Still a ‘blokes club’: The motherhood dilemma in journalism

Introduction

Researchers have long noted the dearth of women in decision-making roles in the news media, and Australia is no exception (Byerly, 2011; Gallagher, 1995; Hanusch, 2013; North, 2009b, 2013; Ross, 2014; Women’s Media Center (WMC), 2014). In a rapidly changing and volatile global media environment, the focus both from industry and academics in the disciplines of journalism and media studies has been on the ramifications of technology and its effects on the production and consumption of news, with less interest in the lived experiences of newsworkers. There has been little analysis in Australia that attempts to explore why, for example, there is such a gulf between the increasing number of women who fill the lower to middle ranks in Australian media organisations and the lack of women in key editorial decision-making positions. Given the numerical dominance of women in university journalism programmes (Hanusch, 2012) and the rise in the number of women entering the industry in Australia in the past 30–40 years (North, 2013), this relative absence of women at the top needs much more consideration. Yet, it is not only the quest for equality that should drive such inquiry. News organisations that privilege editorial decision-making as primarily a male domain ensure that news is filtered through masculine news values, which serves to risk women’s capacity as fully participating and informed citizens (Ross and Carter, 2011). Issues that are typically of interest to women are often pushed to the margins, assumed to be of less importance than those that interest men, which in turn privileges men’s voices and views over women’s. This contributes ‘to the ongoing secondary status of women’s participation as citizens’ (Ross and Carter, 2011: 1148). Elsewhere, feminist media scholars have long analysed what restricts women’s career progression in journalism (see Byerly and Ross, 2006; Chambers et al., 2004; Creedon and Cramer, 2007; Kim, 2006; Joseph and Sharma, 1994; Robinson, 2005; Ross, 2001; Steiner, 1998; Tsui and Lee, 2012; Van Zoonen, 1998). Researchers have found that female journalists have variously reported that their careers and promotional opportunities have been hampered by, but not limited to, an overarching hegemonic masculine workplace culture (Melin-Higgins, 2004; North, 2009a; Ross, 2014; Van Zoonen, 1998), a lack of equal opportunity polices and/or knowledge of them (Byerly, 2011; Robinson, 2005; Ross, 2014), sexual harassment (De Bruin, 2004; Opoku-Mensah, 2004; North, 2009a; Ross, 2004) and a lack of flexibility for women with childcare responsibilities (Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance and International Federation of Journalists (MEAA and IFJ), 1996; North, 2012).

This article analyses written responses from participants in the largest survey undertaken of female journalists in the Australian news media. A total of 577 female journalists working in broadcast, newspaper and online platforms from all states and territories and in regional/rural, metropolitan and suburban news organisations responded to the online survey. The survey was developed using as its basis a 1996 survey by the industry union – the MEAA and the IFJ – the only quantitative research that until now had sought to specifically inquire how female journalists in the Australian news media experienced their work and workplaces. In this article, I build on my earlier report on the quantitative data from the 2012 survey (North, 2012), and analyse the participants’ written responses to the issues that concern them about promotional opportunities in a bid to better understand the gender gap at the top of the newsroom hierarchy. Childcare responsibilities are certainly not the only issue to affect women’s career progression, as noted above, but an analysis of the written responses in this survey suggests childcare responsibilities to be one of the central reasons why women think they have less opportunity than their male colleagues to reach positions of editorial influence. This is the case even though three-quarters of the survey respondents do not have children. This article focuses on written responses from three key questions:

