- Good evening and thank you for joining us for "A Feminist Perspective." This radio program is sponsored by the Women's Resource and Career Planning Center, located in the Dean of Women's Office at 220 Strong Hall, the University of Kansas. The Women's Resource and Career Planning Center contains a career information system, films and other visual aids on the Women's Movement, graduate and professional school catalogs, information on all aspects of human sexuality, and a women's library. The library is composed of notebooks containing news clippings and magazine articles, government documents and newsletters, giving information about the whole realm of ideas involved in the Women's Movement. The library also contains many books, which can be checked out for a brief period. We would like to invite you to visit the Women's Resource and Career Planning Center and to take advantage of the library. If you would like, speakers, are a program on the Women's Movement. Please feel free to contact us at 220 Strong Hall at the University of Kansas. Tonight, we are beginning a three-part series on the image of women in the mass media. This week, part one is on newspapers and magazines, next week will be the image of women in radio and TV, and on April 30th, the image of women in films and literature. We have, as guests for these three programs, some people that we think will have much to offer in the discussion of this program. Tonight, our guests are Linda Shield, copy chief and editorial writer for the "Kansan," a student at the university, Mary Ward, who was graduated last year from the School of Journalism, is that right, Mary? And is now in graduate school, Ralph Gades, the managing editor of the "Lawrence Journal-World," and Lee Young, Associate Dean of the School of Journalism, and Jan Sanders, one of our assistant deanswomen. We have lots of guests here tonight. We hope that they'll be competing with one another in discussing the subject because it's more than we ordinarily have and, incidentally, we probably should refer to one another by name, pretty frequently, because it's sometimes difficult to know who's talking. We have a little paragraph overview of this situation of the image of women in the mass media that I'd like to read to you and then ask you to comment on it, as to whether you believe it is accurate or you'd add other things to it, or subtract things from it. The mass media function has both process and product. They reflect American society and simultaneously shape it. Specifically, the image of the American woman, presented by the mass media, represents a norm against which women are evaluated by society as a whole, by other women, and by themselves. This series of programs will seek to identify the image presented and trace its origins within the operating structure of the mass media. How about that, Linda? Do you believe that the mass media both reflect American society and simultaneously shape it? - Yeah. I have to agree with that. I'm not sure what exactly I'd add to it. As far as the image of women in mass media, you have, for instance, we're talking to them about newspapers and magazines, specifically. Part of the problem is that we end up with magazines that are presented a more traditional view of women. For instance, the homemaker, mother, sexy, whatever and the problem there is, as I see it, specifically with magazines; someone's buying those magazines or they wouldn't be on the market. You run into a problem of, what should newspapers and magazines present as a woman's image and what will sell? - Because certainly, if you were presenting an image of a traditional... housewife, mother, there are many such women, aren't there? - Yeah, there are. - So it certainly would be a reflection of American society, how about the shaping it? What do the rest of you think? - May I respond to that? - Sure. - I think newspapers, in particular because of their immediacy, tend to give us shape or present an image, by reflecting what is happening in the immediate or short-term sense. Probably, they reflect society in their management practices, something of that nature, and change society by presenting a picture of what is happening in the immediate context of events, in the daily world. - Now, there are a whole variety of things happening, there has to be a certain amount of selectivity that takes place there. How's that connect with the image that's being presented? You're going, Lee? Go ahead. - I was going to make the comment, it sort of parallels with what Linda had to say, that I see newspapers as being more general and more the same, in the contrary, where as magazines tend to be very specialized; they seek out certain kinds of audiences. Thus, we could have magazines that range on such extremes as "Playboy," which has the hedonistic image, as far as women are concerned, the sexist image. On the other end of the spectrum: "MS," which is for women who are aggressively seeking change. Within these points on the spectrum, you have all kinds of magazines that would have different sorts of audiences and probably would seek to appeal to different audiences. I see the newspapers as being designed to serve the mass, the majority of public, and therefore, they might put a rather continuous image of women, in front of the public. - But don't you think that, by the very act that newspapers report what's happening, for instance, we can find out what's happening in California, maybe on California campus, and that may reflect what happens on this campus. I think that's how the student movement, revolutions happen, in that, well, other people were doing it and it, through the media, both newspapers and television, radio, we became aware of what was happening all over the country. I think that the Women's Movement had very rational, quiet-spoken people talking about it for years