Swearing & excluding women
Today, NPR featured this story about swearing – although completely ignored the question of gender. (Being the one who can use curse words is really an issue of power.) This was something that was an issue for women journalists in the 1950s and 1960s. Curse words were a common reason given for excluding women from the newsroom.
Detroit and Miami women’s page journalist Roberta Applegate provided this anecdote when she covered the Michigan governor for the Associated Press during World War II:
Applegate recalled that while visiting with the reporters, the governor would often mutter “hell” or “damn” under his breath, and then apologized to her. Eventually he said to her, “Well damn it, this is the pressroom.” Later, she was convinced she had been accepted when the men stopped apologizing for using profanity.
Roberta’s papers are at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri. My article about Robert is in the March/April 2008 edition of Michigan History Magazine.
Swearing & excluding women
Today, NPR featured this story about swearing – although completely ignored the question of gender. (Being the one who can use curse words is really an issue of power.) This was something that was an issue for women journalists in the 1950s and 1960s. Curse words were a common reason given for excluding women from the newsroom.
Detroit and Miami women’s page journalist Roberta Applegate provided this anecdote when she covered the Michigan governor for the Associated Press during World War II:
Applegate recalled that while visiting with the reporters, the governor would often mutter “hell” or “damn” under his breath, and then apologized to her. Eventually he said to her, “Well damn it, this is the pressroom.” Later, she was convinced she had been accepted when the men stopped apologizing for using profanity.
Roberta’s papers are at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri. My article about Robert is in the March/April 2008 edition of Michigan History Magazine.