Gendered newsroom hierarchies

Women have made significant inroads into the lower and middle ranks of news journalism in Australia during the past three decades, in line with the United States and other western nations (Byerly, 2011; Gallagher, 1995; North, 2013). This influx has taken place alongside the numerical domination of female students in university journalism courses – a cohort that Hanusch (2012) now notes constitutes about 70 per cent of the student journalism population. Nevertheless, even with such a long period of female domination in journalism education, women still struggle to rise above a third of working journalists in Australia, and are largely absent from key editorial decision-making positions. In the early 1990s, Henningham’s (1993) seminal study found that 33 per cent of Australian journalists were female, while smaller surveys in 2001 (Brand and Pearson, 2001) and 2008 (Hanusch, 2008) found that 39 per cent and 40 per cent of journalists respectively were female. The most recent and large-scale report to analyse the status of women in Australian news journalism was included in a global survey by US researcher Carolyn Byerly (2011). ² Her report indicates that 34.4 per cent of Australian journalists are female, compared with the global figure of 36.1 per cent. ³ Byerly’s comprehensive survey of women in the news media is based on data provided by six news organisations that includes almost 2000 editorial and administrative staff. Two Australian surveys that took place at about the same time as Byerly’s found a much higher percentage of women in journalism. Beate Josephi and Ian Richards (2012: 118) were the first to suggest that women outnumbered men in Australian newsrooms based on their small telephone survey in late 2009/2010, finding that women constituted 56 per cent of the 117 journalists surveyed. The acknowledged small sample size, however, limits the reliability of this figure. Later, Hanusch’s (2013: 33) survey of 605 journalists in Australia across all news platforms found that women constitute 55.5 per cent of his respondents. While it is surprising that Hanusch does not reference Byerly’s important 2011 global study, part of the reason there is such a large disparity may lie in the fact that Hanusch’s survey includes those who work in magazines (Byerly’s does not) which is a female-dominated sub-field of journalism. Hanusch also acknowledges that the data he collected included a predominance of those who work in the lower editorial ranks – again typically where women are clustered. Both projects lay a solid foundation for future research, but in terms of scale and being the only survey to collect all data directly from media organisations, Byerly’s work remains seminal.

The statistical data on women and leadership roles in journalism are less conflicting and reflect a worldwide problem. For a relatively prosperous, democratic and ostensibly egalitarian western nation, the statistics for Australia are poor and fall well below the statistics for comparable countries like the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom (see Byerly, 2011). Both Byerly (2011) and Hanusch (2013) find that men occupy the large majority of senior editorial and management jobs in Australian newsrooms. In the companies surveyed by Byerly (2011: 219), women make up only 20 per cent of those in governance (i.e. boards of directors), and 10 per cent in top-level management (i.e. publishers, chief executive officers). The numbers of women in senior management (22%) and middle management (29%) are also low. These two occupational levels include roles like news directors and executive editors who decide on news assignments and take part in other tasks associated with shaping the news. Hanusch (2013: 34) notes that women are grossly under-represented in the senior ranks finding that 7.4 per cent of female journalists could be classed as senior managers while 21.6 per cent of men were in this category, indicating that less than a third (30%) of women are senior managers. The point needs to be made that the status of women in news organisations can never be wholly accurate until researchers are allowed full access to employment data from news organisations. Researchers still face a widespread lack of cooperation from global news organisations which continue to limit our understanding of the occupation of journalism, and specifically women’s status in the news media (Byerly, 2013: 9; Hanusch, 2013: 32; North, 2013: 335; Weaver et al., 2007).

Methodology

The overall focus of this study has been to ascertain the levels of perceived gender discrimination by women working in the Australian news media. It revises and updates a 1996 survey conducted by the MEAA and the IFJ which found that there was significant gender discrimination in Australian newsrooms and that bias in promotional opportunities was a significant concern for the participants. It is pertinent, then, to analyse the current data to establish any shifts in perspective in this important area – especially as the data on the status of women in top news positions in Australia have changed little in the 16 years between surveys. ⁴ This survey is the first to provide an in-depth analysis of the way in which female journalists experience their work and workplaces providing an insight into the difficulties they perceive.

In February 2012, an email invitation to participate in an anonymous online survey was sent to female news journalists throughout Australia who worked in all media platforms, and in all states and territories. For the purpose of this study, a journalist was defined as someone responsible for the production of news content including reporters, feature writers, photographers, editors, news directors, bureau chiefs, section editors, online editors, sub-editors (or copy editors), presenters, producers, television news anchors, columnists and so on. The survey did not include journalists who worked in the magazine industry, or bloggers. The project’s limited funding did not allow for the development of a comprehensive list of women who worked in the magazine industry or blogging sector. The participants were identified through a publicly available media guide (Gee, 2011), websites/broadcasts and newspapers, as well as contacts known to both the author and the project’s research assistant. A total of 1067 email addresses were collated and a formal invitation sent outlining, among other things, the project’s goals and the anonymity guaranteed participants. The email also asked participants to forward the invitation to other female colleagues who we may have been unable to locate, in particular freelancers, sub-editors and other production staff whose email addresses are rarely publicly available. Consequently, a definitive number of email recipients cannot be provided, but would be more than the 1067 we collated. All attempts were made to have the list as representative as possible, including types of news media platforms (newspapers – including ethnic and Indigenous focussed publications – news websites, wire services, commercial and public radio, and commercial and public television) and location of the recipients (rural, regional, metropolitan and suburban news organisations).

