Our article studies the situation of women journalists before the Quiet Revolution. We focus on Odette Oligny (1900‐1962), an at once typical and exceptional but to date relatively unexamined case. Our aim is to show that the obstacles she had to overcome did not prevent her from making a career out of journalism, nor from formulating, in a more or less subtle way, sometimes quite progressive and bold statements under a rather conventional guise. As a major player in the journalistic and broader media field of her time, Oligny is interesting in that she attempted to negotiate a shifting line between which topics and discursive attitudes were acceptable for women and those which were not (in terms of rhetoric or ethos, as well as style and tone). Our contribution combines an analysis of the Montreal journalistic field during Oligny’s lifetime, an analysis of her professional trajectory, and a brief study of her conception of the “women’s pages” and of women’s place in society.