PurposeThis paper aims to analyse the current literature on women in public relations to establish trends and areas of inquiry in the literature and identify research gaps for future research.Design/methodology/approachA total of 223 articles have been empirically analysed using thematic analysis to identify trends in the existing literature. The data has been coded and analysed per decade (1982–1989, 1990–1999, 2000–2009, 2010–2019). The articles have been identified by searching major journals in the field of public relations and communications, as well as snowballing from identified articles.FindingsThe results show that the majority of academic articles have been produced by using lived experiences of women working in the public relations industry and thus reflect the professional situation of female public relations employees. The results show that the position of women has reached a full circle in four decades of research and returned to the discriminatory work environment. Finally, the results show that a liberal feminist perspective has an advantage in the literature since the majority of works have been produced in the United States; however, there is an increase in authors calling for the use of socialist and radical feminism.Originality/valueThe paper provides a comprehensive literature review of works published in the field. The paper takes an empirical approach to the analysis rather than the descriptive one, which helped in identifying major trends in the research and identified a research gap for future inquiries.