Inbook,
Women in Communication Research
page 1-13. American Cancer Society, (2016)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118766804.wbiect106
Abstract
This entry establishes a historical milieu for women in communication. Women's significance to the field has been hard won, progressing over two lengthy stages: (1) in the early mid-twentieth century, when women worked as part of a research team or couple, and (2) from the mid-twentieth century until the 1980s, when women “jumped the fence” into stable academic positions. Currently, women have taken up positions of power in the field, but they are still the exception to the rule: More women than men earn PhDs in communication, yet fewer women move into the professoriate. This entry highlights the early history of the field and features interviews with Gertrude J. Robinson, Brenda Dervin, and Sue Curry Jansen, who have been powerful women in the field, yet who also assert that their scholarly legitimacy has still been at times a “challenge” to those defining communication research.
