The "girls': women press photographers and the representation of women in Australian newspapers

Abstract

In 1975, Fairfax News commemorated International Women's Year by appointing Lorrie Graham as its first female cadet photographer. Women only joined the photographic staff of newspapers in significant numbers from the 1980s and were more likely to be employed on regional newspapers than the metropolitan dailies. This article draws on interviews with male and female press photographers collected for the National Library of Australia's oral history programme. It provides an overview of the history of women press photographers in Australia, situating their working lives within an overtly masculine newspaper culture where gender inequity was entrenched. It also examines the gendered and evolving ..