“Bargaining With Patriarchy”: Newsroom Experiences of Women Journalists in Turkey and Greece

Abstract

According to feminist news critics, news structure has a gender. It is “masculine” because the codes and ethics of journalism have been designed in male-ordered newsrooms. Do female journalists make a difference in the news, or is journalism gender-blind? What strategies, interventions, and initiatives are women journalists developing (if they ever can) to cope with androcentric newsroom culture and practices? What are the consequences of their bargaining with patriarchal newsroom hierarchies and practices? The rich news criticism literature’s answers to these questions are as complementary as contradictory. Based on in-depth interviews with journalists from Turkey and Greece, this article pictures the hegemanic newsroom culture of the two countries and discusses the bargaining and/or consenting strategies of women journalists with masculinity through rereading the participant narrations.