'The common picture of the war correspondent is a heroic, male reporter on the frontline, but women reporters have been more numerous and significant than we ever knew. Against the vehement opposition of newspaper editors, their male colleagues and military hierarchies, twentieth-century women journalists grew increasingly determined to report war from conflict zones and have their stories printed beyond the women’s pages of the newspapers.
'In Australian Women War Reporters, Jeannine Baker provides a much-needed account of the pioneering women who reported from the biggest conflicts of the twentieth century. Two women defied the orders of Lord Kitchener to cover the fighting on the Western Front and others such as Agnes Macready, Anne Matheson and Lorraine Stumm witnessed and wrote about momentous events including the South African War at the turn of the century, the rise of Nazism, the liberation of the concentration camps, the return of Australian POWs, the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the beginnings of the Vietnam War. These women carved a path for new generations of women war correspondents who have built upon their legacy.
'Jeannine Baker deftly draws out the links between the experiences of these women and the contemporary realities faced by women journalists of war, allowing us to see both in a new light.' (Publication summary)
'This well-researched volume documents the experiences of the more than thirty Australasian women who worked as war reporters for the Australian and overseas press between 1900 and 1975. It focuses on the challenges they faced as females working in the undeniably masculine realm of war correspondence. Some of these, such as restricted access to combat zones, were physical. However, the main challenge they faced was attitudinal, particularly the prevailing view that women were unsuited to war reporting and should confine their efforts to the ‘softer side’ of war news given their assumed inherent affinity with the domestic sphere. The theme is introduced with a comment from Sydney journalist Iris Dexter who in 1941, in response to an invitation to write a war-related column, exclaimed, ‘I suppose they want what is rather loosely known as the woman’s angle … and there’s nothing I hate more than the woman’s angle on anything’ (1).' (Introduction)
'Australian Women War Reporters traverses the field of conflict reporting by Australasian women beginning with Agnes Macready in South Africa 1901, writing for the Catholic Press about a hospital being prepared for the wounded: “Of course I see with a woman’s eyes and my point of view is limited”' (Publication introduction)
'Australian Women War Reporters traverses the field of conflict reporting by Australasian women beginning with Agnes Macready in South Africa 1901, writing for the Catholic Press about a hospital being prepared for the wounded: “Of course I see with a woman’s eyes and my point of view is limited”' (Publication introduction)
'This well-researched volume documents the experiences of the more than thirty Australasian women who worked as war reporters for the Australian and overseas press between 1900 and 1975. It focuses on the challenges they faced as females working in the undeniably masculine realm of war correspondence. Some of these, such as restricted access to combat zones, were physical. However, the main challenge they faced was attitudinal, particularly the prevailing view that women were unsuited to war reporting and should confine their efforts to the ‘softer side’ of war news given their assumed inherent affinity with the domestic sphere. The theme is introduced with a comment from Sydney journalist Iris Dexter who in 1941, in response to an invitation to write a war-related column, exclaimed, ‘I suppose they want what is rather loosely known as the woman’s angle … and there’s nothing I hate more than the woman’s angle on anything’ (1).' (Introduction)
