For the Newsroom and the Classroom w/ Mary Bock

Mary Bock has taught courses on gender in the news at The University of Texas at Austin for more than a decade. Last year, the former journalist and associate professor in the School of Journalism and Media, released a new textbook, Gender and Journalism: An Intersectional Approach, which explores issues such as gender, race, social class, and sexuality in news.

The book is based on her course, Gender and the News, previously Women and the News, which she changed to make it more gender inclusive. 

“The more I taught the class, the more I realized that there was a need to discuss the way journalists cover gender and the way gender affects them in the newsroom. The book is about both those things, and then the third basic thrust of the book is about the role of language and our understanding of gender.”

This is the third book Bock has written. She has edited and co-authored two others. 

While writing this latest book, Bock was not only surprised but embarrassed and angered that the information she was researching and writing about was not taught to her as an undergrad. 

Bock earned her bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. She said she did not learn about the many women who fought for the right to practice journalism, including Ida B. Wells, Jovita Idar and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who she learned about late in her academic career. Bock realized that many journalism students are not taught about their stories and how these women served their communities. 

“I wrote this book because there was no textbook for it,” Bock said.

Last year, Bock had a book event that was hosted by the School of Journalism and Media where she read portions of her textbook. It was the first faculty book series event and Bock was grateful to Dr. Paula Poindexter for organizing it.

“It was absolutely lovely,” said Bock. “I was thrilled and honored.”

She shared about how much her mother, Rosalie Mary Bock, encouraged her for more than two years to write it. Her mother passed away in July 2023, and the textbook is dedicated to her. 

While Bock’s mother did not get to see the book published, she owned copies of Bock’s books even though she didn't enjoy reading academic research.

When it comes to authoring a textbook, Bock learned how important it is to plan out time to devote to writing and fact-checking. 

“It is a little harder than you might expect,” Bock said.

With the amount of time and effort it takes to properly cite and research all the topics for a textbook, Bock was able to only write about two paragraphs a day.

“I wanted to make sure that every fact was properly cited and correct,” Bock said. 

She compared fact-checking all the citations to writing with tweezers. But despite that, she said, like most academics, she felt a great deal of joy when it came to writing her textbook.