Reporting The Women's Movement

Abstract

This article examines and compares how four British and American newspapers reported the second-wave feminist movement during its most active political period, 1968–1982. Through the use of both content analysis and critical discourse analysis, this study reveals that despite socio-political differences, both US (The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune) and UK (The Times, Daily Mirror) newspapers used a similar range of discourses when addressing the women's movement and its members. While coverage overall can best be described as fragmented and contradictory, I argue that on the surface, there was significantly more “positive” or supportive articles on the women's movement than previous scholars have noted. However, these news stories rarely addressed the ways in which capitalism and patriarchy oppress women as a group, and often created a demarcation between “legitimate” and “de-legitimate” feminists, the latter being anyone who deviates from traditional feminine norms. Such constructions therefore were not only politically incapable of challenging women's oppression, but helped construct feminism as a dirty word, a connotation which still exists today. This paper will also address the emergence and eventual dominance of oppositional discourses, examining the patriarchal and capitalist ideologies used in both countries to rebuff the movement, its members and their goals.

Keywords:

• second-wave feminism
• newspapers
• representation
• Britain
• United States
• discourse analysis

Notes

1. Search terms included: “women's liberation,” “women's liberation movement,” “women's movement,” “second wave feminism,” “women's lib,” “women's libber,” “libber,” “liberated women,” “feminism,” and “feminist.” All articles were accessed through online databases.

2. This sample size was determined with the help of a sample size calculator, found at http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm (accessed Sep. 2008).

3. The year 1968 was, in the US, the year of the Miss America Pageant Protest, the beginning of feminist protests and the formation of other women's organisations. In the UK, 1968 was the year a group of fishermen's wives organised themselves in Hull for equal rights, and when female workers at the Dagenham Ford factory held a three week strike for equal pay (Bouchier 1983). More events in both countries soon followed.

4. The base became known as the “Greenham Common Peace Camp,” and women continued to live and protest at this base until 2000, long after it was closed (1993), demanding that the land be returned to the public.

5. This finding was surprising, particularly because the Daily Mirror has been known as a left-leaning publication that supported liberal causes. However, the likely reason for the opposition to the movement is the publication's high male readership, who editors perhaps assumed would be likely to oppose the women's movement.

6. Additionally, I should point out that using such personalising details is a common journalistic convention used frequently when interviewing women, feminist or not.

7. Additionally, the absence of lesbians from the mainstream press could be the result of a conscious decision, as many actively rejected mainstream media coverage. While their refusal to engage with the media surely accounts to an extent for their absence, it is likely that the media also chose to ignore their voices.