Women's Work in Public Relations

*Women’s Work (in PR): An edited collection*

Contacts:
Liz Bridgen. Sheffield Hallam University and Sarah Williams, Buckinghamshire New University
Email: womensworkinpr at gmail.com

This edited collection takes critical and socio-cultural stance on public relations which questions the dominant paradigm and the assumption that public relations should only be viewed as (potential) profession or strategic management function.

While public relations can be a management discipline it is so much more than this and the performance and practice of public relations which takes place outside the management or professional sphere should not be ignored or othered. Current research frequently focusses on the value of public relations strategy and management to a relatively conventional range of organisations and distances itself from the unorthodox, the tactical and the everyday – which serves to ghettoise those practicing the ‘wrong sort’ of public relations and removes them from conversations about public relations practice and theory.

This collection of essays from a range of feminist perspectives on the lived experience of women in public relations demonstrates that the drive to prioritise the management and effectiveness of public relations work in literature actually overlooks the everyday lives and experiences of people – particularly women – working in public relations across the world.

This collection on everyday working life of public relations across the world provides insight into what goes on ‘behind the scenes’ in this little-understood occupation and argues that to focus on the value and purpose of public relations activities perpetuates a patriarchal and western view of public relations that bears little relation to the work that is actually carried out in the name of public relations. The obsession with justifying and showing the value of public relations work devalues work that doesn’t fit within a management paradigm – particularly women’s work and work in marginalized countries and occupations.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Introduction: Because We never See it doesn’t mean It Never Happens; Elizabeth Bridgen and Sarah Williams
SECTION 1: Marginalised Identities
Chapter 2. PR Power in the 1990s: Sex, Sexuality, and Sexism – a UK Perspective; Heather Yaxley and Sarah Bowman
Box 1. Practitioner Story: The Shift from Unsupportive Sisterhood to Enlightened Empowerment – a Personal Perspective of Three Decades of Practice; Diane Green
Chapter 3. Unequal Opportunity: Experience and Expectation of 21st Century Maternity Provision in the Communications Workplace; Susan Kinnear and Tess Lhermitte-Russell
Chapter 4. “Just Like Any Other”: Public Relations Careers in the Adult Industries; Elizabeth Bridgen
SECTION 2: Global Perspectives
Chapter 5. Female Public Relations Academics in Spain; Isabel Ruiz-Mora, Ileana Zeler, and Andrea Oliveira
Box 2. Practitioner Story: Women in PR: Frontline Peacekeeping in Post-Conflict Bosnia; Sheena Thomson
Chapter 6. The Experiences of Women Professionals in Turkey: What is It like to Work for a Communication Agency?; Begüm Ekmekçigil and Olesya Gorbunova Öner
Box 3. Practitioner story: Stop Drinking the Dirty Water; Jade Bilowol
Chapter 7. “Always Being on”: Exploring the Experience of Burnout Among Female Professionals in the Australian Public Relations Industry; Jade Bilowol, Jenny A Robinson, Deborah Wise, and Marianne Sison
Chapter 8. Female PR Professors in Brazil: A Contemporary Liberal Feminist-Centred Study; Fabiana Gondim Mariutti, and Cleuza Gertrudes Gimenes Cesca
Box 4. Practitioner Story: A Brazilian Woman Tale: Letter to Remind You to Have your Voice in Time and Space; Fabiana Gondim Mariutti
Chapter 9. Flex Appeal: Flexible Working, Women Public Relations Leaders, and My Own Experience as a Non-Parent Woman Leader in Public Relations; Aimee Postlez
SECTION 3: Developing Theoretical Frameworks to Make Sense of the Ordinary
Chapter 10. Performing Professionalism: A Story in Three Acts; Sarah Williams
Box 5. Practitioner Story: How to have a 40-Year Career in PR as a Woman; Bron Eames
Chapter 11. A Multi-Generational Telling of Women’s Work in Public Relations; Heather Yaxley
Chapter 12. Women’s-Only Networking in PR: Discourse Analysis of the Entanglement of Barriers and Benefits; Keren Darmon
Chapter 13. Using Ethnography to Explore Women’s Work in Public Relations; Sarah Williams