The Struggle of being Born a Woman with A Dream of Journalism
It's hard to imagine having a slew of threatening obscenities constantly thrown at you. However this is the harsh reality of a woman journalist. So much so that female journalists have had to come up with defense and coping mechanisms to shield themselves from the verbal abuse that is strung on them for writing stories that someone does not agree with. These threats reach to an extent of stalking, verbal degradation of a writer's family, secual harassment, and the like. According to journalist Nadra Nittle there are three steps in the process of dealing with these situations. “ First, you teach yourself to downplay whatever threat there might be. (“I didn’t feel like my life was in danger, necessarily,” she tells me.) Second, you tell people about the actual menace, so you have a record of your concern. And third, you realize your supervisors may or may not have the same level of concern, or first-hand exposure, to the threats you face.”(Peterson, 2018) It is also known by female journalists that a more hardened and less feminine appearance will earn you more respect and fear in the field. There is a certain stereotype of an attractive and feminine dressed woman that for some reason according to Priddy, and she herself felt the pressure to add masculinity to her image.
Overall this article is one of the best written articles I have read in a long time. The writer's style flows beautifully coupled with the first hand accounts and quotes that she has compiled. I feel like she perfectly exemplified the struggle for women in journalism, and the descriptive language that she uses provokes the reader to reflect on a situation that they have experienced or heard about relating the misogyny in the workplace and the world overall existential “fear” of powerful and feminine women.
Peterson, Anna Helen. “The Cost of Reporting While Female.” Columbia Journalism Review. 2018. https://www.cjr.org/special_report/reporting-female-harassment-journalism.php
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