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The practice of public relations (PR) is shaped by the ‘life world’ of the professionals; moreover, both the experiences of the professionals and societal changes shape the profession in a particular area (Hodges, 2006). Women have always played an important part in the development of PR as a profession and academic field in Turkey. Since PR Association of Turkey was established in 1972, five out of eight presidents have been women, and most of the members are also female. Female PR practitioners represent 70% of the total workforce of PR sector in Turkey, and most of the communication agencies are led by female entrepreneurs.

However, research on women' positions and their multiple roles in PR in Turkey are limited.

This chapter uses a qualitative study with 27 in-depth one-on-one interviews conducted in order to analyse female PR practitioners' experiences related to (1) the start of their careers, (2) their career experiences, (3) their evaluation of the profession, and lastly (4) their career goals. The interviewees included agency owners, managers, deputy general managers and group directors.

The research aimed to discover the female PR professional experience in respect of the difficulties they face in their practice and everyday life, advantages and/or disadvantages of being a female PR professional in Turkey and the ways women balanced their career and family duties.

The foreword to Women's Work in Public Relations discusses the multitude of ways that women experience public relations (PR) work. Each women's experience depends on, for instance, location, culture, the presence (or otherwise) of a union or professional association, the support of colleagues, the practitioner's domestic circumstances and more. There is not just one female experience of PR.

This foreword reviews the chapters in Women's Work in Public Relations and points to the parallels, contradictions, and struggles faced by women working in the little-understood occupation of PR where the everyday work of women is largely invisible. It explains how women working in PR carry out tasks which can at once be necessary, unnecessary, the whim of a client or management, performative, or exploitative – such is the varied and unstructured occupation of PR.

Women face barriers and discrimination at work but past research has not always explained the form that this takes. The foreword notes that much discrimination takes place in plain sight (for instance in terms of erratically applied flexible working policies, unpredictable workloads, or language in professional documents that accepts inequality) and observes that unless we recognise discrimination it's difficult to vocalise opposition to it.

The foreword's discussion of methodology shows that there is no one way to study women working in PR and this book represents a small but rich range of largely qualitative research methodology. It demonstrates that, just as there are many experiences of women in PR, there are also many ways to research them.