Woman Magazine

This is a report of how Woman Magazine has represented femininity and feminism in the 50s. The target audience for the report is students. (For ICT)
Representation of femininity:
The messages encoded in the magazine about the female identity are primarily housewives. E.G: the magazine contains articles on using makeup, DIY's and cooking.
*Women have a void in there lives, in which they can only feel by reading women magazine.
bell hooks - Feminist Theory:

• Feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal hegemony and the domination of women.

• Feminism is not a lifestyle choice: it is a political commitment.

• Race, class and gender all determine the extent to which individuals are exploited and oppressed.

• "Feminism is for everyone"

• Women are insecure, men drink beer.

1. Men are important, women stay in the house.
2. Men are like a consumer of the women.
3. Women need men to be looked after.
4. Women are incapable and unstable, men are capable.
5. Women are dependant - using the mans handkerchief.

Advertising in magazines:

• Magazines generate revenue primarily through sales of copies (print and digital) and through advertising.

• Advertising accounts for approximately one third of total revenues across the industries. It is, therefore, vitally important that the magazine and advertising content target the same audience in order that the advertising brands benefit from increased sales and as a result of advertising in the magazine.

Andrew Green identifies the ways in which magazine advertising can benefit the advertisers in an article entitled 'ESSENTIALS: The Power of Magazine Advertising':

• High audience engagement

• Less distraction likely from other activities

• The ability to target niche audiences

• High production values

• Potential for placement in highly relevant editorial environment

• Non-intrusive (readers can turn the page)

• Long shelf life

• It's selling the experience of having a bath

• This soap gives you not just cleanliness... But femininity too

• This soap makes you the perfect wife

• "Darling, you need breeze" - Demeaning to audience so they feel they need to buy breeze to become a woman

• Binary opposition between he kindness of the soap, and the destruction of your body smell

• "Please" - suggests women are vulnerable

• Use of ellipses suggests softness and smooth

• "Because you are a woman" - assumes men would not be concerned about these things

• voyeurism - perversion - pleasure from watching someone without them knowing

• Creepy, makeup makes the men come

• She is passive

• Female looks at herself, man also looks at her - object of his gaze

• Attractiveness is dependent on a product - consumerism

A function of stereotypes is:

- To give a sense of community.

- For comedy.

- For the producer to determine their audience.

- To provide people with a structure in their lives.

"Darling" in the breeze advert is used to address the primary audience perfectly.