“Nobody really wants to be called bossy or domineering”:Feminist critique of media “industry speak”

Black, Samiyya and Estrada, Carolina and de la Fuente, Mirza Carolina and Orozco, Ashley and Trabazo, Andrew and de la Vega, Sofia and Gutsche Jr, Robert (2019) “Nobody really wants to be called bossy or domineering”:Feminist critique of media “industry speak”. Journalism Practice, 13 (1). pp. 35-51. ISSN 1751-2794

Abstract

This article examines talks given by 12 female media professionals at a Southern US university’s center on women in communication between 2013 and 2015 to identify the influence of hegemonic masculinity in industry speak about women and professionalism in the fields of journalism, advertising, and public relations. This paper applies a feminist critique of discussions about “work–life balance,” “leaning in,” “emotion,” and language about the role of technology and innovation in women’s careers, to argue that inherent in these discussions about media professionalism are traits that perpetuate binary notions of feminine–masculine traits of the workplace. As a whole, these messages fail to account for notions of intersectionality and perpetuate inequality and masculine power for future professionals.