A total of 577 surveys were completed through an online system, making it the largest survey of women in the Australian news media. To give some indication of the scale of the project in relation to other surveys of Australian journalists, this compares to Folker Hanusch’s (2013) study of 605 male and female journalists – the most comprehensive since John Henningham’s (1993) seminal study of 1068 journalists in the early 1990s. Other smaller studies that have included men and women are Josephi and Richards’ (2012) survey of 117 journalists, Hanusch’s (2008) report on 100 Australian journalists as part of a larger global study; Brand and Pearson’s (2001) survey of 100 journalists; and Schultz’s (1994) 1992 survey of 247 journalists. The 1996 MEAA/IFJ project surveyed 368 female journalists. Despite our efforts in collating a comprehensive list, there are of course more than 1067 female journalists in Australia, but the project is certainly large and far reaching enough to make poignant observations. One noted limitation, common to media and journalism scholars (see Hanusch, 2013), and evident in this project is that there is no verified list or accurate known total of the number of female (or male) journalists in the Australian news media. The 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census data show 8036 people employed in the category of ‘journalist’ in newspaper, radio and television platforms (ABS, 2011), and in 2011 that figure had fallen to 7236 (ABS, 2011). Hanusch (2013), however, suggests that with more focus on the term ‘journalist’ in other categories, the figure is more likely to be around 10,600 (p. 32). At a micro level, the limitation of not having a comprehensive list is most obvious in regional and rural news organisations. Often a listing on their organisation’s website or in Gee’s guide only included the name of the editor, manager and advertising manager. Many listings were incomplete or out of date. This problem was overcome, in part, by phoning news organisations and asking for email details, scouring newspaper files as well as listening to radio and TV broadcasts for journalists’ names.

The survey consisted of a maximum of 54 multiple-choice questions related to respondents’ employment status, education, working conditions, job segregation, recruitment, promotion, and sexual harassment and generally followed questions posed in the 1996 MEAA/IFJ survey. The current survey, however, updated some questions and deleted a section of union-specific questions. Participants were able to provide detailed written responses to 18 questions which allowed for respondents’ experiences or comments to be recorded in relation to key questions. The survey took between 10 and 25 minutes to complete depending on the participant’s written responses. The written responses to all questions were analysed and recurring themes noted. This article focuses on three questions around equal opportunity and promotion, as it produced some very strong responses that shed light on why so few women make it into key decision-making roles. Future papers will address other themes.

Findings and discussion

In this section, participant responses to the three questions under consideration will be analysed. First, participants were asked if they thought that women had equal opportunity for promotion in their workplace, and the majority (58%) of participants agreed that they did. This is a significant rise from the 1996 survey where only 45 per cent agreed with this question. There was, however, a noteworthy number who were unsure (13%) or did not agree (29%). Of the participants who chose to make written responses to this question, the majority suggest that in theory there appears to be equal opportunity for promotion but in practice there is not, which may account for the relatively high number who were ‘unsure’ in their response to this question. There was a strong theme that a ‘blokey’ or masculine organisational culture privileged men over women, that attitudes towards women were different to those expressed to men and that this caused a sense of marginalisation. By far, the majority of comments in response to all three questions centred on childcare responsibilities affecting women’s progression up the ranks:

In theory women have equal opportunity for promotion but in practice, eligible women generally have family responsibilities and senior roles in journalism demand long hours and weekend work. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged 40–44)

Once women become mothers they are rarely promoted unless their spouse is willing to become the primary carer. The long hours required for promotion in newspaper journalism are incompatible with the needs of young children. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged 35–39)

On the face of it, they [women] have equal opportunity. But a host of conscious and unconscious factors get in the way. For example, men still run most media groups and edit almost all papers. From years of experience, I know that men are more likely to try and poach other men from rival papers. They rarely try and poach women. And someone trying to poach you is the best – and really, the only way – to get a pay rise. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged 30–34)

