Definition
Suffrage journalism took various forms, ranging from articles by professional journalists that advocated votes for women to publications produced by suffrage activists and organizations. In Victorian newspapers, women journalists generally did not cover political issues but instead wrote about what were “considered to be ‘light’ topics, such as fashion, the arts, domestic issues and society gossip” (Chambers et al. 2004: 16). Though not exclusively written by women, suffrage journalism offered a unique opportunity for women writers to convey their political perspectives (Steiner 1983:4) and publish work outside of the constraints of this “women’s journalism.”
Introduction
Because of the work of pioneering women like Flora Shaw, Eliza Lynn Linton, and Jessie White, it was not unknown for women to be employed as journalists in the late Victorian era, even though the 1891 census listed only 661 women as “authors, editors, journalists” (in Sebba 1994: 32). This discrepancy was...
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References
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Neylon, C. (2022). Suffrage Journalism. In: Scholl, L., Morris, E. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women’s Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78318-1_176
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