First of all I would like to start out by staying how great this piece of literature was. I am somewhat familiar with Ms. Magazine, since I am a feminist, but I was unfamiliar with the history behind it.
One of the most interesting features of the magazine that I wound what their strength in publishing because without accepting advertisement of other companies that had a negative portrayal of women. In my opinion, this is quite admirable that the publishers kept with their purpose.
The editors, Gale dines and Jean M. Humez did an excellent job in presenting their experience and the struggles tat they faced in a patriotically society that has so long kept women in the boundaries of domesticity, especially in the media. I strongly feel that even tough women have some a long way throughout history in gaining more positive recognition in the media, we still have a long way to go. In fact, one of the problems that they bring attention to is the notion that certain markets can only target specific genders. For example, she talks about her ideas about how toy companies only lightly tapped into the girl market with only "pink cars". The idea that Blue, Strong, and rough things are for boys and pink, delicate, soft tings are only for girls is still seen today. For example, I recently saw an commercial for vitamins (One A Day) targeted towards teens and what bothered me most about it was the fact that the vitamins designed for the boys stresses tat it is for strong muscles and the vitamins designed for girls stresses that it is for healthy skin. Why can't girls want Strong muscles too? Why can't boys want healthy skin as well? Is our society still so sexist that we can't break away from the idea that women can't be both beautiful and strong without having to be dependent and delicate?
Finally, it is amazing that they still have the success now and I find it most fortunate that Dale Lang, owner of Working Mother Working Woman, bought the magazine and was smart enough to give them complete editorial control unlike jerk the Leonard Lauder, president of Este Lauder make-up at that time, who dismissed the idea that women who wear make-up ( like his successful Mother) are also the women who care about important political, economical, and social issues of the time.
Although I find this subtopic quite fascinating and would delight in discussing it for hours and hours at a time, I must, because of time constraints, move on to discuss the aspect of Minority women in the media. The reason being that it relates more to my topic and question for the IRP assignment where I will focus more on the Immigration reform movements of the 1980s in the Cold war and post cold war.
Yes, the history of Ms. Magazine as a social institution is an interesting one, particularly the period you are referring to, in the change of publishers and the ramifications for the content and audiences for the magazine. I agree with your reading of the vitamin commercial; it is baffling that these advertisers still think in such absolute and narrow terms about gender roles and identity. For me as an instructor, it is also troubling that these images are so prevalent in the culture in which you as students are being addressed, because even though you may not feel that you are consciously being influenced by them, the truth of the matter is that you are all being influenced by them unconsciously. Even more important, the commercials themselves are part of the popular culture and create an atmosphere as well as contribute to the creation of an environment in which these images and assumptions about strict gender roles are made normal and acceptable--unless we all as an audience question them.
ReplyDelete