This is a tricky question. We have many women who are promoted because of their abilities. We also have women who are promoted as tokenism. We also have women who are promoted because they play the political game in the workplace better than others. But this is the same for men here too. So in that regard, everybody is on a level playing field. But the attitudes towards women in the same roles as men here ARE different. And that’s where there is inequality. (Commercial TV presenter, aged 45–49)

The company values people who can give unlimited time to their job, which working mothers cannot do. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged 30–34)

Many of the responses to this question centre on the fact that women with children cannot or do not want to allocate the time required to do the job of a journalist. The final response, above, is typical of others where it is explicitly noted that working mothers are unable (or unwilling) to perform the required journalistic tasks because a journalist must give ‘unlimited time to the job’. It’s a response understood through a neo-liberal discourse, where the ideal worker is free, autonomous and flexible (Walkerdine, 2003) – and apparently available to work any hour of the day or night. That is, a worker, free of any domestic intrusions – like family or children – into working life. That worker is typically male. It is this discourse that some respondents perpetuate that works to undermine the journalistic abilities of women who care for children or at the very least ensures that women see the work culture as anathema to motherhood.

A large number of respondents, including very young journalists and older journalists, also refer to a culture of male privilege in their organisations and posit that this has been a factor that stymies, or could stymie, career progression:

I believe the managers want all male managers. Recently a very experienced and competent female staff member was overlooked for a position in favour of a younger, inexperienced male and this is the only reason I could think why. (Regional newspaper feature writer, aged 18–24)

Women appear to be invisible to many of the men in positions of power. Or a threat. Either way, they are ignored. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged 45–49)

It’s not egregious, but it’s insidious. Like I said – new editor, four new appointments – all men, three are his mates. (Regional section editor/online editor, aged 45–49)

It’s a men’s club. Very subtle, but true. In all newspapers in Australia. (Metropolitan newspaper section editor/online editor, aged 45–49)

The management team is very male, very aggressive. There is one woman in middle management. (Metropolitan newspaper sub editor, aged 50–55)

I think the culture favours men. (Regional newspaper reporter, aged 30–34)

In my experience, women’s ambitions aren’t heard as clearly as men’s, nor seem to be taken as seriously. (Commercial TV reporter, aged 40–44)

In these descriptions from journalists in a variety of locations and positions, a picture is painted of an industry-wide culture where women are ‘overlooked’, ‘ignored’ or ‘not taken seriously’ whether or not they have children. The discrimination against women is understood as immutable and the culture as ‘very aggressive’, ‘a men’s club’ and one that ‘favours men’ over women. Women’s sense of marginalisation vis-à-vis inequitable promotion opportunities is also very clearly articulated:

Women have to be much more talented to get into senior positions. Men are still given an easier ride, and looked after better in terms of pay and position. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged 35–39)

The workplace decision-making positions are utterly dominated by men, and over many years of working (successfully) for this newspaper I have watched the way bright young women get nowhere in a management sense, while bright young men are moved quickly up the ranks from the get-go. (Metropolitan newspaper section editor/online editor, aged 45–49)

We are marginalised and shut out by the male-dominated culture of the newsroom. You should hear the chorus of ‘mate, mate’ in this newsroom, like frogs in a swamp! (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged over 56)

I think men get fast-tracked. I was amazed to see a cub reporter, a male, get handed a round (police) even before he had finished university. When I started, I was told it would be at least a year before I got a round. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged 25–29)

The idea that men and women are essentially different in their approach to work and that this affects, or explains, their opportunities also has some currency among respondents. A metropolitan newspaper reporter and acting chief of staff (aged 35–39) said that

Men and women operate differently. Women are collaborative, which makes it harder for an individual to shine. Men are natural self-promoters. And my male colleagues have been invited to the Fairfax [Media Limited] box to watch AFL [Australian Football League]. Women simply don’t operate in this domain. It’s hard to break into the matey-matey culture of blokes sometimes.

