The ‘girls’: women press photographers and the representation of women in Australian newspapers

Abstract

In 1975, Fairfax News commemorated International Women’s Year by appointing Lorrie Graham as its first female cadet photographer. Women only joined the photographic staff of newspapers in significant numbers from the 1980s and were more likely to be employed on regional newspapers than the metropolitan dailies. This article draws on interviews with male and female press photographers collected for the National Library of Australia’s oral history programme. It provides an overview of the history of women press photographers in Australia, situating their working lives within an overtly masculine newspaper culture where gender inequity was entrenched. It also examines the gendered and evolving photographic representations of women in the Australian press, including those of women in positions of social and political leadership. Although women press photographers have achieved greater recognition in the 2000s, the transformation of the media industry has impacted the working practices and employment of press photographers.

‘Stay back for your own safety’: News photographers, interference, and the photographs they are prevented from taking

“…Women are more likely to be stymied by bureaucratic interferences, like paperwork and PR professionals. These findings add nuance to the literature on gender differences in assignment (Darian-Smith, 2016; Hardin and Shain, 2005; Lyttle, 2017). If men are clustered in ‘dangerous’ stories, like armed conflicts, that might explain why they are more likely to experience physical confrontations and jail.…”

“…Gender’s influence on photographers’ access to news scenes – the individual level of influence – is underexplored. But academic and professional publications alike report that women are tracked into lifestyle, ‘fluffy’, and ‘low-rung’ assignments while men are given stories perceived as dangerous (Darian-Smith, 2016; Hardin and Shain, 2005; Lyttle, 2017). These findings are borne out by literature on women and journalism more broadly, which shows that men are assigned ‘political or analytical’ pieces (Melki and Mallat, 2016: 66), ‘sports news’ (Schmidt, 2018: 66), and ‘better assignments’ (Elmore, 2007: 21), while women are assigned ‘human interest’ or ‘soft’ stories (Schmidt, 2018: 66).…”

The Making of ‘Good’ Mirrors: Art and Activism in Public Space

“…The Australian media is also highly concentrated, controlled by a small number of corporations and interconnected family interests who dominate much of the production (Finkelstein et al, 2012). Across media productions, the visual representation of women is both underrepresented as producers and also disproportionately featured as either a victim or an object (Darian-Smith, 2016). The portrayal of Indigenous Australians is overwhelmingly poor.…”

Moya Bailey, Misogynoir Transformed, Black Women’s Digital Resistance

“…Unlike similar works in the field such as Darian-Smith’s (2016) analysis of the representations of women in media, Misogynoir Transformed , does not focus on how new and traditional media create and spread misogynoir, but rather analyses and puts into perspective how black women (the main victims of misogynoir) have seen opportunity in, and taken advantage of their access to new digital and social media to create counter content and form alliances which help them navigate and fight back against misogynoir and the people who perpetuate it. Moya Bailey from one angle discusses and analyzes the negative images of black women in traditional media, such as their depiction as angry and hypersexual people (p. 11, 45) one of the main sentiments explored by Lindsey (2017), and new forms of abuse and misogynoir on digital media such as #RuinABlackGirlsMonday and #ShitBlackGirlsSay.…”