Blog Post #7 - The Women's Pages

Journalism scholar and author, Jan Whitt, states that the Woman’s Pages were “a product of the late nineteenth century and were designed to draw a large audience for advertisers interested in marketing to women.” For a long time women’s only journalistic role was to write with “a woman’s touch” about women, for women readers. 

The Woman's Pages were a sexist page or column designed for women in newspapers. These pages typically consisted of content regarding beauty, housekeeping, serial fiction, and parenting advice. It reinforced gender norms as companies tried to expand to wider female audiences and overall influenced popular new genres, such as stunt reporting, celebrity gossip, and advice columns.

The Pensacola Journal offered some of the earliest examples of what is considered the “woman’s pages” as it ran from 1905 to 1914. There were sections known as, “People and Events” and “Society” that discussed social events and provided insight into national cultural concerns for women. Women’s pages also addressed topics related to the body both inside and out. 

Fashion and beauty were a main focus in these columns in the form of editorials, news reports, and advertisements. “The Journal’s Daily Fashion Feature,” includes drawings and descriptions of women’s clothing styles from around the United States and Europe. Elizabeth Thompson wrote a column called “Heart and Home Problems” that provided practical advice to letter writers regarding a wide variety of issues like courtship, hygiene, and education. 

These pages created the idea of the ideal American woman: A white, financially comfortable, married, woman rooted in her home. Most of these female writers were hired as journalists to portray a more "realistic" perspective.

Male editors and reporters expressed increasing alarm at the women’s presence in the newsroom. Many men insisted that reporting would de-feminize and masculinize women. Female journalists often complained that men editors, colleagues, and sources refused to take them seriously. 

Men reporters had little interest in covering domestic life, fashion, beauty, household tips, or society news and ultimately, had little interest in writing for women. However, it was important to reach all audiences and the big news publishing companies quickly realized that developing material for women required hiring women to write columns, features, and pages with the so-called “woman’s touch.”

World War II opened the door for females in many male-dominated fields, journalism being one of them. The war allowed female journalists to cover and report on a wider variety of news sections. When the war ended, male journalists returned to their previous roles forcing the women who had been writing and editing more hard-hitting stories back into the women’s and food pages.

“Food, Fashions, Family, Furnishings” ran in the NY Times from 1955 to around 1971 as a one-page section in the paper on varying days of the week. Historically, women who came to The Times were immediately placed in the women’s pages, informally known as the “four Fs.” Because it was so often ignored by the rest of the newsroom, the four Fs became a space for writers to experiment and push past what was conventionally considered “women’s news.” This section eventually outgrew its original purpose and female journalists proved that they were just as capable of writing hard-hitting stories as men in the field were.