Changes in Women's Status in Women's Magazine Fiction
Differences by Social Class
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2484157 |
|---|---|
| Authors | C B Flora (0000-0002-9502-5678, Ford Foundation, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1979 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 558-569 |
| Publication date | 1979-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Problems (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-7791 • E-ISSN: 1533-8533 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/800041 |
| OpenAlex | W2046597168, W4253257019 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 22 |
Women's magazines reflect and reinforce ideal characteristics of different social groups. Comparing the images of women in women's magazine fiction between 1970 and 1975 and between middle-class and working-class magazines, the former reflected economic and political movements in the relative status of women of that class. Middle-class women's fiction portrayed women as less likely to be valued for dependence and ineffectuality in 1975 as compared to 1970, and more likely to be valued for independence; plot devices were less likely to rely on traditional stereotypical female modes of behavior. In contrast, female passivity became more valued in working-class fiction. While in 1970, working-class women's fiction portrayed and valued the more active female characteristics, by 1975, that fiction had become significantly more traditional than middle-class fiction. This increase in valuing female passivity corresponds to the reversal of the long term secular trend from the 1950s onward of increased female labor force participation. Between 1970 and 1975 the labor force participation of women with less than high school education declined and job segregation by gender increased. Furthermore, the class selectivity in mobilization of symbols by the women's movement is evident
Class (philosophy) · Development economics · Economic independence · Economics · Epistemology · Ideal (ethics) · Independence (probability theory) · Middle class · Political science · Politics · Social class · Sociology · Women's history · Working class · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Demography · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Philosophy · Psychology
Hearth and Home
Labor and monopoly capital
Worlds of pain
Dimity convictions
Middle Eastern studies
Working Women in Fact and Fiction
Sex-role Research on the Mass Media
Channeling Children
The Show and Tell Machine
Changing attitudes toward women in Egypt
Images of Women in The Saturday Evening Post 1931–1936
Does Literature Reflect Common Values
Values in Mass Periodical Fiction, 1921-1940
The Fotonovela as a Tool for Class and Cultural Domination
Feminine Roles and Social Mobility in Women's Weekly Magazines
The Passive Female
Changing Concepts of Morality
| Citations per year | 0.24 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1989 - 2009 (21) |
| Highly cited | No |