and years, and then somebody mistakenly reported, in Atlantic City, that some bras were burned, which never really happened, but all of a sudden, there was all this attention placed on the Women's Movement and it got a spark that hadn't been happening for years. - But that was a question of selecting among the kinds of things -- how do you decide, Ralph? How does an editor decide what he's going to put in the newspaper? Let me give you a specific example that I'd like for you to respond to: suppose you had, on some wire service, two very different stories: say one is a story about... a workshop by a governor's commission, on the status of women, and the other one is about the takeover of an office, by... what really did happen in the -- what was the magazine that the editor's office -- - What was it called? - No, one of her only -- - "Ladies' Home?" - What would you use? How would you decide? - Well, I think I'd have to ask you to be more specific and I think any editor would. If one of the events were happening in the community where this newspaper is published, then, no doubt that's the one that would get the heaviest treatment in that day's paper. - What if they're both, two things happening in New York, let's say? - Quite possibly, you might see part of one and part of the other in the day's paper. - I don't know. - Huh? - I tend to think that the takeover's a little more dramatic and maybe a little more readable, a little more exciting to read. - Certainly, that particular image -- - And easier to report and that would be the one that I would probably end up reading. - That depends how far away from the event you actually were and how dramatic it was presented to you. It relates to other ongoing things in your own community, probably the dramatic event, that might be selected out first. It's not the usual thing that makes news, day after day, it's the unusual, the out of the ordinary, it's the man bites dog situation -- it does come into play. Something different might happen in another medium but in newspaper journalism, it's quite likely this is what would happen. - Now, Lee said that he saw a distinction between the role of the newspaper and the magazine. Would you agree with his interpretation of that? - Yes, I would. I think it's something based on audience. - Don't newspapers get a reputation, at least, from having a particular point of view? Like someone known as conservative, and some as...radical, and some as liberal, and so forth, are those appropriate designations to give to a newspaper? - That'd be more appropriate for a magazine, I would think, because a newspaper, if you have a good newspaper that's trying to present the news in a more or less unbiased form on the news pages, maybe not the editorial pages, and that they would be trying to, if it's a good paper, the paper should be trying to present a general overview of what's happening and a magazine would -- well, magazines, as far as I see them, are basing their entire format on the audience and they don't intend to present everything that they can or the best overall view of what's happening in society; their whole purpose is to pick a certain aspect of society and comment on that, in a way that will make the audience interested. - I think that's an important distinction to make between the opinion of a newspaper's editorial page policy and of the newspaper, itself as a medium presenting information and too often, these are confused. I think you can go into almost any community and do a survey of what people think of the newspaper in that community and... get the complete spectrum of opinion about the paper, and part of it may be based upon news presentations and certainly most of it, I believe, would be based on an individual's reaction to editorial page policies and comment on the news. - When you talk about editorial policies, are those... articulated? Or, does it just depend on the editors, what goes in? Do you sit down and decide -- do the editors of a newspaper sit down and decide what point of view they'll take toward any given news story? - Most of the papers that I've been associated with, that is what happens. I would think that certainly is the case. - Did you start to say something, Jan? - Well yes, as the only member of the panel without any journalistic experience, I was going to give -- - Well, you're not the only one. You can join me. - A naive outsider's impression of newspapers and magazines: I know when I read them, I see a complete difference in what I expect from them. For newspapers, I associate that with being the news. I associate newspapers with being objective, other than a few very extreme exceptions. I remember growing up in Indiana and we used to laugh about the "Indianapolis Star" and say that was the only paper whose sports page and funny page were biased because they wouldn't give very complete sports coverage to the Catholic high schools or the Black high schools. And their comic page didn't feature any of those type of characters, either. With the exception of some kind of newspapers like that, I tend to look at newspapers as being objective and when I read about people in newspapers, they're rather external to me; I don't identify with them. But in magazines, generally I read "Women's Day" and I see all of these fantastic-looking dinners that you can make for 17 cents and think, I might be able to cook that way, and I can see how to decorate an apartment for $100 and I think, I might be able to do something like that, I identify with that type of woman. I leaf through "Playboy" and I try very hard to identify with some of the people, some of the time. And I find that those things in magazines, for some reason, seem within my reach and yet, newspapers are something external and purely informative, for me. - Jan, I might comment that what you're saying is exactly what