Women are commonplace in newsrooms these days, but that wasn't always the case - so what of the brave ladies who blazed the trail?
They challenged the status quo and dedicated their lives to telling the stories of others. In Bold Types, author Patricia Clarke shares the story of some of Australia's pioneering female journalists.
Spanning from 1860 to the end of World War II, the book shares the journeys of more than a dozen independent and adventurous women who fought tirelessly for female equality - both abroad and on the home front.
Among the women whose stories are shared in the book is Anna Blackwell, who became the first Australian female journalist to work as a foreign correspondent in 1860.
Despite the rare nature of her post, Anna had to deal with a great deal of discrimination, being forced to work for a wage that was dwarfed by that of her male contemporaries, and often being relegated to the realms of human interest and gossip stories.
Still, Anna - writing under the pen name Stella, managed to forge out an impressive career for herself against all odds, developing her own distinctive reporting style.
Anna's chapter gives a glimpse into not only the very different nature of gender roles in the 19th century, but also the different nature of foreign correspondent reporting in itself - harking back to a time when the only way for reporters to convey information to their homelands was by sending handwritten letters by barge.
It also recounts Anna's thrilling escape from Paris in 1970, just as the Prussian army was about to besiege the city - her reports of the escape would become the highlight of her professional career.
Then there was Iris Dexter who reported domestically on World War II.
Iris challenged convention in more than just her professional life - living with another man while still married to her husband, whom a judge had refused to grant her a divorce from despite the fact she had been a victim of domestic violence.
Her personal life became the subject of a number of salacious articles. She finally received her wish for a divorce when her husband's own request was granted due to his desire to remarry.
Despite the personal problems which besieged her, Iris had a highly successful professional life. Early in her career she had a successful film review column. Throughout the Great Depression she stayed afloat by working in advertising and supplementing her income by writing freelance articles. In 1940 she landed a job with a popular women's magazine, and would go on to forge a reputation as its ace reporter.
The book's author Dr Clarke was a trailblazer in her own right - she was the only woman on the Melbourne staff at the Australian News and Information Bureau in the early 1950s.
She shares stories of her own life and career in the book's epilogue, harking back to an era of newsrooms which were filled with cigarette smoke and the clatter of typewriters.
Bold Types provides a fascinating insight into not only the changing role of women in newsrooms over time, but also the changing role of newsrooms themselves.
Bold Types - How Australia's First Women Journalists Blazed a Trail (National Library of Australia, RRP $34.99. To order click HERE.
