ABSTRACT

In the late 19th century, women began entering UK and US newsrooms in great numbers, usually to support themselves and their families. They met with several challenges. Men said news work would defeminize and even desex women. A UK women’s magazine reader warned that “girls will rush into journalism, teaching or the stage … and neglect really useful branches of employment, by which they might earn a steady, if not luxurious livelihood” (in Onslow, 2000, pp. 15–16). This worry about women’s invasion had little to do with beliefs about women’s inherent inability to report, as evident in silence regarding women journalists during World Wars I and II, when women were urged to substitute for men going off to battle. Rather, the issue was men’s interest in preserving a monopoly on reasonably well-paid work of relatively high status.