Deferring to a biological essentialist perspective, the reporter explains that to be considered for promotion she must try to adapt and even ‘break into’ the rituals of the masculine culture. She must be something she is not (i.e. a naturally ‘self-promoting’ man) to be successful. The idea that women and men have some sort of natural or essential characteristic (like women being ‘collaborative’ in their approach to work and leadership, and men being ‘self-promoters’) serves to privileged one approach over the other and limit the variety of ways that people can, and do, lead. It is not surprising that the respondent naturalises men as leaders and their tactics understood as self-promoting because leadership has long been thought of as male, rational and aggressive – especially in an industry that has been a male stronghold up until the early 1980s. It is also interesting to note here that while this respondent makes the assertion that men and women ‘operate differently’, she doesn’t acknowledge that the prestigious ‘invitations’ to the media box to watch the much loved sport of Australian Football League (AFL) are made by male journalists to other male journalists and have little to do with how women promote themselves, but everything to do with how men build professional relationships with other men – that generally exclude women.

Leadership roles

Despite a majority of survey respondents saying that women are not equally represented in decision-making roles (67%) in their organisation, almost half (49%) agree that women journalists do have access and opportunities to be promoted to those top positions. This is a significant downward shift from the 1996 survey where the majority believed that women did have access to managerial positions (60%), perhaps indicating women’s diminished sense of hope at attaining those top jobs. ⁵ In 2012, 36 per cent of respondents believe that women do not have access to decision-making roles (compared with 30% in 1996), and there was an increased ambivalence with 15 per cent unsure (9% in 1996). Respondents from metropolitan newspaper media are more likely than those in other media platforms to believe that female journalists are not given equal opportunity to secure managerial positions (North, 2012). The key themes to arise from the 150 written responses to the question ‘Do you believe women journalists are, in practice, given access and opportunities to be promoted to all types of and levels of managerial positions in the newsroom?’ centred on women self-selecting away from advancement, not wanting positions of authority because of childcare responsibilities, and understanding the industry as inflexible (although not all saw this as a problem). Many note that management in their organisation is a ‘boy’s club’ and that male managers tend to employ other men, even when there are equally skilled women available. An experienced television presenter who worked for a public broadcaster summed up the situation like the following:

Men are traditionally seen as leaders in news and current affairs. A broader range of behaviour and managerial style is acceptable in male journalists - toughness, competitiveness, decisiveness. Women leaders are rare and scrutinized more closely. They are not afforded the latitude in behaviour and managerial style that men are, an [sic] finally that childless women are more likely to succeed than women with children.

A young online news reporter, however, perhaps offers a sense of changing opportunities, saying she left a traditional media outlet because it was not preparing staff for the future of journalism and had no clear promotion routes. In her current job, she is managed by women and this has proved to be a positive experience:

Editor positions are mostly held by men at Fairfax despite a large number of excellent women journalists who work for the company. At the (name of current employer), it is very different. Our Managing Editor and CEO are women, and there is a real sense of equality of opportunity in the office.

Although many respondents articulate clear examples of gender discrimination in their newsroom, some downplay it by suggesting a lack of women in top jobs is ‘unintentional’ or not linked to gender bias per se but rather that women themselves decide that they don’t want to work in a blokey culture:

I’m not sure this is because of any gender bias. In my experience in general news, women are either too smart to want to manage anything in news or tend to leave the industry before they get to the age where they’d occupy a managerial position. Some have had families to nurture or simply don’t aspire to management positions. The one woman I know who was senior enough, not hamstrung by having a family in a family-unfriendly workplace, and aspired to occupying a management position, hit the ‘bloke’ ceiling and gave up. (Commercial TV presenter, aged 45–49)

It’s unintentional, but discrimination is definitely there. If you asked our new CEO if it existed in our workplace he would say ‘no’ but all of the most recent managerial promotions have been to men. (Metropolitan newspaper deputy editor, aged 40–44)

Sometimes women do not want these positions because of the hours, particularly if they have childcare responsibilities. It remains largely a blokey culture at senior levels, which puts many women off. Women mostly have positions of influence, but not real power. (Metropolitan newspaper editor, aged 45–49)

The idea that men ‘homosocially’ reproduce themselves in workplace selection processes is not new to the theory on organisational culture (see Rosabeth Moss Kanter, 1977), and it is made clear in many of the responses to this survey. This occurs, in part, because leadership roles have traditionally been occupied by men and are thus normalised as ‘male’ jobs. Lofgren Nilsson (2010), in her study of journalists in a Swedish TV newsroom, also found similar aspects of homosociality in everyday interaction among male journalists. Rituals form an important part of homosocialty ‘with the main driving forces of expressing and maintaining shared values’ (Lofgren Nilsson, 2010: 11). Rituals are symbolic and the power ‘lies in the fact that they distinguish those who are part of the dominant value system from those who are not’ (Lofgren Nilsson, 2010: 11). The three comments below paint a very clear picture of where and how power is wielded and homosocially share in some newsrooms:

