Women Journalists Research Articles

The Impact of Motherhood on the Career Development of Female Journalists in Nigeria

Journalism has been described as a very demanding job, and this demand is heightened when marriage and motherhood are put into context. This is because the Nigerian culture has placed the burden of home and childcare majorly at the feet of women, making it very difficult to break the glass ceiling for women journalists working in the Nigerian news media. This study sought to investigate the impact of motherhood on the career progression of female journalists working in Nigerian newsrooms. The online survey research method was employed to sample 112 female journalists, who are mothers, working in Nigerian newsrooms. It was found that the majority of female journalists have more than one child and took maternity leave for up to 3 months but have declined numerous opportunities as a result of childcare responsibilities. The challenges experienced by respondents include inability to find affordable childcare services, frustration and burnout, declined access to opportunities and training, absence of flexible work options and slow career progression. The study recommends that media owners should support female journalists with children by creating space for crèche/day-care with an experienced day-care service provider so that nursing mothers can be able to access their children promptly. Employers can increase the salaries of workers such that their monthly wage is not affected as a result of childcare services. Furthermore, to foster an environment where women can thrive in their media careers, organisations must critically review existing policies and structures that disadvantage women

Targeted for being women and reporting on the presidency: gendered-based violence against female journalists by populists in office

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between gender-based violence and the safety of journalists during the age of the populist zeitgeist. It includes an exploratory analysis of the discourses used by Jair Bolsonaro against Brazilian female journalists throughout his presidency. The findings provide evidence of the persistent misogynistic and patriarchal norms and attitudes of right-wing populists, who often target women based on their gender or perceived status to undermine them. The study concludes that Bolsonaro combined derogatory comments about gender and sexuality with attacks on the reputation and morals of female journalists. By leveraging ideologically motivated and culturally entrenched gender stereotypes, he constructed discursive strategies that shaped different identities for Brazilian women journalists. This approach aimed to damage their credibility and obstruct their ability to perform their journalistic duties effectively, especially in the politically complex reporting environment. Additionally, it served as a warning to all journalists—both female and male—who might consider publishing critical or negative coverage of his administration.

On Being a Good Worker, a Good Mother, a Good Carer: Women Journalists, Motherhood, and Caregiving

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between journalism, caregiving, and family-building, focusing on women journalists in Portugal. Drawing on a critical thematic analysis of thirty interviews, it explores an analytic framework that includes cultural, structural, and agentic dimensions of career limitations, organised in three overarching themes. The first examines how women journalists experience work constraints stemming from traditional cultural ideals where women are still the main caregivers and work cultures that perpetuate a male perspective on professional routines. The second theme explores the mismatch between work and care responsibilities that arises from prevailing family structures and work processes. The third theme centres on how women journalists respond to constraints by making choices and developing strategies. Journalists’ reflexive deliberations about career decisions, employment conditions, family life and cultural assumptions underpinning parenthood demonstrate the complex interrelationship between cultural and working structures, organisational materiality, and agency. Together, these dimensions replicate patterns that make journalism more inhospitable for women. A central point in this research is that while a systemic gender bias exists beyond the sector, workplace inequalities are particularly consequential for journalism and democracy.

From Bylines to Headlines: Exploring Gender Bias in the News

The comparative lack of women in newsrooms and in news coverage is a global problem, typically rooted in countries’ masculinized norms that permeate society writ large, from kitchen tables to newsrooms to halls of power. Journalistic coverage often reinforces this gendered hierarchy. The nine articles in this themed collection examine this power dynamic across seven nations, chronicling the low representation of women in newsrooms and news coverage, and identifying the persistent challenges women journalists face. Many of the articles call for action at the root level of the problem: a change in society and culture.

Writing and Rewriting the Reich: Women Journalists in the Nazi and Post-War Press by Deborah Barton (review)

Writing and Rewriting the Reich: Women Journalists in the Nazi and Post-War Press by Deborah Barton (review)

Journal of Women's Health Clinical Update.

The Clinical Update series is intended to help busy clinicians stay up-to-date with recently published important and potentially practice-changing articles on topics pertinent to the care of women. In this update on sexual health, we review studies on the sexual health content of healthcare professional curricula, sexual health and intimacy after cancer in women of color, sexual function in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome, as well as the risks associated with the use of testosterone in women.

Journalistic Careers and Gender in Brazil: Impasses and Inequalities between Men and Women in the Profession

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the trajectory of Brazilian women journalists. It compares the position of women and men journalists in the workplace and in the configuration of journalistic careers. It also analyzes how bot groups make their choices within this organizational system. This study also discusses how work-family balance mechanisms affect both genders differently. To meet these objectives, two sets of data were explored: a survey conducted with 496 Brazilian journalists and in-depth interviews conducted with 21 professionals. Results coincide with findings from literature in the area regarding structural inequalities in the profession: women earn less; they are under-represented in leadership and directorial positions in media companies while simultaneously being in the majority in less legitimate and more precarious segments of the profession. Women appear to limit their career choices to less ambitious positions in the workplace. In addition, female journalists are more likely to be constrained by the effects of balancing work and family when building their careers. The study argues that the literature on journalism careers should take gender studies into account when proposing different typologies of journalists’ careers.

