From private to public? Changing perceptions of young women in Seventeen magazine, 1955–1965

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tessa Mazey-Richardson

As a form of popular culture, magazines provide a lens through which historians can examine the dominant attitudes and values of a society. This article examines the portrayal of young American women in the popular teen magazine, Seventeen magazine, during the period 1955–1965. The study documents and analyses the messages conveyed within the magazine regarding ideals concerning feminine behaviour and appearance. Seventeen provides an opportunity to investigate both the production and reception of the cultural ideals for young American women as the decade of the 1950s ends and that of the 1960s begins. I argue that the letters-to-the-editor represented a public platform in which readers could voice opinions, express identities, engage in debates and communicate with each other. In this way, it is possible to see a change in the framing of women’s roles over time; a change that occurred not via a purely ‘top-down’ processes, but via and exchange relationship between Editors, writers and readers, and indeed between the readers themselves.

Author(s):  
Stacey Kim Coates ◽  
Michelle Trudgett ◽  
Susan Page

Abstract There is clear evidence that Indigenous education has changed considerably over time. Indigenous Australians' early experiences of ‘colonialised education’ included missionary schools, segregated and mixed public schooling, total exclusion and ‘modified curriculum’ specifically for Indigenous students which focused on teaching manual labour skills (as opposed to literacy and numeracy skills). The historical inequalities left a legacy of educational disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Following activist movements in the 1960s, the Commonwealth Government initiated a number of reviews and forged new policy directions with the aim of achieving parity of participation and outcomes in higher education between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Further reviews in the 1980s through to the new millennium produced recommendations specifically calling for Indigenous Australians to be given equality of access to higher education; for Indigenous Australians to be employed in higher education settings; and to be included in decisions regarding higher education. This paper aims to examine the evolution of Indigenous leaders in higher education from the period when we entered the space through to now. In doing so, it will examine the key documents to explore how the landscape has changed over time, eventually leading to a number of formal reviews, culminating in the Universities Australia 2017–2020 Indigenous Strategy (Universities Australia, 2017).


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (S1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin K. Mutua ◽  
Yohannes D. Wado ◽  
Monica Malata ◽  
Caroline W. Kabiru ◽  
Elsie Akwara ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The use of modern contraception has increased in much of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, the extent to which changes have occurred across the wealth spectrum among adolescents is not well known. We examine poor-rich gaps in demand for family planning satisfied by modern methods (DFPSm) among sexually active adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) using data from national household surveys. Methods We used recent Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys to describe levels of wealth-related inequalities in DFPSm among sexually active AGYW using an asset index as an indicator of wealth. Further, we used data from countries with more than one survey conducted from 2000 to assess DFPSm trends. We fitted linear models to estimate annual average rate of change (AARC) by country. We fitted random effects regression models to estimate regional AARC in DFPSm. All analysis were stratified by marital status. Results Overall, there was significant wealth-related disparities in DFPSm in West Africa only (17.8 percentage points (pp)) among married AGYW. The disparities were significant in 5 out of 10 countries in Eastern, 2 out of 6 in Central, and 7 out of 12 in West among married AGYW and in 2 out of 6 in Central and 2 out of 9 in West Africa among unmarried AGYW. Overall, DFPSm among married AGYW increased over time in both poorest (AARC = 1.6%, p < 0.001) and richest (AARC = 1.4%, p < 0.001) households and among unmarried AGYW from poorest households (AARC = 0.8%, p = 0.045). DPFSm increased over time among married and unmarried AGYW from poorest households in Eastern (AARC = 2.4%, p < 0.001) and Southern sub-regions (AARC = 2.1%, p = 0.030) respectively. Rwanda and Liberia had the largest increases in DPFSm among married AGYW from poorest (AARC = 5.2%, p < 0.001) and richest (AARC = 5.3%, p < 0.001) households respectively. There were decreasing DFPSm trends among both married (AARC = − 1.7%, p < 0.001) and unmarried (AARC = − 4.7%, p < 0.001) AGYW from poorest households in Mozambique. Conclusion Despite rapid improvements in DFPSm among married AGYW from the poorest households in many SSA countries there have been only modest reductions in wealth-related inequalities. Significant inequalities remain, especially among married AGYW. DFPSm stalled in most sub-regions among unmarried AGYW.