It’s a massive boys’ club. The swearing, crudeness and carousing alienates some women and the one or two who manage to ‘fit in’ are not often held in high regard by the rest of the news floor. The opportunities for promotion come from within the club. (Metropolitan newspaper section editor/reporter, aged 50–55)

As I write this I can hear a clique of blokes guffawing at morning news conference. Not a woman at the table. We are marginalised and excluded by the blokes club because admitting women would change the blokey dynamic … it’s blind prejudice and they simply don’t see it. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged over 56)

There is still an element of the boys’ club. I think it’s still easier for bosses to be familiar and friendly with other men, and therefore to promote them. Some men still tend to think of women as another species who don’t want the top jobs. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged 40–44)

The motherhood dilemma

The large number of women in journalism who do not have children remains a significant indicator that the industry is inflexible and incompatible with motherhood, indicating a failure by many media organisations and the union to respond to the needs of the influx of women who have entered the profession during the past three to four decades. A total of 73 per cent of respondents in this survey do not have children under the age of 15 (about the same as the 1996 report). ⁶ This is the case even though three-quarters of the respondents were aged between 25 and 49 – the age bracket where women are most likely to care for children. Most (65%) said workplace arrangements are too inflexible to accommodate women with childcare responsibilities, closely followed in the multiple-response question by those (63%) who also noted a lack of onsite childcare facilities that make it difficult for women to work overtime or shiftwork, even if they are prepared to do so. Byerly (2011: 19) found that just a third of media organisations in Australia offered childcare assistance. A total of 57 per cent (on par with the 1996 survey finding) agree that their promotional opportunities are affected by their childcare responsibilities, while a large number (20%) were unsure. Only 23 per cent disagreed. The ‘motherhood dilemma’ within the occupation of journalism outlined by the respondents has been identified by researchers around the globe since the late 1970s (Byerly and Warren, 1996; Lafky, 1991; Organ et al., 1979; Ross, 2001; Sieghart and Henry, 1998). As Ross (2001) notes, ‘For women considering having children in the future, the near impossibility of successfully combining family and career still seems an insurmountable problem’ (p. 533).

From the question ‘Can you indicate why women’s promotional opportunities are affected by their childcare responsibilities?’, the major themes to arise were a normalisation of a male-centric view of the job of a journalist, and a lack of onsite care facilities that severely restricts women’s ability to work as much as they would like, which caused inequity with their male colleagues in terms of promotion. The most unsettling element in this data is that women tend to see childcare in the context of neo-liberalism – as their individual problem that they have to personally manage so as to become a valuable, disembodied, autonomous worker. Few respondents note that structural inequality hampers women from having equal opportunity to promotion. This perspective is perhaps not surprising considering the normalising process that is activated by women’s incorporation into a largely male profession where routines that have been engrained by this domination mean that ‘male perspectives are constructed as unproblematic, uncontested and, most importantly, apparently value free’ (Ross, 2001: 533):

Deadlines are deadlines. They are inflexible. Women self-select away from advancement rather than over commit. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged 40–44)

I don’t think it’s a deliberate thing. It’s just that women have to divide their time, don’t want to or can’t work full-time, and that counts them out of a lot of senior positions. (Metropolitan newspaper reporter, aged 35–39)

It is unfortunate women’s promotional opportunities are affected by their child or children, but I do understand and accept why; simply put a person can’t be in two places at once, even if they want to be. It seems more women than men take on the primary carer role, while still trying to be the peak performance journo she used to be. It can’t work, and I think news managers sense that. (Commercial TV reporter, aged 40–44)

The structure of some roles require particular time commitment and/or overtime that many women are keen to do, but can’t support through lack of adequate childcare. We currently support multiple part-time arrangements in our workplace, but part-time or job-share is difficult for some positions – it disadvantages other staff. (Metropolitan radio chief of staff, aged 40–44)

