In the ever-changing modern society, women have continued to participate in roles initially reserved for men. This aspect is so, especially in the journalism profession. However, while gender injustice has continued to influence this profession in society today, the prioritization of gender equality has played an incredible role in ensuring gender justice in journalism. The aspect has, however, allowed women Journalists to occupy prominent positions in the field. Despite compensation being viewed as the reward that individuals get from offering their services, necessities, and goods, Women journalists have continued to face challenges, especially in the area of fair pay compared to their counterparts. The issue has not only affected their performance in the field but also explains the low living standards of many women journalists today. Since the 1980s, the gap in the pay difference between men and women journalists has continued to widen. The aspect sets equal pay as the biggest challenge for women journalists, geared by the continued rise of commercialized media, unreasonable pay systems, unequal contracts, changing female responsibilities, and gendered story allocations.
Some of these women journalist challenges stem from the fact that the market economy and mass media largely influence modern media. In the United States, for instance, media are independent of government influence. Instead, media are viewed as commercial companies that, to a considerable degree, rely on the public to make money. For this reason, they mainly rely on their advertising level and public demand for the media to have influence and earn profits. To ensure this, journalists undergo professional journalism training, abide by professional ethics, use accurate and logical language, and take risks to provide people worldwide with truthful and fast information[1]. However, unlike other professions, journalism is merely a means of making a living, implying instability in the career. For this reason, media is a product of the business world and a contract system subject to termination. Like Christine Craft‘s book Too Old, Too Ugly, and Not Deferential to Men, media companies make a fortune by pleasing their clients.[2] For instance, when Kansas City television stations want to raise audience ratings, they hire a female anchor. Moreover, she was given makeup and clothing guidance according to the audience’s preferences and even provided with a particular “clothing calendar.[3]” However, when Craft cannot meet the audience’s expectations, which is the market demand, and becomes “too old, too unattractive, and not sufficiently deferential to men,” she will be fired. Even though her reports are accurate, she has strong journalistic skills.
However, a number of female journalists’ problems emerge from the commercialization of the news industry. While women are expected to fulfill the professional ethics of journalists, such as reporting truthfully and writing excellent news for their clients, they are also expected to meet the audience’s high expectations for female journalists.[4] These expectations may include their mode of clothing, maintaining a particular skin color, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and voice alongside other expectations. While during the 1980s, men could wear the same outfit for some days, only changing the accessories. In contrast, women were expected to wear different outfits to fulfill the audience.[5] This is so because men were the audience in the media. Also, unlike men, women’s attitudes, character, personal opinions, and political leanings were judged.[6] With gender discrimination on the rise in this period, the audience wanted to see a woman who was not as wise as themselves, precisely, without critical thinking like Craft, who could question the mayor and understand the difference between the United States and the National League. In the book I Want a Wife, Judy Brady states that women take the “second shift” in their families when they are away from work.[7] Compared to men, women too more time to care for the children.
Furthermore, despite women’s special responsibility to give birth, they attract the same pay rate as men. This is so since most media companies’ pay system is anchored on aspects such as the number of days worked, news quality, and quantity.[8] Thus, pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding imply women will attract less pay for the period. Like Dorothy Butler Gilliam, described in Trailblazer: A Pioneering Journalist’s Fight to Make the Media Look More Like America, had to work part-time after having children.[9] The aspect implies that media companies have less or no specificity of women during critical periods, especially during childbirth. Thus these women undergo the severe challenge of raising kids with no pay explaining the noble decision for most of the journalist women ate marriage and not having children. The equal work and unequal pay are further necessitated by the fact that women choose to work extra hours in order to create time for their families.[10] Working under a flexible schedule implies low pay as compared to men. To compensate for this and deal with the livelihood issues, Butler Gilliam had to forego her traditional role as a mother after her first child. Under the current system, there has been a severe conflict between childbirth mothers and their remuneration.
Balancing childbirth and profession has been a severe challenge for women journalists. For instance, since ten months of pregnancy is the beginning of the marginalization for many female journalists in the workplace, then giving birth heralds that they must temporarily leave their jobs. When female journalists return after giving birth, someone else may have replaced the position. It is a minimal team model of journalists, editors, managers, and vacancies in the industry are very limited and depend on who leaves.[11] Once a journalist leaves, it is challenging to return to their previous positions and teams. What is more, for women, there are only a few newsrooms and teams that will open a small number of places to women, as Butler Gilliam got a referral and worked at The Washington Post. When women want to get back in or find a new female-friendly newsroom, it is almost impossible.
