Fashion and Age: The Role of Women’s Magazines in the Constitution of Aged Identities

Abstract

Since the 1970s women’s magazines have been the focus of work exploring the role of the media in the constitution of women’s identities under late capitalism. Initially such analyses, rooted in the feminism of the second wave, were highly critical, presenting women’s magazines as key sites in the reinforcement of women’s subordination, entrenching inauthentic and oppressive versions of femininity. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, these gave way to more nuanced accounts influenced by postmodernism that acknowledged the polysemic nature of women’s magazines; their capacity to reinforce traditional gender identities at the same time as offering critiques of them (Winship, 1987; Hermes, 1995; Aronson, 2000; Gough-Yates, 2003). Reception studies, led by Hermes, unpacked the complex ways in which women consume these cultural products, the distinctive and bounded ways in which they fit into their lives, and the interpretations they bring to their consumption.