In the responses above, we learn that it is acceptable in some women’s views for mothers to be disadvantaged in promotion because women cannot be carers and also work at their ‘peak performance’. We also learn that when women are given flexibility, it’s their choices that then discriminate against other staff. With those types of responses from senior staff, it is little wonder that some female journalists, as a last resort, attempt to work double time to please others. The respondent below makes us acutely aware that the so-called flexible rosters disguised as ‘condensed shifts’, are not, in reality, flexible and certainly not sustainable:

When my child was born, my boss was fantastic. He changed my working hours to accommodate my life as a new mother. My work was concentrated into three very long days, and I had on average four days off a week to care for my child. I’m not sure whether this was largesse on his part or whether it just suited the network at the time, but I was grateful to him anyway. But then new management came in, far less sympathetic to working mothers at that stage, and I deliberately took a lesser role at work to care for my child. Within two weeks, the new bosses then reneged on the new hours I’d negotiated, extending them by two hours a day. When I complained and said I’d negotiated those specific hours because I had [to] pick up my child from pre-school, I was abused and literally screamed at by my news director. It reduced me to tears. He could easily have asked somebody else to read the 30 second low rating, mid-afternoon update that had meant the extension to my shift, but instead I was forced to spend two hours at work I hadn’t factored into the day (which began at 6am), wreaking havoc on the carefully planned, schedule I’d worked up to care for my child. Family friendly? Not! (Commercial TV presenter, aged 45–49)

Here, the respondent individualises the problem of having to care for a child which leads her to condense her working week into ‘three very long days’ starting at 6 am. Her initial appreciative discourse ‘He changed my working hours to accommodate my life as a new mother’ is still partly understood, however, as suiting the network at the time (or, as she says, ‘largesse’). The respondent knows that flexible work arrangements are all about successful negotiations and that they can be easily taken away. Australian workplaces are governed by the Fair Work Act 2009 which allows parents (and others, for example, those with a disability) to request flexible working arrangements including changed work hours or work patterns. Those arrangements have to be negotiated with the employer, and can be refused based on a number of criteria including because ‘the new working arrangements requested by the employee would be too costly for the employer’ (Fair Work Ombudsman, 2014). The respondent quickly realises that the ‘flexibility’ offered by one ‘generous’ boss is tenuous when new bosses extend her already long and carefully planned working days. Her ability to work and care for a child is at the behest of private negotiations with individual bosses who do not have to agree to any flexibility. It is also interesting, but perhaps not surprising, that the respondent has no discourse around gender inequality through which to understand, or frame, her situation. She considers herself the one with the problem, even though she is the one enduing much more intensive work patterns, presumably, than her colleagues, or perhaps even her partner/husband.

The other problem highlighted in some responses to the issue of workplace flexibility for women with children is the fear of never doing enough. While regional/rural publications are often viewed by journalists as less deadline driven and more flexible for women, the comment below gives us pause for thought:

I am able to negotiate some flexibility during school holidays but the nature of a newspaper with deadlines makes this difficult and I have to work very hard, without any breaks, when I am at work to ensure a lot of copy is produced so I feel I have not inconvenienced anyone by shortening my hours during school holidays, for example. (Rural newspaper reporter, aged 40–44)

In reality, there is no flexibility for this respondent, just an intensified work pattern with the added burden of not feeling that she has ‘inconvenienced’ colleagues. It is not clear if she has been asked to work without designated breaks, but it has been allowed to happen because again the respondent sees flexibility as her problem. In this instance, the respondent shows an ethic of care that attempts to satisfy the needs of others (Ring, 1994), above the needs of herself. This discourse of care is often made to the point of self-sacrifice (Ring, 1994: 137), and indeed, in some of the comments made in this survey that is sadly the case.

The ramifications of flexible work matters is much more than the guilty feeling of receiving ‘special privileges’, or the worry of not wanting to burden other staff. In an observant comment, a young television reporter explains the limited career path for those women who undertake the simple or repetitive work offered under the guise of flexibility:

Women volunteer to work early and late shifts to fit in with their childcare duties. But these shifts are not where the best or most highly regarded work is, they are often filled with simple, repetitive work. Interestingly, there is a male employee who works part time so he can care for his children. In addition to having the most flexible hours in the workplace he performs the most highly regarded work and is not required to work the difficult shift hours or the dull shifts. (Metropolitan public television reporter, aged 25–29)

