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- Title
"Every Year There's a Pretty Girl Who Comes to New York and Pretends to Be a Writer": Gender, the New Journalism, and the Early Careers of Gloria Steinem and Gail Sheehy.
- Authors
Phillips, Lisa
- Abstract
The core works that critics, scholars, and readers associate with the New Journalism are largely written by men, with subject matter that often privileges male sources and perspectives. Yet several women writers consciously embraced the reporting methods, style, subjectivity, narrative structure, and subject matter of the New Journalism, achieving levels of commercial success comparable to their male colleagues'. Despite these accomplishments, the legacy of female New Journalists remains tenuous, with Joan Didion being the only woman consistently seen as part of the core canon of New Journalism writers. Several others occupy a far less certain position. This analysis will address this question by looking at the process by which the accomplishments, writing style, and reportorial methods of two women journalists, Gloria Steinem and Gail Sheehy, connect them to the New Journalism, and the social and cultural forces that shaped their professional reputations and legacies. Both women were enormously successful writers who embraced the aesthetic liberties and goals of the New Journalism and found opportunity within the movement. Yet accounts of their early careers suggest that as women they were not free of gendered influences, which would affect not only the journalism they produced, but also how they and their work were perceived by audiences, the media world, and history. These hindrances have had a substantial impact on scholarly and popular understanding of the New Journalism and its legacy.
- Subjects
WOMEN journalists; CREATIVE nonfiction; REPORTERS &; reporting; WOMEN authors; JOURNALISM; GENDER; STEINEM, Gloria, 1934-
- Publication
Literary Journalism Studies, 2021, Vol 13, Issue 1/2, p77
- ISSN
1944-897X
- Publication type
Article