Editor & Publisher Slow To Change Depiction of Women

Newspaper Research Journal, Fall 2004 by Senat, Joey

Not until 1974 did E&P change its vocabulary in describing women, dropping the emphasis on their appearance and their relationship to men when the information was not pertinent to the story.

In July 1971, an Editor & Publisher article about an award-winning feature writer's interviewing skills led by saying that though she was 35, she looked 25, and by observing that her "high-breasted figure" was "poured into a turquoise knit dress" and that her "well-shaped legs" were tucked under her.1 Two months later, an E&P article on classified advertising technology repeatedly referred to newspaper employees as "girls," even though the women in the accompanying photograph were clearly adults.2

While such labels and descriptions were not used in every Editor & Publisher article about women in that time period, they were commonplace. Female reporters and editors were often referred to as "girls," with articles highlighting their appearances as much as their journalistic talents. Even though readers complained such language was indicative of the "offensive way newspapers and magazines write about women"3 and "reinforce the prejudice that talented women must also be attractive,"4 E&P did not stop using the arguably sexist language until 1974.

"T don't think they were as conscious of the problem then. It kinda crept up on us," said Jerome (Jerry) H. Walker Jr., who joined Editor & Publisher in 1968 and at age 36 took over its day-to-day operations as managing editor in 1973. He replaced his father, who had retired as executive editor after a 28-year career at the magazine.5

The objections presented to E&P were representative of complaints being lodged against the media's portrayal of women in the late 1960s and early 1970s. National Organization for Women leaders recognized the media as central to their "efforts to liberate women from traditional roles that made them inferior to men."6 Feminists accused the media of using sexist language, which expresses stereotyped attitudes or expectations, or assumes the inherent superiority of one sex over the other.7

In a 1973 E&P article, Gena Corea wrote that "newspapers help keep women in their place," explaining:

When a woman makes a serious and newsworthy achievement, she is still often reduced to sex object status by the words used to describe her. Special adjectives like 'perky,' 'dimpled,' 'vivacious,' and 'attractive' are reserved for women of accomplishment to make those accomplishments seem cute and to remind everyone that first and foremost, it's how a woman looks that is important. Another way to keep a woman of achievement in her place is to identify her by the roles she is 'supposed' to be filling - the roles of wife and mother.8

In 1970, female staffers of The Washington Post and the Washington Evening Star had won promises from management not to use adjectives such as "cute," "pert," "dimpled," "vivacious," "leggy blonde" and "attractive brunette" to describe women in articles and to avoid other descriptive words such as divorcee unless they would have also been applied to a man.9 But such policy changes were not widespread in the newspaper industry. In 1974, N.O.W. leaders "criticized newspapers for their condescending portrayal of women" and called on women "to monitor their local newspapers and confront editors and publishers with examples of sexism."

A N.O.W. official said, "in time, the answer lies in having women editors, publishers, and in their rewriting style books so eventually sexism will be written out of our newspapers."10

Feminists advocated replacing the term girl with the term woman when referring to adult females because calling a woman a "girl" implies her immaturity and her unimportance relative to men.11 They also proposed replacing Miss and Mrs., which indicate marital status, with the term Ms., which is as neutral about the woman's marital status as Mr. is for men.12 The print media, however, were slow to change their policies regarding courtesy titles.13 Perhaps editors were slow to adopt a new lexicon for women because, as one scholar noted, "The first step toward changing language is being aware that the current usage is sexist."14

The women's movement viewed the media's choice of words as important because the media are, as author Sheila Ruth noted, "very powerful in framing attitudes and forming opinions. In a word, media teach, and they teach not only with what they say but also with how they say it."15 Just as ideas shape the language, the language shapes the ideas.16 Observed Beasley and Gibbons: "Language subtly confers acceptance on people; it can empower them or diminish them, depending on how it is used. It can also render them invisible."17 From the feminists' viewpoint, the media's language can reinforce existing stereotypes of women.

This article examines the lexicon used by Editor & Publisher to describe women from 1967 to 1974,18 a time in which women sought changes in the terms used to depict them in the media. Editor & Publisher was chosen because it serves as a weekly chronicle of events in the journalism industry and as a forum for the critical discussion of issues affecting journalists.19 Each issue from the first one in 1967 to last of 1974 was read each article, headline, editorial and photo caption containing identifiers for women and for letters to the editor related to the subject. The research focused on the language used by E&P's editors and writers and the published reactions of readers.