I am Natasha Zarankova and I look forward to being with you in the next episodes.
The podcast was created by the National Business Development Network under the CAREdiZO Project -CAREdiZO- CARE Driven Innovation for Gender mainstreaming in Home, Micro-Enterprises & Micro-CSOs, , funded by the EU under the "Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values" program.
The CAREdiZO project is implemented in the framework of the European Commission’s CERV Programme, as a cooperation among the following organisations: Challedu (Greece), WHEN (Greece), MOTERU INFORMACIJOS CENTRAS (Lithuania), NATSIONALNA MREZHA ZA BIZNES RAZVITIE (Bulgaria), Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (Cyprus).. The project is funded by the European Union. The views and opinions expressed are, nonetheless, solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission-EU. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission is responsible for them. Project code: 101191047 – CAREdiZO – CERV-2024-GE.