a magazine publisher might hope to have: a loyal audience of people who would identify with the point of view of the magazine and you select out a certain segment of the public. There's a vast difference in the points of view of the "National Review" and "Ramparts" magazine. There are people who identify with these points of view and therefore, subscribe to it and reinforce their own opinions. "Woman's Day" appeals to a certain kind of woman and she finds satisfaction in it, as does "MS," as does any other -- "Cosmopolitan," for example. I think you're right. I think there's a difference in your attitude when you're reading a magazine, as opposed to when you're reading a newspaper. - But the one thing most of you said, that really surprises me: I think I see a big difference, for instance, between the... "Christian Science Monitor's" coverage of news and the... "National Observer." Is that just my imagination? Is it completely on the editorial page, that the differences would exist? - Well, those are both publications aimed at a specific audience, just as if they were a magazine. - But they are newspapers. - Well, they're in a newspaper format but that doesn't mean that... They're certainly not the same as a daily newspaper. - They're also national in audience, as opposed to local. "Kansas City Star" is intended, primarily, to serve the Kansas City Metropolitan area, whereas the "National Observer" and the "Christian Science Monitor" are thought of as coast-to-coast papers. - Now, when you get information from -- you've got local sources, of course, every newspaper would have local sources, but you also have wire services, don't you? Is there more news that comes out than you can publish? - Certainly. - There is. - Quite a bit. - So, how is the selection made, as to what you would use, other than man bites dog illustration that Ralph gave? - For example, on the Associated Press wire, there would be a budget for editors, every day. This would be a listing from the Associated Press, of what the major stories developing that day, are likely to be. This gives editors one rough guide to national and international events of importance, according to a standard that they can accept, on a daily basis. Then there will be state stories with a similar budget: your legislative material, on a daily basis, during this session. These are rough guides for an editor to use and beyond that, there will be other material, say, a notch below in importance, as far as a nationwide audience might go. For example, we get information about the Missouri legislature, about the Oklahoma legislature, on the Associated Press wire that serves us. We don't feel that these are high-priority items, so it's very seldom that we would select one of them, unless it had a relationship to something that was going on in Kansas or in Lawrence. - But if you were comparing two daily newspapers in Kansas where, presumably the same kind of news would interest people, would you find the same stories in all of the newspapers? - I think if you pick up a small-town paper, you get small-town news. I've seen some of them and there's no national news, no international news; it's just about their town. I expect that those people, then, maybe get the Wichita paper or the Kansas city paper to fill them in on this other kind of news. - But if you were doing a content-analysis of the Wichita paper, a Topeka paper, a Lawrence paper, and a Kansas City paper, that was for Kansas, would you find the same news, featured in all of them? - I think that you might find some of the same national or international news featured but I think there will be differences, depending on what happens, which affects a local community. For example, over the past three or four days in Lawrence, the biggest news we've had is the selection of a new chancellor and that's pushed a lot of the national news, back off the front page. Now, this probably isn't true in Wichita, it certainly wasn't true in Kansas City. So, this sort of variable affects what goes in. - Your question assumes something else, and that is, that each editor has the same amount of space to use, each day and an editor might make one decision, one day, given a larger news hole to play with than he would another day, when he simply does not have the space available to him, when some of that space is obligated for a particular local story or a local piece of art. I think you'll find certain basic stories in all the papers that you might analyze, but certainly there would be differences and I'm not sure how you might attribute these differences. - Well, the one way would be the space that you had available within -- I guess what I'm really trying to figure out is how much... choice an editor really feels that he has, as to what he selects from all the vast amount of information that would be available to him? - Individually, how much leeway an editor will have? - Yeah. - Quite a bit. - One thing that I find interesting, personally, rather than what kind of stories get in, is what the treatment is, the individual style. Again, referring back to Indiana, my hometown newspaper of a town of about 20,000, up until two or three years ago, the headlines would still talk about, "Reds Take Hill in South Vietnam," "Commies Enter UN," that kind of thing, on the headline of the paper. It's the same story but the treatment, even down to the language, is very different, from paper to paper. With the Women's Movement, I've noticed differences in the tone that they use, whether you take the same story and give the same amount of space and talk about "The Libbies Have Wild Convention" or a woman's caucus met, and go from there, reporting the same story, in a very different way. - It was interesting, a couple days ago, in the "Star," there was a story about a woman who had been held by some Arabs and questioned; they