I’d like to finish this section on childcare by highlighting two of the many comments about the notion that women self-censor away from promotion, which was typically offered as a reason why there are so few women in decision-making roles:

Many women choose not to work full-time nor to make themselves available for the positions available because they believe it will cause undue stress on their home lives. In most cases, it is the staff member who makes the choose [sic] that limits their promotion – not the business. Some jobs simply demand more than they can give and childcare is not the issue – it is the mental commitment more than the physical restrictions that matter. (Metropolitan chief of staff, aged 40–44)

Promotional opportunities are affected if a mother chooses to undertake childcare responsibilities. Most women that I know in the workplace choose to scale down their ambition once they have children. There are others who remain ambitious and employ other people to look after their children. In my view it’s not possible to give 100% to motherhood and work at the same time. One has to suffer at the expense of the other. (Metropolitan radio producer/presenter, aged 45–49)

Both respondents explain childcare responsibilities as a ‘choice’ that a mother can undertake (or not), and similarly that women with those responsibilities ‘choose to scale down their ambition’. Both comments serve to absolve the rational, disembodied organisation of its obligation to equity polices. Motherhood, in this way, is placed firmly in the domestic sphere, out of the labour force and therefore out of the ‘choices’ of organisations to support women (and men) who care for children as they do women and men who do not care for children. My reading of the women in this survey is that most do not easily decide to ‘scale down their ambition’ for any reason, but many do find that the childcare dilemma forces them to do so because the Australian media industry, like many others, largely refuses to provide adequate onsite childcare facilities. Flexible work arrangements appear not to have relieved the ‘burden’ of motherhood in the occupation of journalism.

Conclusion

Childcare responsibilities are often cited by both male and female journalists, in this survey and others, as the main reason why women do not seek or attain in any great number, key decision-making positions in news organisations (North, 2009a; Torkkola and Ruoho, 2011). It is, however, not as simple as accepting a single essentialist framework to understand women’s disadvantage in promotional opportunities. Having childcare responsibilities alone does not explain why women’s careers in journalism do not progress as well as men’s. This article has provided, for the first time, significant insights from a large cohort of women who work in the Australian news media about how they perceive their workplaces and their job opportunities. Many have a sophisticated understanding of how gender plays a substantial part in their disadvantage, although certainly not all agree that there is gender bias in their workplaces or in their promotional opportunities. This analysis has allowed, among other things, an exploration of why there is such a gulf between women’s influx into the lower and middle ranks of the industry in the past three decades and the limited number who attain key decision-making positions. Many responses to this survey reinforce findings from a 1996 industry report (MEAA/IFJ) and various other international research projects (most recently Byerly, 2013) that acknowledge an overarching and unacceptable culture that privileges male journalists over female journalists in a variety of ways. In this research, a blokey culture sits alongside a perceived lack of organisational support for truly flexible work arrangements, and a lack of onsite childcare facilities that would enable mothers to work at their chosen capacity and progress in their occupation on par with their male colleagues. The article has also provided revelations about how some women have attempted to utilise flexible work policies but have found them to be tenuous, or fleeting based on perceived favours from particular (usually male) bosses, or who have accepted ‘condensed’ and largely unsustainable intensified working hours so as not to adversely affect other staff members.

While the overall picture presented here is one of ongoing systemic gender discrimination in relation to career progression, it should not be read as totally negative or without some progress. The mere fact that such a large number of women have been surveyed about their workplace experiences and many have provided long and articulate responses with a basic to thorough understanding of gender inequality provides some hope for change. This is not, however, to suggest that it is women alone who should act to engender change, or to suggest that the answer is simply the need for more women in decision-making roles. More women and men in decision-making roles with a politicised understanding of gender discrimination would certainly be a starting point, but the most pressing need is for a cultural shift in how media managers and owners understand newsworkers, and particularly women who care for children. An open dialogue needs to be established between female journalists, the industry union and media organisations with a view to those discussions forming the basis of revised policies that better support women. Moreover, media organisations, the union and the academy need to ask why experiences specific to women are being ignored, dismissed or downplayed as not worthy of consideration at every level. The consequences of continuing to ignore women’s experiences and disadvantage are that newsroom decision-makers remain predominantly male, ensuring that news is filtered through masculine news values, reinforcing women’s secondary status as fully participating and informed citizens.