Labor contracts are also challenging in the women journalist context. For instance, Craft had been awarded an unequal labor contract called a standard contract. Neither wage increases nor duration of work is guaranteed in the contract. At the same time, a “moral clause” was also blatantly added. A TV station can fire a person at will because she is considered unacceptable within the community. This kind of violation of privacy and civil liberties clauses was blatantly added to the labor contracts of female journalists and deceived into signing them. This kind of contract further deepens women’s challenges in equal pay, labor security, and the pursuit of justice.[12]
The gendered story allocations of male and female journalists engaged in the news-types lead to income inequalities. News covering politics, business, economics, diplomacy, and sports is often referred to as hard news. In contrast, feature-type stories, family, childcare, social affairs, education, lifestyle, and the arts are often referred to as soft news. Although more and more women have begun to join hard journalism in recent years, sports, science, foreign affairs, and business reporting are considered off-limits for most female journalists, and the vast majority of women remain trapped in soft journalism, traditionally dominated by The field of women’s reporting. The main reason hard news is male-dominated is that the masculine newsroom culture discourages women from accessing hard news.[13] Many editors subconsciously prefer strong-talking masculine men over women. In addition, being in power has formed a tight alliance between men at the top of government and other men in the news industry, preventing women from joining the network of complex news relationships as newcomers. Those who write hard news are privileged and highly regarded because their content hugely impacts the economy, finance, government, and international relations and are promoted faster than those who write less important soft news. At the same time, the salary will naturally be higher. The wage gap between women and men in journalism stems from the fact that they are restricted to writing only soft news stories, and deep-rooted gender biases hinder women’s opportunities to report hard news.
With the changing journalism environment, gender justice is continuing to get traction. However, some media companies still hold policies that have continued to propel challenges to women journalists, making it easy for women to lose their jobs and spend more time and money to satisfy audiences.[14] Also, these companies pay systems are insensitive to women’s challenges, especially during birth. Women’s responsibility puts women at significant risk of losing their jobs after giving birth. Also, unfair labor contracts and high audience demand for women, alongside other policies, explain the inherent difference between men and women journalists today. These gender-dominated news genres hinder women journalists’ promotion and leadership. However, addressing these issues would play an incredible role in making women journalists’ professions easy and fulfilling.
Bibliography
Brady, Judy. “I Want a Wife.” New York Magazine, December 20, 1971.
Chambers, Deborah, Linda Steiner, and Carole Fleming. Women and Journalism. 1st ed. London: Routledge, 2004.
Craft, Christine. “Chapters 2 and 3.” Essay. In Too Old, Too Ugly, and Not Deferential to Men, 29–67. New York: Dell, 1989.
Gilliam, Dorothy Butler. “Chapters: ‘Coming to the Washington Post, 1961,’ ‘Being Mrs. Sam Gilliam, 1962-1982,’ and ‘Return to the Washington Post.'” Essay. In Trailblazer: A Pioneering Journalist’s Fight to Make the Media Look More like America, 1–211. Nashville: Center Street, Hachette Book Group, 2019.
Kim, Kyung-Hee, and Youngmin Yoon. “The Influence of Journalists’ Gender on Newspaper Stories about Women Cabinet Members in South Korea.” Asian Journal of Communication 19, no. 3 (September 23, 2009): 289–301. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292980903039004.
North, Louise. “The Gender of ‘Soft’ and ‘Hard’ News.” Journalism Studies 17, no. 3 (2016): 356–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670x.2014.987551.
[1] Christine, Craft. “Chapters 2 and 3.” Essay. In Too Old, Too Ugly, and Not Deferential to Men, 29–67. New York: Dell, 1989.
[2] Christine, Craft. “Chapters 2 and 3.” Essay. In Too Old, Too Ugly, and Not Deferential to Men, 29–67. New York: Dell, 1989.
[3] Deborah, Chambers Linda Steiner, and Carole Fleming. Women and Journalism. 1st ed. London: Routledge, 2004.
[4] Christine, Craft, 52
[5] Christine, Craft, 65
[6] Christine, Craft, 66
[7] Judy, Brandy. “I Want a Wife.” New York Magazine, December 20, 1971.
[8] Deborah, Steiner, and Fleming, 43.
[9] Gilliam, Dorothy Butler. “Chapters: ‘Coming to the Washington Post, 1961,’ ‘Being Mrs. Sam Gilliam, 1962-1982,’ and ‘Return to the Washington Post.'” Essay. In Trailblazer: A Pioneering Journalist’s Fight to Make the Media Look More like America, 1–211. Nashville: Center Street, Hachette Book Group, 2019.
[10] Butler Gilliam, 131.
[11] Butler Gilliam, 10.
[12] Christine Craft, 51.
[13] Kyung-Hee Kim and Youngmin Yoon, “The Influence of Journalists’ Gender on Newspaper Stories about Women Cabinet Members in South Korea,” Asian Journal of Communication 19, no. 3 (September 23, 2009): pp. 289-301, https://doi.org/10.1080/01292980903039004.
[14] Louise North, “The Gender of ‘Soft’ and ‘Hard’ News,” Journalism Studies 17, no. 3 (August 2016): pp. 356-373, https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670x.2014.987551.
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