Magazine revision: Woman 1964

 Woman 1964

• The advert of the concealer where she is running to go on a date with a man and she is getting pretty for him 
• Male Gaze- our society says that men are allowed to view women 
• Voyerism- taking pleasure in looking at someone knowing they can't see you 
• Women should wear make up to appeal to men
• Woman in the bath wearing make up whilst all sudsed up and this reinforces the hegemonic view that women who wear no make up are considered atypical
• Women plays by the stereotypical rule book because they want to sell magazines
• They have a dedicated audience
• There is nothing challenging about this magazine
• The Alfred Hitchcock interview reinforces hegemonic stereotypes that suggest how women can only be successful with a man involved, whether that means they marry them or scam them.

Woman (1964) 

• Media language

  • A highly conventional women’s lifestyle magazine, with a range of easily identifiable generic conventions

  • Cover creates a direct mode of address, allowing audience opportunity to identify with the model and the themes within such as make up and beauty articles as well as adverts

  • Fashion and style is highly typical of mainstream fashions of the 1960’s but with a specific lack of mention of the upcoming fashion trends such as mini skirts and tighter fitting clothing items

  • A consistent binary opposition is constructed between men and women

  • Generically different from modern magazines, with a focus on blocks of text

  Representation

  • Consistent reinforcement of singular, sexist stereotypes of women, further cultivating patriarchal hegemony 

  • Sex and sexualisation are subtly encoded through the soap advert, reinforcing the hegemonic ideology that a woman’s function is to look attractive for a heterosexual male elite

  • Men are occasionally represented, and generally in a position of hegemonic power, for example in the Alfred Hitchcock interview

  • Some subversive representation of traditional gender norms, for example in the EXTRA SPECIAL… ON MEN! article

  • Women typically situated in home settings, such as kitchens, further anchoring and reinforcing traditional gender norms 

  Audience

  • A generic product for a mass market audience, Woman deliberately includes no challenging material as the audience is a mass audience so the hegemonic values will be the general veiws of society at the time because the mass audience will want to buy the magazine more.

  • Lexis is informal and infers a target audience with a high school level of education

  • Why so sexist? In order to construct a dedicated target audience, woman presents singular and straightforward representations

  • Consistent stereotypical representations of women cultivates gender norms and values for the mass market audience

  • However, audiences even at the time could form complicated negotiated readings, rejecting the dominant ideological perspective, yet making use of the various make-up, style and DIY tips

  Industry

  • Cover price of 7d (7 pre-decimal pence, or roughly 80p in 2018) is affordable and competitively priced for the working class female audience, especially compared with glossy monthlies like Vogue, which retailed for 3/- (about £4.50 in 2018 money)

  • Published by IPC, a horizontally integrated media conglomerate, that simply bought out Woman’s competitors such as Woman's Realm and Woman’s Own

  • The simple and straightforward representations in Woman present a simple and unchallenging dominant ideological perspective, demonstrating the magazine’s sole ideological purpose is one of power and profit

  • While Woman presents many ideas that seem sexist and problematic