Watching Women's Liberation, 1970: Feminism's Pivotal Year on the Network News, by Bonnie J. Dow

Abstract

Watching Women's Liberation, 1970: Feminism's Pivotal Year on Network News, by Bonnie J. Dow. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2014. xii, 239 pp. $95.00 US (cloth), $28.00 US (paper). In Watching Women's Liberation, 1970: Feminism's Pivotal Year on Network News, Bonnie J. Dow provides yet another excellent contribution to field of feminist media history. Although several chapters are based on previously published work, this book brings them together in a coherent, well-written, well-researched and extremely compelling monograph that will be of interest to undergraduates, graduates, and anyone wishing to find out more about network coverage of women's liberation in US. Chapter one begins back in 1968 with infamous Miss America beauty pageant protest in Atlantic City--an event that network news ignored at time, but protest's visibility Dow notes was a constant reference point for coverage in (p. 29). Dow expertly traces history of protest, paying particular attention to creation of one of most endearing myths about feminism: feminist bra-burner. Dow rightly addresses impact of this myth, namely that it portrayed feminists as fighting for frivolous goals (p. 31). She also pays attention to general whitewashing of coverage that contributed to myth that movement excluded and was ignorant of problems faced by women of colour. The chapter concludes with Dow's assessment that early press coverage of this protest paved way for an interpretive framework used throughout decade, stipulating that feminists were intent on rejecting femininity and instead acquiring masculinity, and in process effeminising men. Chapter two focuses on network coverage of movement in spring of 1970 on two of three major networks--CBS and NBC. In total, these networks produced nine studies, totalling around 53 minutes, and are important because they represented the most sustained attention movement would receive in (p. 91). Although third major network, ABC, also devoted air-time to movement, this was evident in a documentary aired in May, which is focus of chapter four. In her assessment of CBS and NBC, Dow concludes former was not complimentary, while latter's coverage was more positive. Whereas CBS paid particular attention to feminists' behaviour rather than their issues, opposite was often true of NBC. CBS also treated movement with bemused scepticism (p. 57), indicating they were targeting a mostly male audience, but NBC's coverage presumed viewers to be women, and provided them with concrete information about sexism and potential solutions (such as how to file a complaint to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). Chapter three assesses media coverage of well-known Ladies Home journal protest on 18 March, when roughly 200 women from various feminist coalitions occupied magazine's office for approximately eleven hours, launching a wide range of critiques including need for a female editor-in-chief, more women on editorial staff, sexism apparent in various advertisements, and other employment practices. According to Dow, protest was particularly important as a feminist media event that had powerful immediate and long-term consequences (p. …