In Ethiopia, the participation of women in every sector is increasing. However, it is not as it should be in some professions. In the media sector, there is an underrepresentation of women journalists in the first and largest media institutions. The main purpose of this thesis was to find out the reasons for the underrepresentation of women in the ETV documentary department. The researcher set four main questions. Why do documentary production departments assign few female journalists? What is the proportion of female journalists in the department? What role do women journalists play in the department? How to improve participation in the department as well as in the profession of journalism? An in-depth interview and focus group discussion was conducted with women journalists, male coworkers, and other people from human resources, the team leader in the department, and the head office. The researcher has used spiral of silence and genderlect theory as theoretical frameworks. The collected data and analysis show that the number of female journalists in the documentary department was small. They are strong and hardworking, even going to war fronts and mining places to do documentaries. However, mostly women journalists are assigned to social issues, especially cultural documentaries. Societal pressure, low self-esteem, the current Ethiopian condition, and leadership problems in the country made women's participation above difficult. The study showed that the media were still male-dominated and masculine for the most part. The society, parents, educational institutions, government, female journalists, and Ethiopian media women's association were responsible for increasing women's participation in media institutions.