“Pseudo-Feminization”of the Journalistic Profession in Spain: The Case of Women War Correspondents

Although the profession of war correspondent has traditionally been considered a man´s job, in the last decades, several women have joined the profession in Spain. Today, there are dozens of women working for the Spanish media, covering armed conflicts, violent crises and jihadi terrorism. On the other hand, despite the apparent feminization of the journalistic profession in Spain, defended by many authors since the early 2.000 years, one can speak of a pseudofeminización or a false feminization of the job. To this end, the author has made a case study of the women's professional group of war correspondents. This research is aimed at dismantling the triumphalist theses that state that the journalistic profession is today a feminized profession. To this end, the author has carried out a multimethod research, based on the triangulation between the qualitative method through in-depth interviews and audiovisual analysis. She has discovered that the profession is still a male profession, from different findings: there is a high abandonment of the profession throughout the trajectory, there are persistent phenomena such as glass-ceilings and there is an understudied wage gap. The qualitative results show that in addition to the gender gap that limits their careers, these women face harassment practices ranging from harassment to sexual assault.