Are Women Sports Journalists in Spain Truly Progressing or Facing “Pseudo-Progress”?

Sports journalism has become one of the news products with the most significant social reach in the press, radio, television and digital media. Despite the significant presence of women in journalism, they continue to face gender-based stereotypes. In Spain, not very many women can effectively access the labour field of sports journalism, and those who do find themselves in a space dominated by men, which results in a perpetuation of the existing imbalances in society. The main objective of this study is to analyse the evolution of the roles developed by women journalists in the article-production aspect of the Spanish sports press between 2010 and 2022. We use quantitative content analysis, studying the articles published in Marca and Mundo Deportivo during the second week of June in 2010, 2014, and 2018, and the third week of November 2022; in each of these years, the men’s FIFA World Cup was played. The results of this study show that: (a) women journalists have an almost invisible role in the production of articles, and (b) rather than progress, women are facing “pseudo-progress”, a more appropriate term for the appearance of a change that is not actually occurring.

Beyond the Digital Public Sphere: Towards a Political Ontology of Algorithmic Technologies

The following paper offers a political and philosophical reading of ethically informed technological design practices to critically tackle the implicit regulative ideal in the design of social media as a means to digitally represent the liberal public sphere. The paper proposes that, when it comes to the case of social media platforms, understood along with the machine learning algorithms embedded in them as algorithmic technologies, ethically informed design has an implicit conception of democracy that parallels that of Jürgen Habermas’ procedural democracy (Habermas, J. (1994). THREE NORMATIVE MODELS OF DEMOCRACY. Jurgen Habermas, 1(1).). That is, that democratic practices are encodable as procedures that produce valid discussion forums. Opposed to this, this paper suggests a turn to philosopher Jacques Rancière’s conception of politics as a guiding attitude towards technological design. This is done by, on the one side, using Rancière’s notions of “disagreement” and “distribution of the sensible” as the political starting point for the practice of design of algorithmic technologies. And, on the other, inspired by Karen Barad’s theories on agential realism (Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(3), 801–831. https://doi.org/10.1086/345321), by putting forward a political ontology of algorithmic technologies that reconceptualizes them in terms of how they assemble open-ended practices between human bodies and technological devices.

Vains of Ink and Blood: The Cost of Truth for Fearless Women

Abstract: In a world where information holds the power to change reality, mass media and journalists play a crucial role in uncovering the truth and upending the power system. Among them, women journalists stand out not only for their journalistic prowess but also for their courage in the face of challenging circumstances. Women journalists bring diverse perspectives to the newsroom, which ensures more comprehensive coverage of a news story that helps highlight issues that are often overlooked or underrepresented such as gender-based violence, human rights abuses, and social inequalities. Despite their significant contributions they have to face gender discrimination in the workplace, unequal pay, limited opportunities, and even have to sacrifice their life to reveal the truth. The primary objective of this research paper is to examine the tragic incidents such as murder or harassment of women journalists and discuss the case study. Based on existing secondary data a qualitative analysis will be conducted on this paper. The findings of this exploratory study will highlight the critical role journalists play in exposing corruption, violence or injustice. In order to maintain press freedom and protect individuals who challenge power systems, this study will shed light on the need for their security as well as the protection of journalists, especially women.

Feminist Media Theory and Women Journalists: Obstacles and Opportunities in Tamilnadu Regional News Media

Feminist Media Theory and Women Journalists: Obstacles and Opportunities in Tamilnadu Regional News Media

From Glass Ceilings to Harassment: Women's Experiences in Spanish Sports Newsrooms

ABSTRACT Since its origins, women have been underrepresented in all areas of sports journalism. They are “outsiders” according to their gender, but “insiders” according to their adherence to journalistic norms and values. In Spain, sports journalism has also historically been configured as a tough environment for women to develop professionally without being belittled and/or discriminated. This research aims to identify women journalists’ perceptions about their roles in sports newsrooms. This investigation looks for meanings instead of numbers, and it is interested in how women sports journalists perceive their experiences and how they understand and interpret these experiences. The study has a qualitative approach, with semi-structured interviews conducted with ten journalists from various Spanish media. The results reveal, among other issues, that (a) women journalists suffer harassment, (b) the “glass ceiling” limits access to leadership positions, and (c) the sports journalism field continues to be conditioned by stereotypical and discriminatory views.