Author(s):  
Greg Marquis

This article examines part of the reaction to the 1969 cancellation of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (cbc) television’s Don Messer’s Jubilee, one of the most popular Canadian-produced programs of the era. In addition to an exploration of television history and popular culture, it is also a look at the neglected topic of “square” Canada in the 1960s. Messer began fiddling at dances in rural New Brunswick in the 1920s and moved to radio and recording prior to becoming an unlikely national television star by 1961. After exploring possible classifications of the show’s music, the article explores themes in protest letters and petitions sent to the cbc. These included Canadian nationalism in opposition to American mass culture, Canadian folk culture, cbc elitism, Maritime regionalism, nostalgia, and the related themes of the generation gap and permissive society. The article concludes that fans viewed Messer as a custodian of Canadian folk culture that was being erased by the national broadcaster at a time of heightened nationalism.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-299
Author(s):  
Michael Kelly

This article introduces the special number of French Cultural Studies commemorating the role of Brian Rigby as the journal’s first Managing Editor. It situates his contribution in the emergence of cultural history and French cultural studies during the rapid expansion of higher education from the 1960s in France, the UK, the US and other countries. It suggests that these new areas of study saw cultural activities in a broader social context and opened the way to a wider understanding of culture, in which popular culture played an increasingly important part. It argues that the study of popular culture can illuminate some of the most mundane experiences of everyday life, and some of the most challenging. It can also help to understand the rapidly changing cultural environment in which our daily lives are now conducted.


Sociology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (6) ◽  
pp. 1217-1236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Henz ◽  
Colin Mills

This article examines trends in assortative mating in Britain over the last 60 years. Assortative mating is the tendency for like to form a conjugal partnership with like. Our focus is on the association between the social class origins of the partners. The propensity towards assortative mating is taken as an index of the openness of society which we regard as a macro level aspect of social inequality. There is some evidence that the propensity for partners to come from similar class backgrounds declined during the 1960s. Thereafter, there was a period of 40 years of remarkable stability during which the propensity towards assortative mating fluctuated trendlessly within quite narrow limits. This picture of stability over time in social openness parallels the well-established facts about intergenerational social class mobility in Britain.


Author(s):  
Judy Kutulas

This introduction sets up the argument that because traditional authorities lost power and centrality by the end of the 1960s, the popular culture became a more potent model for how individuals might live their lives. This was especially true of members of the baby boomer generation because of their numbers and life stages in the 1970s. While there was a backlash against the diversity and equality that were important features of this new society, most individual American lives changed because of the 1960s revolutions.


Author(s):  
Lynn Dumenil

This chapter on popular culture visual representations of women focuses on posters and photographs, but primarily on film images of American women. Representations of traditional womanhood were quite evident in the war years, but so too were images of modern women, who while feminine, were also independent and resourceful. They appear in photographs in the workplace doing men’s work or in uniform marching in patriotic parades. In films, they spurred men to enlist and foiled the plots of enemy agents by extraordinary feats of physical daring and courage. Their agency offers a striking contrast to the notion of women as objects in need of masculine protection. These images stimulated the roiling debate in pre-war American over the “new woman” and contributed to a popular sense of the war being a dividing line that heralded the new woman of the postwar era.


2018 ◽  
pp. 162-182
Author(s):  
Samantha Caslin

This chapter focuses on the LVA’s efforts to engage with Irish women in Liverpool during the Second World War and post-war years. Despite a reduction in Irish immigration during the war, which saw the LVA’s staff reduced, the organisation was quick to raise concerns about the moral wellbeing of Irish young women once peace was resumed. As such, the LVA continued, throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, to provoke concerns about the supposed moral vulnerability of Irish young women in Liverpool in a bid to generate support for their patrols.


2021 ◽  
pp. 25-48
Author(s):  
Alexandra M. Apolloni

This chapter situates the voices of 1960s young women pop singers in a broader landscape of representations of young, white femininity and the historiography of 1960s British pop, Swinging London, and British girlhood. Drawing primarily on music magazines and fashion and entertainment magazines produced for young women in the 1960s (including titles such as Boyfriend, Fabulous, Honey, Mirabelle, and Petticoat) it shows how music was construed as a key element of modern, youthful, white femininity and self-expression. The chapter connects stories told about girl pop singers and popular narratives about young women seeking independence and shows how these stories are ultimately about attaining access to voice. These narratives about young women’s voices shaped music industry attitudes toward young women as consumers and producers of music, in turn shaping the kinds of musical opportunities that were available to girl and young woman singers.


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