thought she was a spy. I was intrigued and I can't make up my mind if I was being too sensitive to the way they did this, but the "Star" -- I think it was the "Star" that put it in and not AP, but they had a boldface, little paragraph above and it said, "Being Held By Arab Terrorists Can Be Scary, "Especially Those Machine Guns." That seemed really trivial to me . - You mean, this was in the story? - No, no, this was above the story, in boldface, as if the "Star" had added this own little paragraph. It seemed very patronizing. I wonder if a male reporter had been held in question, if they would have called it "scary," if they would have used that term, "scary." - Yeah, especially scary, this extra little sentence there. - Well, as interesting as this is, there are a lot -- talking about headline writers, there are lots of questions as to newspapers, in general, I'd like to ask, but we probably should get on, specifically, to the image of women in the newspapers. The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women has passed a recent resolution, whereas clauses of which, state that the... commission is making efforts to promote the advancement of, who are making efforts to promote the advancement of women, encounter a serious obstacle in the deep-rooted attitudes, in men and women, which tend to perpetuate the status quo. You folks want to comment on that? - Yes. Some more of the recommendation says that these deep-rooted attitudes arise, to a large extent, from the mass media. It's my belief... that... a lot of the role identity that people grow up with, is what they see in their family, in their peer groups. But now, we are in the age of mass communication, so children are listening to the radio, watching television, being exposed to the print media, and they are finding, there, pictures of adults -- this is what you should be, this is what life is like: mommies wear high-heels and sweep the floor. Their mommies don't wear high-heels when they sweep the floor; some conflict can come in here. Maybe the mommies are reading the magazine too and thinking, "I'm not a very good mommy, at all "because I'm beat. "I'm in my sneakers and my Dungarees "and I have a hard time mopping the floor, every two weeks. "I must be doing it all wrong "because look through the ads in the magazines." I think that being exposed to this kind of thing tells us what people expect us to be, as women. - Which came first, society or the mass media? - Oh, I don't know. I think that's the old chicken and egg and all I'm willing to say, is they are related. And I see it, pretty much, as a circle and people grow up in a society -- - Don't you see the mass media pulling society, now, out of this, by focusing on the change and by explaining the differing attitudes and talking more frankly about roles? - Very much. In fact, instead of seeing it being circular, I see it more as a spiral; it keeps going round and round, where society influences media, media influences society, but it keeps going somewhere, instead of wearing a rut into the table. It is progressing but still, I see them very, very circular. - We did agree on the original statement that the media reflect American society and simultaneously shape it. I suppose one could say that about almost any institution, couldn't they? - Yes, I think that's true. - What were you going to say? - Well, I was going to say that I think that, in fairness to the Woman's Movement, one has to say that part of the reason that the mass media are beginning to show the desire for change, is due to the awareness that has been brought about by the complaint, by the agitation of women. I think we are becoming more aware and that's part of the purpose. But I agree with Ralph that the media are helping to lead us away from some of the stereotyped attitudes that we've had. They, themselves, may have had to been awakened from an outside source, but they are responding to a specific drive in society now. - How long do you feel that's been true? - Not very long. - Very, very recent phenomena, would you agree? - Fairly recent, yes. - I still think, you read stories done on successful business women and they are still invariably pert and trim, well-dressed, and good mothers, and also good cooks. - There's a difference in the way in which women and men -- - Oh, yeah. I really think so. If a man cooks, it's as a hobby. - I'd like to hear you make comment on that. You do agree it's true, don't you? You don't describe men by their physical appearance, you certainly don't say how they're dressed. - Oh, certainly. Sometimes we do. - You do? Can you give me an example? - All right, the chancellor. - You say how he was dressed? - The bow-tie. - We tried to describe him, physically, to tell how he was dressed. - That's right, you did do that. But in an ordinary news story, you don't come across that, do you? - It depends on the circumstances. I think sometimes, it's most important to provide a description. Certainly, if you can't give a person a photograph. - Now, when you do this rather routinely, I don't mean you personally, but when newsmen do this, rather routinely, when they are telling a story about a woman, and not routinely when they tell it about men. Do you have a comment on that or do you agree it's not routine? - I think I'd have to give you a few points, certainly. I am thinking, for example, of articles in sports pages about male and female athletes; they rarely talk about the appearance of the male athlete. If it's a woman golfer, they'll sometimes comment on their size, or she's willowy, or blonde-haired. - And also, mother of two. - Yes, right. And I think this tends to happen. I think it happens in news stories too. - Do you know why? Go ahead. - Do I know why? - I mean, do you have a theory as to why this is done this way? - Oh, I suppose it's, in part, because