“Help-Wanted Female”: Editor & Publisher Frames a Civil Rights Issue

This article examines how specialized business magazine Editor & Publisher framed its coverage of the sex amendment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the legal foundation for the elimination of the help-wanted classified advertising categorized by sex. It charts the evolution of the coverage of its initial 1964 enactment to 1973 when the Supreme Court found commercial speech was not covered under the First Amendment and that laws prohibiting classified ads categorized by sex were constitutional. The article finds three stages in Editor & Publisher's coverage: 1964 to 1967, 1967 to 1970, and 1971 to 1973. In each of these phases, the sex amendment of Title VII was framed as being counter to the fundamental principles of the newspaper industry and the First Amendment. The sex amendment and its women supporters were trivialized and delegitimized in the frames crafted by Editor & Publisher.