For Better Journalism, for Better Job Conditions: Women Journalists in Mid-Twentieth-Century Colombia

In the 1940s and 1950s, Colombian women journalists were among the boldest women in addressing issues of labor discrimination in the country. In their writing, they encouraged debates about women’s rights for job opportunities, and better salaries, while generating more open discussions about women’s pink-collar jobs such as their own journalistic practice. More importantly, they persisted in creating their own press projects against prejudices that established journalism as a male profession. In doing so, they transgressed rules and expectations about women’s work and feminine roles in a developing society. Unlike most of Latin American historiography that considers labor issues, this paper prioritizes the viewpoints of the middle class, particularly those of women leaders in Colombian print culture. It shows that although women’s newspapers were often short-lived, they meant a victory for these women as far as they conceived them as alternatives to the male-oriented versions of journalism. Not only did women carved out distinguished positions in journalism and defended women’s jobs in new economic arenas, they also criticized traditional male journalism as a platform that only contributed to the deterioration of the nation as it deepened a bloody confrontation between political parties in Colombia. In mid-twentieth-century Colombia, women journalists took the few advantages they had and studied journalism when they could. Against all odds, these women also defended their job as journalists and redefined the practice of public writing as a field that uplifted the nation whenever women engaged in it. They proposed novel ways to understand their labor.