most of the writing has been done by men and men have this sort of an interest in women: what do they look like, some sort of a description. I don't think it's meant to be evil, I think it's a natural and unconscious thing that we've done. - We'll have to pause for a moment, for a station identification. Tonight, we're discussing the image of women in the mass media, particularly... newspapers and magazines, tonight. Next week, radio and TV, and... on April 30th, the image of women in films and literature. We have been talking about an overview to the whole problem, have agreed that newspapers and magazines do reflect American society and that they simultaneously shape it. We've talked a good deal more about newspapers than we have about the particular image of women, which we are going to get on with there, because we have a question in newspapers and magazines, not only of the images portrayed through the stories and the... selection of articles, but also... professional newspaper people, men and women. I presume that everybody is in agreement that the vast majority of people who are influential in... newspaper reporting and editing are men, or do you agree with that? - Directly or indirectly? - I'm talking about the people who actually work there, work on newspapers and in magazines, in significant positions, not as type-setters, or... - Probably, they're mostly men. I can't argue with that but certainly they're aware, or should be aware, that at least half of the audience that they're working for is made up of women. - About 40% of the... graduates of schools of journalism are women, an overall average, and yet, no newspaper or magazine that I know of has any place like 40% of its decision-makers who are women. - Or even staff members. - I would argue with that. - How would you account for that? - Well, I think it's fairly easily accounted for, fairly obviously accounted for. As you look back, across a period of time, women... did not seek out roles in journalism, over a period of time. Then, as they did, I think there was a relationship involving their roles... as wives and as mothers, that kept them from accruing any great deal of tenure and I think it's the people who stay longest and demonstrate an ability, that eventually find themselves in these decision-making offices, no matter what work you're talking about, be it newspaper, or construction, or what have you. I think, as a hard, practical reality, the people who have had to do the hiring, have realistically been reluctant to hire women because there's no concrete, direct relationship, in many cases, between the employee-employer relationship and the tenure of a woman on the staff. That is, a woman may get married and then, no matter how satisfactory her job has been to her, decide not to continue working. This takes her out of the continuing... input of ideas, the continuing influence, the continuing growth with a publication. Secondly, if a woman is hired and is married, perhaps her husband graduates, gets another job, she goes with him usually, as has been the case, rather than... the husband... going with his spouse and changing his job. I think this has had an effect on attitudes toward hiring, that simply cannot be denied. - Mr. Gades, I might disagree with you in some areas there, but even letting that stand, assume that there are women who put in the time and achieve the tenure and have a continuing commitment to a paper, what happens to them? Some of the research I've done -- I found, for example, the "Los Angeles Times" has six women that have a title of editor. All six of them are on the women's pages: food editor, society editor, contemporary life editor, and they are limited to the women's section of the paper and these are professional women whose commitment is demonstrated for the paper. They've been elevated to the editorial position, but are limited to the women's pages. Even if the rest of the premises -- - I'm not ready to draw a conclusion from that. Maybe you are. - Linda, you haven't gone? - Yeah, I'm a senior in the journalism school, now, and I've been interviewing for jobs this semester and I'd say, any paper who limits the women to the women's pages is not going to get anyone to work for them. That's going to be a real problem. - Do you find that? - The papers I've interviewed with have made a big point of being very open, telling you, "Yes, women will be paid the same. "No, we will not send a woman out "on a job that looks dangerous," to cover riots, something like that. I was interviewing with a paper in Decatur, where the city editor asked me if I would be interested in writing for the women's page and I told him, no, I wouldn't, and he said, "Good, because if you had said yes, "I wouldn't have been interested in you anymore." So, you're running into this kind of thing. It's changing, just from the papers I've seen and the people I've talked to. Sure, we're behind because a lot of women, in the past years, have been more interested in getting married than getting a job and you do have a time lag there. But it seems that the women I know, who are graduating this spring, expect to get jobs as good, or better, than the ones that the men in their class are getting. I know more women who have signed up for jobs than I do men. - If this were true, that women go through the process of training for any profession, women can leave it at the time they got married. We've got some other factual statistics that we're going to have to be looked into. Most of the women in the labor force are indeed married and since the higher the educational level, the more likely they are to remain in the labor force. The only real problem, and no evidence that professional women leave jobs any more often than men do, the real problem becomes one of judging who is going to stay with you, male or female, for a