Ghanaian media personality Afia Pokua, popularly called Vim Lady has revealed that she has lost several marriage proposals due to the nature of her job and the controversies that come with it.
She made this known while addressing an audience at the maiden anniversary lecture series of the Alliance for Women in Media.
According to her, the non-functionality of support systems is a contributing factor to the existing misconceptions and controversies that surround women in the Ghanaian media space.
“…There are a lot of misconceptions, so there’s a system that we need to break to get women there. Once they find themselves even in the media, what are the support systems there? None.”
In her case, however, she noted that, breaking barriers and hosting a radio political show for over a decade in a local language may appear inspiring but much to her dismay most of her relationships which could have ended in marriage didn’t last due to the nature of what she does.
“Imagine me, sitting on radio, calling people’s fathers out, people who are older than me, because I have a job to do. And I’m doing it in Akan, very brutal not just ordinarily brutal in English but very brutal. So I’ve been called all sorts of names. I’ve lost marriage proposals because of that. Yes… ‘My son can’t marry a woman who is loud, so my son can’t be with you. I’ve heard a lot of that.” She narrated.
Touching on educational disparities in the country, Afia Pokuaa emphasized that until the introduction of local languages in the Ghanaian media, most women were cut off from the receiving end of information due to language barrier.
“Hitherto to local language broadcasting, quite a number of women were cut off from information access because of language barrier,” she added.
Afia Pokuaa is currently the news editor and host of a political talk show on Adom FM, a subsidiary of Multimedia.
The theme for the lecture was “Balance in news coverage: The role of media organisations in addressing gender disparities”.
