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Women Have Come a Long Way
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21921 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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6 / 1993 |
1,583 Words |
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Cynthia Grenier
Cynthia Grenier is contributing editor to the Arts section of
The World & I. |
The road into the city room of American newspapers has been a long and arduous one for women. Making it onto the television screens as anchorwomen or reporters has been no less arduous, if less long in coming mainly because of the more recent advent of that medium. In 1993, Ishbel Ross, a now virtually forgotten but once distinguished reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, published Ladies of the Press, which was termed a classic history of women in journalism. She noted with regret that there were not enough women in the profession to make any difference. "They have merely established the fact [that they are around], not revolutionized the status of their colleagues", she wrote.
In 1993, not only is it unexceptional to find women throughout the ranks of the media, but often it is they, above all in the area of women's publications (whose circulation runs into the millions), who are in a position to shape attitude among their readership. If there is a culture war going on in this country today, then most assuredly the page of women's publication are where many of the skirmishes are taking place.
When family values ruled
Back in the 1950s and even early '60', women's publications were concerned with basic issues of family, children, home, how to make a marriage work. There were, of course, articles on fashion, hair, food; interviews with distinguished people or movie personalities. Bu the magazines did not function as outlets for anyone's political agenda. Over the decades, however, the mass-market women's magazines' editorial policy has gradually sifted to that of the feminists, particularly as younger women have emerged as writers and editors.
Today, to cite just one example, under the new editorship of Gaby Dopplet, Mademoiselle, once the magazine of young college and career women, runs fashion spreads of grunge accompanied by an article featured on the cover of the May issue: "Do-It-Yourself Sex-Satisfaction Guaranteed." An earlier issue featured "Young Lesbians, with the blurb: "They're fresh, they're proud, and they're comfortable with their sexuality." At the very least, such articles promote among readers the feeling that such behavior is not merely acceptable, but perhaps even fashionable.
Women's magazines today are concerned with issues, ones usually heavy with political implications. Nearly every recent woman's publication has carried articles on AIDS, abortion rights, women in the military, sexual emancipation,
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