period of time, isn't it, rather than amusing that all women are going to leave and that all men are going to stay. At any rate, if this were the way it was going to be, then I would say, Lee, that you folks are wrong in accepting women into the same training program that you take men into if, when they get out, nobody wants their services. - I would agree with you if this were going to continue to be the case. I was going to make a very philosophical statement, saying that you cannot accurately picture the present by measuring what is past, even the most immediate past, because I think we've seen quite a bit of change in attitudes, not just in journalism, but throughout business. In the last two, three, four years, I think the change in attitude is coming about because of the change of approach by women; their determination to get careers, their determination to be equal. I think Ralph is right in the main; the experience that men have had, dealing with women in media, have led them to have prejudices. Now, these are prejudice but they aren't necessarily bad ones, they're experienced-based. The fact that so many of the women who did join newspaper and magazine staff did not stay for long periods of time, this might, of course, lead you, then, to have an overall prejudice, which is unfair to the individual; that woman who would stay on and build a career. But in the main, we have tended to look upon women as temporary. Now, as they demonstrate change, I think our attitudes will change. - I should think, if I could build upon that a moment, that journalism is one field in which it's more or less up to the individual to show what can be done, what he or she can produce. It's such an individual sort of thing. You don't send a team out, as if you're going to build a house, you send an individual out and you judge the individual on the product that's presented to you and the performance that's done. So, you tend to reward your best people and encourage your best people, be they male or female. - That's one of the better statements I've heard about what the Women's Movement is all about: just judging people as individuals, not making assumptions about them because they're male or assumptions about them because they're female, as to what they would or wouldn't do, but judging each individual on the basis of his or her own work history and production, what they do. I think, if we start out with a lot of assumptions, that may have once been true, then we're never going to give those people an opportunity to prove it. Is it true, in your opinion, that more young men, now, are not... choosing a company for life, but are, rather, looking around, also are not committing themselves in the same way that they once did? There's a lot of mobility -- - How did they once do? Tell me. - Well, they once apparently, according to the statistics, thought it was terribly important what company they first joined because that was the one that, short of some terrible thing happening, was the one that they would be with, at retirement. - You're saying they were looking for security more than anything else? - Possibly and the possibility of advancement, of knowing that they are going to be judged on the basis of what they produce. - I think there was more stigma against a frequent job change, 20 years ago, than there is now. I think we have the attitude, throughout business, that one way one progresses, is to make moves, so we have a more mobile society, in the working sense. - Just talking with people: graduates, they say, "Oh, well, I may not particularly like this paper "but I'm interested in the experience." The word "experience" is used over and over again in any conversation with this age group, about jobs. - From what we've been hearing from our councilors in the journalism school, and from the professors and editors who've come to talk to us, in journalism in particular, you're not expected to stay with the paper you start with; you expect to get a couple years' experience and then move on, up the ladder and it may involve a number of changes in your career. It's not a matter of choosing one paper and staying there all your life. - Is that a typical pattern? - I think it's becoming more typical. There are individual variations: there are people who stay with the same paper, the same magazine, but I think there is more movement now, than there used to be. - Linda, I wanted to leap something you said with something that Ralph said: I agree very much with what you said about judging people on what they produce. An argument I have read, coming from some women reporters, is that they were not sent out on the night work, they were not sent out to cover big crime stories, or riot stories, or big fires, or something like that. Because of the physical danger, their editors did not send them there, they did not turn in that type of story, while the men had that experience, turned in the story, got the byline, built up a reputation, and so progressed and the women had not put in that kind of product, and so they stayed where they were, perhaps justifiably so. But they had not been sent out and it sounded as if, even this progressive editor that you spoke with, would not send women out on that type of assignment. - Most of the editors that I've talked to so far, or representatives of newspapers, I've only heard one editor, last fall, who said that he would not send women out on jobs he considered dangerous. Most of the people I've talked to, it's a matter of ability; if you have a person who can cover a story and cover it well, that's the person you want to write that story. - How do you know they can do that, though, if they don't have the chance? Someone's got to send them the first time. - Well, most reporters, when you start out, start out on beats that are not the most important and how you work there, you