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End of a present day women’s page
I was sad to hear about the end of the online women’s page, the Salon’s Broadsheet. Some critics have complained that these female-oriented online publications marginalize women’s news and that topics important to women should be part of the mainstream news. That the same argument that silenced the women’s pages of newspapers in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. In their place came lifestyle and entertainment sections instead. I am writing a response to the end of Broadsheet for the Ms. blog.
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Assassination Attempt
The attempted assassination attempt on Congresswoman Giffords reminded me of the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas. Dallas Times Herald Vivian Castleberry allowed her seventh-grade daughter, Cathy, to stay home from school to watch the president drive through the city. Cathy had pled with her parents to allow her to skip school. She later noted, that Kennedy was a hero among her peers. They were impressed that Cathy would get to see the president. Cathy helped her mother prepare to meet Jacqueline Kennedy by reading newspaper clips in the car on the way to work. After a visit to a coffee shop, Cathy went to the library to wait for…
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Arizona women’s page editor Elizabeth Shaw
I just noticed this story about Elizabeth Shaw, who was a women’s page editor in Arizona in the 1940s before a successful publishing career. This is what the reporter wrote about Shaw’s work as the women’s page editor at the Arizona Daily Star in the 1940: J.C. Martin, retired Star books editor, said Shaw was ahead of her time as a working mother and a journalist. “I tend to think that good writing began to be valued in newspapers in about the ’50s and ’60s and Liz was there in the 1940s raising the standards of writing.”Martin credits Shaw for subtly changing the mix of stories on the women’s pages.…
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Old newspaper comic book
In 1949, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune produced a comic book to commemorate the opening of the newspapers’ new building on Portland Ave. in Minneapolis. It has been scanned and is available online. Of the many positions at the newspaper, women are only featured three times – interviewing Miss America, a travel writer and the food editor. All three positions were likely in the women’s pages. It is interesting to see the position of food editor in 1949 – it is unclear exactly when these positions were established on the news side.
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Women’s Liberation Movement
I have written about the favorable coverage that women’s page editors gave women’s liberation leaders and issues. That was not the case in other sections of the newspapers. Take for example, the above article from the city section of the Dallas Times Herald in 1972. This is the lead: “Jaquie Davison, a voluptuous blonde mother of six from Atlanta, says pox on bra-burning ‘women libbers.’” Hill then quotes the woman while again describing her appearance, “My role as a wife and mother is being attacked. Man is divinely ordained to be leader of the home, and things should stay that way,” said “the blonde, brown-eyed Mrs. Davison said.” The woman…
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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia proves the ERA is needed
Many people were shocked by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s recently released statements about the U.S. Constitution not protecting women. More specifically, he said that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to a newly published interview in the legal magazine California Lawyer. This has been a hot topic in the news and on social networking sites. The most common response labels the justice as a sexist but it is not that simple. His interpretation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment is hardly a new one. It is…
A website devoted to the history of newspaper women's pages
