“Once a typist always a typist”

Abstract

This article discusses the Australian Women's Broadcasting Co-operative (AWBC), formed by women working at the Australian Broadcasting Commission in response to the United Nations' declaration that 1975 would be International Women's Year. It examines the AWBC's attempts to challenge entrenched structural inequalities and sexual discrimination, improve opportunities for women in the organization, and change dominant representations of women's lives in the media. It analyzes the significance of the AWBC's key interventions, including the production of a national weekly radio show for women, The Coming Out Show; the provision of production training for women; pushing for a formal inquiry into the status of women; lobbying for staff childcare facilities; and representing women employees in industrial relations matters. The article concludes with a discussion of the long-term impact of the AWBC and the Coming Out Show, which, despite its genesis as a “bold experiment,” endured for twenty-three years.

Enduring inequalities: Fifty years of gender equality talk in the media and cultural industries

“…There has now been significant contemporary scholarship on gender in the creative and cultural industries. This literature has analysed the effectiveness of existing policies (Calderón-Sandoval, 2021;de Boise, 2019;Jansson, 2019), regimes of gendered inequalities within these industries (Conor et al, 2015;Gill, 2002Gill, , 2014Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2015), the feminised and gendered dimensions of cultural labour more broadly (McRobbie, 2016), as well as historical accounts of women organising for change in these sectors (Baker, 2018;Galt, 2018Galt, , 2021. There has also been a string of recent studies documenting women's contemporary experiences of inequality in creative and media fields (Berridge, 2019(Berridge, , 2020Coles and MacNeill, 2017;Dent, 2020;Dooley and Erhart, 2021;Milner and Gregory, 2021;O'Brien and Liddy, 2021;Percival, 2020).…”

"Minusta tuntuu, ettei suomalaisille naisille sovi iskulauseiden sorvaaminen": Toimittajien tasa-arvokeskustelu 1980- ja 1990-luvulla

“…Reaktio kertoo osaltaan suomalaisten toimittajien vaikeudesta nähdä sukupuolikysymys laajempana rakenteellisena ongelmana, jonka ratkaisemiseksi tarvittaisiin toimintamuotojen perusteellista haastamista. Toisin oli paitsi Ruotsissa myös Iso-Britanniassa ja Australiassa, jossa niin media-alan naisten epämuodolliset kokoontumiset kuin naiserityinen toiminta ammattiliittojen sisällä haastoivat 1970-luvulla ammatin miestapaiset käytännöt osin feministisestä liikkeestä saatujen vaikutteiden pohjalta (Kurvinen 2019a;Kurvinen 2019b;Galt 2018;Baker 2018).…”