prove your way up. But as far as I can tell, women will have, now, as good a chance to do this as men. I haven't had experience working on papers, other than the "Kansan," so I don't know. - Don't you think that, what's going to have to happen, is women are going to have to say, yes, I appreciate your concern, but I do think I can handle that story or I can handle myself? I've taken care of myself for 23 years, now . - I think that is happening now. I think women, now, are being given these assignments, so that there's no great difference in between them. - One woman told me, last year, that their plan was, you were in line; someone was sent out and the next person who was up, was sent to the next story, and so forth, but she was passed over for a story and they called the next man, and when she inquired about it, it was something that the editor had thought, either she wouldn't be interested in or wouldn't be appropriate for her because she was a woman. And you feel that's passing? - I think it's passing, I don't think it's gone. I'm sure it exists in individual papers. - A case like that, the woman would probably have to go to her editor and complain or refer to another job possibility she has , or something like that. - Well, that is what she did. She certainly complained about it and received the information that he did not think she would want to take this particular assignment, so she had to clarify. - I think that -- - Yes, go ahead. - Women just have to become more aggressive and say, yes, I can handle this. We've got to get out of the idea that women are doing this to keep themselves busy during the day or to earn some pocket money, and that, indeed, they're doing it as a career orientation or they need the money to live, not just to buy other dresses. - That's what most people are working for. - I think that, when women start to... not work just for the Women's Movement -- I've heard some people say, "Oh, the only reason she does this "is because she's a feminist." So, it's women for women but women are going to start to say, "It's women for me. I'm going to work for myself." And I see that kind of aggression in going about their job. I think that it's bound to help them in their positions. - We have had a first, here and, incidentally, our number is 864-4530 and we trust that, if any of you have a comment or a question, that you will call it in. We have had a first for a Colorado newspaper: the Colorado Civil Rights Commission has issued a cease and desist order, on discrimination. It's the first such decision against a newspaper in the United States and as I understand it, the reason the charge was brought was that two people: a man and a woman, both graduates of the University of Colorado, the woman first in her class, were hired by the same newspaper; she at $40 a week less than he, hired at the same time. Would you comment on that? - I think that's pretty silly of the woman not to ask about that before she was hired, to tell you the truth. - She might not have known. You mean, ask if they're going to pay the same -- - When you're interviewing for a job, most of the women I know will ask questions like, are we going to be paid as much as the men? And if you aren't, we just don't go to that paper to begin with. - In the last three semesters, the highest-paid graduate has been a woman, in the journalism school. The top job has been a woman. - Did she deserve this on the basis of her experience here, as a student, or how would you account for that? - I would say, very clearly, in one case, I'm not so sure it was true in the other two cases. I think the job applicant did a good job of bargaining the job. - The question you're saying that you should ask, this is kind of new, isn't it? All the new emphasis on everybody knowing everybody else's salaries. It used to be very closely kept secret and I suspect it was true in journalism, as well as every place else, wasn't it? - I imagine now, of course, our students report to us their starting salaries and we keep the information confidential but use the statistics. - That's a two-way street too: newspapers wondering what the going rate is, contact the journalism school and say, "What are other people in my category paying "and what do I have to ante up, "to compete for the top individuals?" - That's very true. - You've seen some of the polls, I'm sure, of what the expectations are for the class of 1973, that they publish every year, and they always publish some of the beginning salaries for men and for women, that these are drawing closer together. At least the 1973 poll indicated that, not in any case were there women making more but in the past, there was really considerable differential. I don't see this in the overall statistics. As a matter of fact, we've seen some widening, in general. We saw some in your paper, the other night, as you know, when faculty salaries were public. Like I said, it's not your paper, that's your paper, isn't it? Have you observed that, Lee, as far as what people are offering now for this class? - Yes, I observe that there is no longer, as far as offers made to our graduates is concerned, a real difference in male-female salaries. They don't come in and say, I'll make an offer to a woman on one basis, and a man on another. - The same paper? - The same paper. - The biggest differential seems to be how much experience you've had and what sort of work you can show the representative of the paper; what clippings you have, how good they are, and then what references you get from faculty or previous employers. - Now, have most of the people in journalism had experience, other than on the school newspaper? - Many of them have had internships in the summertime or have taken a semester out in work. I think the students who are most likely to get jobs in the media, have had some experience, other than just classwork. - Do women have as an easy a time in getting those kinds of experiences? - Yes. - As men have? - Yes, fully, as many have received summer internships as men have, in school. - I think a lot more paper are aware, too, of what you might call a quota system: people are expecting more women working on papers than a lot of papers are making an effort to hire women; the way we had racial quotas, that kind of things, where you want to get more people, more women working responsible positions and they're looking for people to fill these. - A recent article in the "Washington Post" indicated that the percentages had gone down, said that last year -- - Percentages on the "Washington Post?" - The percentage of women in the "Washington Post" -- - That was 1972, that is had gone down, from 1971. - 1972... 