"Woman's Sphere" in Journalism
There are certain departments of journalism which women have always had,
and probably will always have, to themselves: I mean the departments
comprising fashion, cookery and domestic economy, furniture, the toilet,
and (less exclusively) weddings and what is called society news. It is
unlikely that men will ever seriously compete with women in the business
of supplying the stuff which women as a sex are supposed to read. My own
belief is that men could deal very capably with these subjects, or most of
them, if they chose to assume the task; but there happens to be a
superstition that such matters are beyond a man's scope; men accept the
superstition, and leave them alone. Hence the distinctive "woman's sphere"
in journalism.
Now almost all the work falling within this sphere is done badly--with a
lack of technical skill which can only be described as shameful. I have
argued (in Chapter II.) that the defect is attributable to the early
training which women receive. A further explanation lies in the fact that,
in their particular field, they are never stimulated to improvement by the
sight of better performances than their own; the result, viewed
dispassionately, is deplorable.
In the first place, nearly all women's work dealing with feminine subjects
is in a special degree disfigured by slipshod writing. This is
particularly true of fashion articles, which are on the whole worse
written even than police reports in country newspapers. Of the scores of
fashion articles appearing week by week in journals of standing, not five
per cent. would pass muster as the work of men. I take up, for an example,
one of the "great London dailies," containing a short signed contribution
by a journalist whose fame as a chronicler of modes is unrivalled, a lady
who earns the wage of a Cabinet Minister, and has indeed arrived at the
highest places in her profession; and I find in the article the
following--shall I call them?--lapses from the rectitude of sound writing.
Hackneyed phrases and quotations:--
"Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."
"Inclines towards the portly."
"_De rigueur_."
"Hold on our affections."
"Ignore the charms of."
Strange word:--
"Becomingness."
Bad punctuation:--
"So that such a jacket be cut well and worn by a woman of fairly slim
proportions round the waist and hips it will be exceedingly successful,
but she who inclines towards the portly should rigidly ignore the charms
of the jacket with the belt." Unless this sentence has a comma after
"well," it bears a meaning quite different from what the writer intended;
it needs also a comma after "hips" and a semicolon after "successful."
Words wrongly used:--
"It is one of the _earnest_ principles of my faith to commend
fashion." A principle cannot be earnest, and faith cannot be an action.
The writer probably means that she sincerely thinks it her duty to commend
fashion.
"There are only two hats _well_ worn in Paris just now--this style
and the small velvet toque trimmed with a group of plumes." For "well,"
read "largely" or "extensively." Note the other fault in this sentence.
Wrong or clumsy constructions, laxity in the use of metaphors, &c.:--
"[We may] read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest their different charms."
Fancy reading or learning or digesting a charm!
"I have no objection to the lion lying down with the lamb--the Persian
lamb--or rather, I should say, to the sable being allied to this fur, or
to the combination of black caracule, or sable with ermine; any two furs,
or indeed three furs, put together, I recognise as appropriate and
elegant, but the frivolous working of furs with coloured satins and silks
now obtaining the affections of the many is not at all to my taste." To
comment on this piece of composition would be wicked.
"There is a great fancy shown by the authorities this year _to_
elaborate furs." In English one says "_take_ a fancy _to_" but
"_show_ a fancy _for_."
"_It is_ small wonder that the fashion has obtained _such_ a
hold on our affections, because _it is so_ becoming if _it is_
not overdone."
"A single row of white pearls next the fair or even dark throat of a woman
has always a beneficial effect upon her complexion." Has a woman then two
throats?
"And talking about a beneficial effect upon a woman's complexion, let me
mention once again the exceeding _becomingness_ of the new shades of
blue, these being rather of the sugar-paper order of blue, but a little
lighter in colour perhaps, yet having _that_ vivid tone about
_it_. _This_ is freely mixed with dark blue, the lighter shade
being used for _making_ trimmings to bodices, or indeed _to
make_ an entire bodice, while the dark cloth forms the skirt and coat.
The hat which completes _it_ will take every shade of blue." Observe
particularly the two "its" and the "this," neither of which refers
properly to any substantive.
So much for the craftsmanship of one of our most celebrated
women-journalists! When such a person, writing over her own name in the
columns of a renowned and powerful paper, may thus brazenly ignore the
elementary principles of composition, it may be guessed what latitude
of carelessness and error is allowed to obscurer performers in obscurer
sheets.
* * * * *
It is not only in the apparently trivial but really important details of
style that women's work falls short, but in qualities even more vital.
Fashion, to refer again to that branch of journalism, is a complicated and
difficult subject, requiring for its adequate treatment the utmost
orderliness and lucidity. Yet fashion articles are seldom arranged with
any skill, and seldom lucid. The subject is usually handled after a
haphazard method resulting in misty paragraphs of which often not even the
writers could explain the meaning. It is said that men cannot understand
fashion articles. Certainly they cannot, but the fault is not theirs. Over
and over again I have heard expert fashion-journalists confess that they
had failed to comprehend the writings of their colleagues. If articles on
dress were properly done, men could understand, though they might not be
interested in them.
Fashion gives the widest scope for the journalist's art. The constant
change, the bewildering variety of it, offer opportunities for descriptive
and critical work which, if they were seized, might result in articles as
interesting, as accomplished, as distinguished, as any in the literary
reviews. But these opportunities are uniformly missed.
Cookery, that is to say practical cookery, gives fewer opportunities than
fashion for the display of merely literary skill. It is a subject which
demands from the journalist clearness and thoroughness. The average
cookery article may be passably clear so far as it goes, but it is rarely
thorough, and so it fails in usefulness. Writers upon cookery in women's
papers have been content, without thinking upon what is really wanted, to
follow the methods of cookery books, ignoring the truism that cookery
books, by reason of their omissions and silences, are valuable only to
efficient cooks, who stand in no deep need of them. It is to the
inexperienced cook that cookery articles are designed to appeal, and
therefore they should be exhaustive, describing processes exactly,
measuring quantities with precision, taking nothing for granted, leaving
nothing to the imagination. That cookery articles, even if read, are
certainly not acted upon, is proved by the monotony of the suburban
dinner. And they are not acted upon because the reader finds them
incomplete, "sketchy," and superficial.
It would be possible to take all the other subjects coming within "woman's
sphere" in journalism, and to show that women have failed in the treatment
of them to reach even a moderate standard of competence. Look, for another
instance, at the reports of weddings and society entertainments, all done
after one execrable model, dull and perfunctory.
* * * * *
I bring this general indictment in order that the eyes of the aspirant may
be opened to the opportunities which await her. A brilliant future lies
before the woman who will devote to these neglected women's subjects
skilled craftmanship and the enthusiasm of an artist, of which surely they
are as worthy as anything else in journalism. At present it seems as if
the women who write for women are content to remain all their lives mere
amateurs of the pen; the one who first puts herself to the trouble of
becoming an expert may rely upon making a sensation in the world of
editors.