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"In the late nineteenth century, the first wave of female journalists began writing in the French daily press. Yet, while they undeniably opened doors for the next generations of educated women, sexist hiring practices, assumptions about women's aptitudes as reporters, and more subtle gender biases continued to saturate the industry in the decades that followed. Gender, Generation, and Journalism in France, 1910-1940 investigates the careers and written work of ten women who regularly reported in the national, Paris-based dailies between 1910 and 1940. Addressing the role of mentorship, family connections, gendered behaviors, reporting styles, and subject matter, Mary Lynn Stewart debunks lingering essentialist notions about women's entry into journalism, showing that struggling newspapers, attempting to reverse declining circulation, hired women to cover subjects that expanded to include international relations, colonial conflicts, trials, local politics and social problems. Through content analysis, deixis, and systematic comparisons of several women and men reporting on the same or different events, she further queries claims about a feminine style, finding more similarities than differences between masculine and feminine reporting. Documenting the persistence of gender discrimination in the hiring, assigning, and assessment of women reporters in the French daily press, Gender, Generation, and Journalism in France, 1910-1940 demonstrates that, through the support of their female colleagues, women managed to succeed despite a variety of challenges."--

This article compares the journalism and literary output of Colette and a less famous French writer, Germaine Beaumont, before, during and after they worked at a major daily newspaper, Le Matin, 1910–24, considering them as members of two different generations of women entering the male-dominated and masculine-defined occupation of journalist. The article addresses the effects of their gender on their employment as literary and women's page columnists, respectively, but not as reporters with by-lines appearing on the front page, i.e. the prestige positions and location in daily newspapers. A second line of enquiry examines how their choices of female protagonists and modern feminine perspective in their journalistic and literary works contributed to the late recognition of Colette's genius and the (contemporary) near ignorance of Beaumont's oeuvre. A third argument shows how Colette, a successful member of the second generation, actively assisted Beaumont, a member of the third generation, in getting a position at Le Matin, and then acted as a model of good work and writing practices for the younger author. Equally importantly, Beaumont acknowledged and applauded Colette for mentoring her. The article is part of a larger investigation into the second and third generation of newspaper women and cites evidence of similar experiences in the reception of other women journalists' writing as well as the role of cross-generational encouragement among women journalists.