Women’s advancement in journalism: psychological characteristics

Abstract

One of the trends that can be observed today is the steadily increasing presence in professional spheres and management positions traditionally regarded as male. range of opportunities for education and professional training is expanding, and today many women are able to obtain qualifications that allow them to apply for new positions in new areas. The glass ceiling, which reflects both gender inequality in the social and economic spheres and rigid stereotypes of men's and women's social roles, is gradually being destroyed. Women are stepping outside traditional occupations with limited responsibilities, low salaries, and few chances for promotion.These processes are intense in the sphere of journalism. For instance, in Western Europe and North America, critical growth in the numbers of women in journalism began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, following the launch of women's open struggle for their rights. Gender equality came to be associated with the development of democracy, and protest movements had an effect on media content.The atmosphere in editors' offices had been changing since the beginning of corporate debates about sexist jargon, male workers' abuse of alcohol, sexual harassment, lower salaries for women, and other signs of gender inequality (Djerf- Pierre, 2007). This period resulted in the strengthening of the status of journalists, a status that no longer had marginal connotations. Women were granted access to traditionally male spheres and positions in journalism.However, for a large part of the 20th century, the presence of female-oriented material in Soviet periodicals that were not aimed solely at women was still an exception. As a rule, in the sphere of journalism, women took positions that were not prestigious enough for men and that mainly involved the technical aspects of data preparation: stenographers, typists, proofreaders. With the spread of mass television, the need for presenters arose.Although the feminization of journalism has been a steady trend both in the West and in Russia, in Russia it was influenced by different factors, despite the seeming similarities of the process in different countries. feminization of journalism in this country was hardly affected by such phenomena as the struggle for gender equality.Because Soviet women initially enjoyed equal rights with men, they should have gradually been entering the journalistic and media field. However, through all of the Soviet period, the profession of journalist remained predominantly male, and this stereotype held firmly in public consciousness. On the whole, the feminization of journalism was developing at a much slower rate in Soviet Russia than in most European and North American countries.The intensification of this process in Russia began in the early 1990s; it was brought about by inner social and political transformations rather than as a vindication of women's rights. commercialization of the previous state media made this sector economically unstable, which was especially obvious at the early stages of perestroika, when journalists' salaries went down and the prestige of the profession was damaged. These factors as well as others forced many men to abandon the profession or to remain in managerial positions only. vacant media spots were soon taken by women, who were less demanding in regard to working and payment conditions.Therefore, journalism turned into a female professional sphere in Russia as the result of social and political changes in the country rather than because of the promotion of gender equality as in the West.In the 2000s the media sector in Russia was characterized by a much higher degree of stability than in the 1990s. According to the Gender Pay Gap in Journalism Report (2012), Russia had the highest pay level for journalists of any of the former USSR states; the average monthly salary equaled 929 USD or 20,932 RUB (compared with 654 USD in Ukraine). …