Still a Boy’s Club: Women Journalists & Political News Coverage

ABSTRACT We investigate the level of gender parity in political news reporting at the New York Times. We apply a media sociology approach to examine how gender stereotypes, women in media leadership, and women in political leadership interact to affect the extent to which women journalists appear in bylines about domestic and foreign affairs news. We leverage an original data collection of nearly 3,000 news articles published from 2007–2020. We find several key results. First, women are more likely to appear in bylines about domestic political news than foreign affairs news. Second, we find that during Jill Abramson’s tenure as executive editor the number of women writing about politics increased. Third, as the proportion of women in the U.S. Congress rises, more women appear in story bylines about political news. Fourth, while more women write about political news now compared to the past, most political news stories still have men as authors. Our findings show slow but steady improvement in the gender diversity of political news journalists.

Writing and Rewriting the Reich: Women Journalists in the Nazi and Post-War Press. By Deborah Barton

<i>Writing and Rewriting the Reich: Women Journalists in the Nazi and Post-War Press</i>. By Deborah Barton

Writing and Rewriting the Reich: Women Journalists in the Nazi and Post-War Press

Writing and Rewriting the Reich: Women Journalists in the Nazi and Post-War Press

What We Talk about When We Talk about Women: Benevolent Sexism in Historical Studies of Women Journalists, 1974–2023

ABSTRACT This article examines histories of women journalists published in our field’s two leading journals, American Journalism and Journalism History, to understand how these women and their work have been described by historians like us throughout the course of their publication. This article argues that much like the women journalists they study, many historians of women journalists have infused their work with “benevolent sexism,” a term that describes seemingly positive, yet covertly diminishing language reflective of the neoliberal, individualist, merit-based feminism many female academics have adopted to fit in with a male-dominated academy. Through a sociolinguistic analysis of ninety-five journal articles published about historical women journalists, this article identifies systemic problems in how we write about women and offers practical solutions to improve our work going forward.

Female journalists’ representation in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Realm

Cinema has incorporated the journalism profession into its narratives because of its inherent potential for creating narratives with a high degree of interest. In the collective imagination, journalists are positioned as the fourth estate and bear a social responsibility. In the early days of cinema until around the 1990s, women occupied secondary roles compared to their male counterparts, through stereotypical characters portrayed as cold, unyielding, ambitious professionals ready to do whatever it took to get the news at the expense of their personal lives. They are depicted as masculinised and sexualised. Using a methodological triangulation that applies descriptive analysis techniques, film analysis and in-depth interviews, the feature film The Realm, by Rodrigo Sorogoyen is studied to determine how the figure of the female journalist is represented in it. After studying the results, it can be concluded that present-day female journalists do not find an accurate representation of their profession in The Realm or cinema in general. This discrepancy stems from the persistent perpetuation of certain stereotypes that influence how women journalists' role is portrayed on the big screen.

Periodismo, género y televisión: la imagen de las mujeres periodistas en las series estadounidenses (1988-2022)

Over the decades, the film industry has perpetuated certain narrative paradigms and stereotypes about female journalists. Some of these have been transferred to television fiction, where such portrayals have been updated with new archetypes. The aim of this research is to determine the way female journalists are portrayed in US fictional series. To this end, an analysis has been carried out regarding eight series broadcast between 1988 and 2022, which focus on journalism, featuring women as the protagonists who work in the profession. A diachronic perspective has been taken, which allows us to see the evolution of these stereotypes over more than three decades. In this way, it is possible to observe changes in archetypes as well those that persist, and to show evidence of social progress related to the diverse portrayals of women journalists.

THROUGH THE LENS: PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN JOURNALISTS IN BOLLYWOOD

This research examines the portrayal of women journalists in Bollywood films, focusing on how gender stereotypes, professional barriers, and societal expectations shape their portrayal. Using Feminist Film Theory as a framework, this study analyzes five Bollywood films—Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani (2000), Lakshya (2004), Page 3 (2005), No One Killed Jessica (2011), and Noor (2017)—to assess how female journalists are characterized, the obstacles they encounter, and the extent to which these portrayals reinforce or challenge traditional views of women in journalism. Key findings reveal that while Bollywood increasingly depicts women journalists as ambitious and capable professionals, they continue to face significant challenges. Gendered expectations limit their roles, often portraying them as secondary to male counterparts or prioritizing personal relationships over career growth. Professional obstacles, including institutional gatekeeping and ethical dilemmas, further highlight the systemic issues female journalists confront. Despite some empowering narratives, Bollywood frequently reinforces stereotypical gender roles, portraying female journalists as supportive figures within male-dominated resolutions. This analysis underscores the complexities surrounding female agency and portrayal in Bollywood, revealing an ongoing tension between progressive and traditional depictions.

Effects of Domestic Responsibilities on Career Growth among Women Journalists in Kenya

Effects of Domestic Responsibilities on Career Growth among Women Journalists in Kenya