Western feminists have viewed women's magazines as socializing agencies which
shape women's perspectives of being female. It has been argued that the ideologically
biased and limited content of women's magazines are obstacles for the achievement for
gender equality and that more positive images of women are needed. Others argue that
women's magazines serve to teach women how to be successful in male-oriented society.
This thesis examines the visual and written messages regarding femininity found in
women's magazines for young single working women in both Japan and North America.
By using both quantitative and qualitative content analyses, the socio-cultural context of
the role of women's magazines were compared. Results showed that women in both
cultures are given limited positions in the world of women's magazines, although
significant cultural differences were also observed. In advertisements, North American
women's magazines tend to show both traditionally feminine (sexy and elegant) women
and "new" and "active" women. The presence of predominantly macho-type male figures
suggested the persisting subordination of women to men. Japanese women's images are
narrowly defined, leaving only a few characteristics, such as pretty and cute, for women to
choose. An examination of Caucasian female models in Japanese advertisements revealed
that their presence could serve to establish Japanese cultural boundaries of femininity.
Through the magazine's article content, North American women's magazines tend to have
a variety of articles which encourage women to have it all or to become "superwomen."
Japanese women's magazines clearly differentiated their content by the career orientedness
of their targeted readership and most of the articles in the mainstream magazines are
marriage-related. The overall findings suggest that North American women's magazines
serve as "survival guides" for women to succeed in male-oriented society by learning both
masculinity and femininity. In contrast, the main purpose of Japanese women's magazines
apparently is to provide a cultural text for readers to gain femininity as a cultural resource
to be successful as women in their society.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/3882 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Takayanagi, Nariko |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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