Last week I discovered this book in a very crowded Oxfam in Oxford. I had exhausted the sections I usually visit: History, Art, Classic Literature, etc., and was content with my haul so headed to the till where I saw this book, Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs: 100 Years of the Best Journalism by Women. I bought it.
The title itself expresses a characteristic of women’s writing that is central to its significance, uniqueness and talent: the broad scope of subjects women write about. From domestic life, to world-altering wars, female journalists really covered it all, and this was unique to them. Men did dominate the front pages, both its content and who wrote it, but their subject matter was more limited than that of their female counterparts; a Victorian man wasn’t going to write a very convincing article on child-rearing or how to achieve the perfect Sunday roast. Things have changed since then, but as women fought for their entrance into the public sphere of politics and international affairs, men don’t appear to have been fighting for a role in the private sphere of domestic duties. Women could straddle both. Mills highlights this quality of female journalism in her foreword, suggesting that women brought ‘a more confessional, intimate voice’ to a world of professional journalism that was seemingly void of emotional reporting. Responding to a society that considered them irrational and emotionally volatile, women channelled this characterisation into their writing (something that male journalists shied away from), creating powerfully passionate and thought-provoking pieces.
Something that I found interesting though was Mills’ assertion that these women were ‘ahead of their time in what they wrote and believed’, referring to articles such as Emma Goldman’s calling for birth control for women and Alice Walker’s discussing racial divides. Mills does question this statement herself, quoting columnist Melanie Phillips as having said this was simply because these ‘problems have still not been resolved’. I would have to agree. As influential and significant as these female journalists were, they were not ahead of their time: they were writing about issues that were of their time as much as they are of mine today. Where Goldman highlighted the negative consequences of multiple births on women’s bodies as a need for female contraception, many women today call for improved contraception without the plethora of negative side effects, or suffer the direct of indirect consequences of the historic dismissal of female reproductive medicine. Mark Twain’s quote rings ever-true as history continues to rhyme, poetically tracing the struggles of peoples whose struggles may change, but perhaps never truly cease. At the time of its publication in 2005, Mills states that 27% of front page stories in the US were written by women. Research led by Jane Martinson and published in October 2012 in the paper Seen but not heard: how women make front page news suggests that this has not improved, and has perhaps even worsened as the research found that 78% of all front page bylines were male compared to the 22% that were female (https://womeninjournalism.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Seen_but_not_heard1.pdf). Women’s presence in journalism has undoubtedly changed in the last decade, but their role within the industry and their treatment by it suggests that these challenges are far from overcome.
In the opening paragraph of the foreword, Mills references the ‘golden age of journalism’ ‘when newspapers really had a stranglehold on the news market’, before going on to discuss its evolution since. It makes you consider the impact of the loss of this monopoly, and how significant it may be. I do not think that its consequences are lots on us; I think there is a relatively reassuring awareness of the current state of our news market and what this means for the production and consumption of it. With constant discussions about cancel culture and fake news, its negative effects are fear from secret, but I do not think this awareness is met with the adjustments that are arguably necessary when consuming said news. There are undeniable positive outcomes of news’ unprecedentedly wide availability and fast production. With large newspaper corporations holding a less significant monopoly, room is made for independent publications, instagram accounts, blogs, etc., providing a wider variety of opinions and sources which arguably provides the public with a more educated and balanced account (if they expose themselves to this variety that is). However, this saturation of information seems to be accompanied by an increasing neglect of the truth in favour of catchy headlines as publications compete to pump-out stories as quickly as possible. It looks as if we are evolving towards a point, or are maybe even at it already, where the truth, the hyperbolic, and the all-together false, are indiscernible.
It is safe to say the foreword and some quick flicking through the book alone have provoked a lot of thoughts; mainly a lot of questions that don’t have simple, neat answers. I might write about other articles I read within the book if they have a similar impact (I anticipate they will), but for now these thoughts, questions, and minimal answers felt worth writing down.
Grace - Upon - Paper 