Introduction: This issue of medien & zeit asks why and how women have been systematically removed from the history of the press, how it has come to pass that their contribution to journalism has been largely ignored. I will attempt to answer this question not through historical analysis, but by considering the ways in which both the profession and the academy define journalism. I will examine journalistic discourses through the lens of my own research into contemporary women journalists. I am currently examining the professional identity of women working in a sub-field of contemporary British journalism, which I define as feminine journalism. This sub-field is composed of market-driven journalism aimed at women, is organised around consumption and the body and is found in women’s magazines and in the sections of newspapers aimed at a female audience. My inquiry into the professional lives of journalists working within this field has revealed the partial, gendered nature of both the professional and academic constructions of journalism. The universal figure of the journalist in both the industry and the academy is a man engaged in news journalism. This figure is of limited efficacy when applied to large areas of the profession that have historically been produced by and for women. The limitations of these constructions leave us with an incomplete image of journalism both past and present and go some way to explaining the absence of women from its history…