Nancy Nugent Dexter (; 16 February 1923 – 21 April 1983) was an Australian journalist. Dexter was born Nancy Hanks in

Coburg Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

, but moved with her family to

Wagga Wagga Wagga Wagga (; informally called Wagga) is a major regional city in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Murrumbidgee River, with an urban population of more than 56,000 as of June 2018, Wagga Wagga is the state's ...

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during the Great Depression. She was educated at Wagga Wagga High School until the age of 15, when although wanting to continue her education, she left school due to an unsympathetic father. She then studied shorthand and typing at a local commercial college with the support of her mother. Dexter got her first job at '' The Daily Advertiser'', which involved "taking dictaphone copy from the Australian United Press service". She moved to Sydney two years later, working as a copy-typist in the newspaper's radio room, but lost her job when men returned from

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. She moved to

and was hired as a typist but hated the work, and in 1946 was hired as a copy-typist for '' The Herald''. She later wrote that she "became very frustrated" in that role as "there was nothing worse than wanting to write yourself and having to sit with your headphones on taking copy from a reporter who was mumbling around on the other end of the phone." In 1950, Dexter became a cadet on the social pages of ''The Herald'', but lost her job amidst retrenchments in 1951. Dexter worked for a public relations firm until being rehired by ''The Herald'' in 1960 as a journalist in the newspaper's

women's section The women's page (sometimes called home page or women's section) of a newspaper was a section devoted to covering news assumed to be of interest to women. Women's pages started out in the 19th century as society pages and eventually morphed into ...

. She wrote their women's column until 1966, when she resigned, frustrated with her work environment. Dexter was then hired by ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territo ...

'', where she wrote her own column, "Nancy Dexter Takes Note" in their women's section, ''Accent''. In her columns, she discussed issues such as the fight for equal pay, abortion rights, and domestic violence. She was promoted to editor of ''Accent'' from 1972 to 1979. Her editorial style was described by the Australian Media Hall of Fame as balancing "traditional content with hard coverage of women's issues", while she herself wrote while editor "of course, there shouldn't be specific women's pages at all, but at the moment there are no other areas of the paper in which issues can be canvassed to such depth", adding that her concerns were "such social issues as baby bashing, exploitation of migrant women in factories". She was appointed as ''The Ages travel editor in 1979, serving until her sudden death while in

Jaipur Jaipur (; Hindi: ''Jayapura''), formerly Jeypore, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. , the city had a population of 3.1 million, making it the tenth most populous city in the country. Jaipur is also known as ...

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

in 1983. She was inducted into the Victorian Media Hall of Fame in October 2013. Her former employer, ''The Age'', wrote that she had "helped to drag newspaper women's pages from an unleavened diet of domesticity to hard-edged coverage of women's issues". Dexter married Harry Norman Dexter in 1951; the pair were married until his death in 1979.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dexter, Nancy 1923 births 1983 deaths Australian women journalists 20th-century Australian women Women's page journalists 20th-century Australian journalists The Herald (Melbourne) people