Current Research
My current research maps the history of a professional women's press organization, The Women's Press Club of Pittsburgh, onto the broader women's movement. This work seeks to prove that even though women journalists tried to adhere to conventional modern news practices that admonish journalists to stick to strictly unbiased coverage that shows "both" sides, newswomen were actively advancing the women's movement's goals through their choices of news topics, their use of their meetings to create a "safe space" for all women writers, and their creation of an educational atmosphere for newswomen at their meetings. Even though many would not call themselves feminist activists, many of these news women prove that Jennifer Baumgardner’s
definition of feminism could be applied to much of the work that professional newswomen performed over the 120-year period covered by this project. Baumgardner argues, “At the end of the day, feminism is expressed
in individual women and men unlearning pointless self-sacrifice, artifice, and
self-suppression and believing that they, in fact, own feminism, too, and can
contribute to social justice.”[i] The WPCP membership struggled with many of the same issues that swirled through the broader crusade, including racial integration and equity and finding ways to expand opportunities for all women. Through these challenges, though, the group created new spaces for newswomen and brought the issues that were important to the women's movement to the attention of a mainstream audience.
16. Jennifer Baumgartner, “Foreword,” in Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild,” by Deborah Siegel, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, xiv.
16. Jennifer Baumgartner, “Foreword,” in Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild,” by Deborah Siegel, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, xiv.