15% of women and today, 13 6/10 percent. - The "Washington Post" might be a case that doesn't represent the general because, as I understand it, "Life" magazine, when they folded, quite a few of the people who had worked on "Life" went to the "Washington Post" and papers in that area, and that may have affected some of these -- I'm sure they had quite a few men on the magazine who were qualified and who wanted jobs. I have a friend who tried to get a job with "The Washington Post" and was told that they were having a hard time hiring in people, because they were trying to pick up Life's staff. - Veteran journalists. - What's your reaction to this statement that's attributed to Margaret Mead, when she was asked what she thought of the Women's Liberation Movement, if she thought the Women's Liberation Movement would succeed, she replied, "If the media doesn't kill it." She wasn't talking just about newspapers, I'm sure, but... - You have a problem with overemphasizing dramatic point of the movement like a women's movement, but also, if you didn't have the advertising value, you wouldn't get very far without the media either, so you have to hit a happy balance between the two. - Sometimes they emphasize certain aspects. For instance, NOW passed a resolution about lesbians, which is a hard thing for a lot of people to accept and that was played up, somewhat, perhaps more than some of their other things. I see, in the Women's Movement, in its coverage, a kind of uneven reportage of it, the dramatic things. I can remember last year, when we went to that convention in Chicago, I will never forget this: it was an editorial writer, wrote an editorial and the only story they covered was when Gloria Steinem came. We had several other fairly big-name speakers but Gloria Steinem is, right now, the darling of the movement. It was a two-column editorial and about one in almost a half of that space, was dedicated to what the woman was wearing and how good she looked. - How long her hair was... - And all she was wearing was a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. So, that was perhaps a somewhat extreme example, but they tend to pick up on the more outrageous, the more radical kinds of ideas. They're more exciting, obvious, perhaps, but... - Still, from the point of view of news coverage, I think the example you gave is a really good one because here, you have an organization that passes 10 or 12 resolutions and only one has picked up and played up, was by no means the most important one that they dealt with, in their opinion. But in the opinion of someone, apparently the reporters, this was the part that made news and I'm sure this is what Margaret Mead is talking about when she suggests that it might succeed if the media didn't kill it. - I think, on the other hand, you have to say, it just absolutely needs the media, to get through. You cannot get to the housewife or the secretary, and make her realize that maybe she could be doing something else, she does not necessarily have to be doing this. But that's never -- - She has choices, it's not that what she's doing is wrong, it's that she should know what all the choices are. We have only a moment left. Several times, we've mentioned tonight, the way in which the Radical Women's Movement was picked up in 1968, on. Actually, I recall that, when the President's Commission on the Status of Women made its report, American women, there was a lot of information in the newspaper about it, but it probably was ready mostly by people who were already cognizant of what was going on, because it wasn't very exciting. And when the Radical Women's Movement began in 1968, then there was a tremendous amount of news coverage. Not all of us, of course, have reporters trying to ferret it out, because they also made sure that the reporters were there and the television cameras, and did things that... the more conservative people, who were interested in economic and legal justice, didn't have the political know-how to do, that it wouldn't have occurred, probably to Esther Peterson, who was the Chairman of the President's Commission on the Status of Women, to have called up and said it would be a good idea if you were at a certain place, at a certain time, something is going to happen: we're going to tell you what we've discovered in the president's commission. Well, our time is just about up. I really appreciate you folks coming to join us, tonight. Linda Shield from the "Kansan," Mary Ward, a graduate student in journalism, Ralph Gades, managing editor of the "Lawrence Journal-World," Lee Young, Associate Dean of the School of Journalism, and Jan Sanders, an assistant dean of women. We hope that you'll join us again next week, at the same time, when we will have a discussion of the image of women in radio and TV. Dr. Elizabeth Check, who's a visiting associate professor of radio and film, will be here, Patricia Jansen-Doyle, a program director for channel 19 TV, and Sue Webster, the news director of WREN radio. Thank you for listening.