Women's magazines in the 1960's

             The author in the textbook, chapter 19 Women’s Magazines explained the development of women's magazines in the 1960’s and 1970’s in the United States. The author pointed out that in the 1960's women’s magazines focused on the women’s roles in their families rather than their social statues. In addition, he/she accounted that the development of women’s magazines related with the movement of feminism in the late 1960's and 1970's and women’s magazines tried to change their contents. In order to support this, the author introduced some articles of writers and editors of women’s magazines.

             The explanations about the characteristics of women’s magazines in the 1960’s were interesting for me. However, the most interesting thing of this article is about promotions. The author cited the article of Nora Magid, which is “promotion is then the primary business of the woman’s magazines, and like the networks they are first of all self-congratulatory.(p.209)" I understand and agree with this statement. I think that this situation about promotions never changed. I am subscribing to some women’s fashion magazines such as Marie Claire, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar. This month, I have been surprised because those magazines were too thick. I expected them to be more useful articles in there, but most pages were promotions and commercials. Most promotions were designer label’s clothes, which I could not imagine how the are expensive. Of course, I am not going to blame those promotion pages because the concept of those magazines is a kind of high-fashion topic. It was interesting that the same concerns of the 1960's still exist these days.

             In addition, I found one more interesting statement in this article. The author pointed out that “and two days after the sit-in, 50 young women marched down Fifth Avenue to protest the passing of the miniskirt” (p.212). In this statement, “two days after the sit-in” indicates March 1970. The reason that this statement was interesting for me is that I read the article about the same situation in South Korea. I want to show a picture.

 

http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?artid=201006061815035&code=990000

This picture indicates that the policeman are measuring the length of skirt a woman is wearing in 1973 in South Korea. In that time, the wearing of ‘miniskirts’ was banned by law in South Korea. Even though it looks like nonsense these days, some women actually went to jail for several days. As the author mentioned, women’s magazines have developed with the movement of feminism in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

In conclusion, women’s magazines have changed in many aspects such as their contents and target audiences. The magazines not only represented the interests of women in the 1960’s but also guided them to the new trend.