Unmarried ladies and young women weren’t even supposed to read the newspapers in the Victorian era! It was considered most unladylike. If your paper had one, your husband might hand you the society page (with the births, marriages and obituaries) or the ladies page, you might browse some select advertisements, but everything else in the paper was most likely too scandalous or exciting for your delicate self. 

Closer to the turn of the century, if you found you couldn’t help yourself and your husband or father thought you could handle it, you might peek at the arts and science sections (and politics “if that interests you” - implying the unlikelihood of that!), but under no circumstance should you read about the vile murders, scandals or intrigues. 

Of course, it’s not so easy to find articles in newspapers explaining this from the time, since, while the men writing it almost certainly agreed with the principles for their own women at home, newspapers wanted to broaden their readership as much as possible and women were an untapped source of sales, both of the papers and for their advertisers. So it was discouraged by the men in their lives, but newspapers actively argued women should be reading the paper (though, certainly, only certain parts). They argued that a woman’s time would be much more profitably spent reading the “safe” parts of their papers than awful, terrible novels.

That’s why around 1890 they began to add more and more pages devoted to women’s interests, sewing patterns, etiquette, poems, motherhood and recipes - and especially ads aimed at women.

From a more progressive article arguing women should read (certain parts) of the newspaper: 

Chicago Daily Tribune, April 13, 1879:

Osawatomie Graphic, Kansas, October 21, 1904: