Page 20 - To Dragma November 1924

H, TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN IN
JOURNALISM

T ^ I F T E E N YEARS ago the woman who was brave enough to intro-
duce herself professionally as a "reporter" received a deluge

of personal comments upon her unheard-of choice of a career.
I f the object of her interview were a man, she was met with
strained tolerance and not infrequently, with outright disapproval.
Women were apt to exclaim: " M y , how do you ever think of all
those things!" with just the least inference that the ability to
think of "all those things" which commonly go into the making
of a newspaper story was—well, not quite nice.

Less than ten years ago women writers on leading metropoli-
tan papers were still referred to as "sob sisters." Recently, a
well known journalist explained that in the good old days when
reporters were all of the masculine gender, they "covered" fires,
political news, city hall hews and prize fights, exclusively. Any-
thing, he said, which fell outside these distinctly man's world
limits was copy f o r the sob sister, who was known to have a rare
touch with a murder, a lost child, or an erring wife. Every
newspaper office had its sob sister—but only one. That, he ex-
plained, was enough.

Today the "sob sister" has changed her spots. She lost her
name when it became generally known that the ability to write
a good "sob" story was only one of her qualifications—she does
everything now, society, straight news, rewrite work, investi-
gating, feature stories, police reporting and not infrequently, sport
writing. I have heard of two or three women reporters who
boasted that they had "covered" football and baseball games.
Last week I talked to the only woman reporter in Minneapolis
who interviewed Babe Ruth on a recent visit here. A n d she
wasn't a bit afraid of the K i n g of Swat, either. Simply because
she knew what to ask him !

Today there are more than 9,000 women journalists in the
United States. Between 1910 and 1920 women authors, editors
and reporters increased in number 40 per cent. This tremendous
increase in the number of women in journalism is so remarkable
that it is often the subject of comment. Not long ago I heard a
vice president of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World
make this statement: