The Empowerment of Feminist Scholarship in Public Relations and the Building of a Feminist Paradigm

Abstract

The impact of feminist scholarship on public relations affects practitioners, scholars, and audiences alike. Since the first comprehensive gender study in public relations was published in 1986, numerous scholars have (a) described the status of women in the profession, (b) applied feminist perspectives to prevailing public relations theories, and (c) explored new feminized concepts and theories. Taken as a whole, this scholarship has led to a new feminist paradigm for the field, which has the ability to empower women. The purpose of this chapter is threefold: first, to give a comprehensive review of the published public relations scholarship on gender and feminism; second, to synthesize the scholarship into what can be defined as a feminist paradigm; and third, to illustrate the empowerment of the new paradigm. To begin, some important concepts are defined, followed by a brief discussion of the feminization of the public relations field that marked the impetus for gender studies. The body of literature on gender and feminism in public relations is then detailed and categorized by its scholarly purpose: to describe, to explain, or to critique. The chapter concludes with propositions for a feminist paradigm and opportunities for future research.