Changes in Women's Status in Women's Magazine Fiction: Differences by Social Class

Abstract

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.

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