The Construction Of Femininity In The Woman's Magazine—A Study Of Good Housekeeping 2016-2017

American women's magazines as a form of mass media have a wide variety and time-honored history.They target primarily at the female reader groups.Through the editorial contents and advertisements which are of women's concern,women's magazines construct an ideal status of femininity for women to identify with,pursue and imitate.Good Housekeeping is one of the mainstream and also one of the past “Seven Sisters” of American women's magazines,which has a history of over one hundred years and still ranks second in its circulation among American women's magazines.Targeting primarily at the middle class married women,the magazine gives guidance and suggestions on beautifying appearance,latest fashions,housekeeping,cooking and child rearing.The thesis has sampled the total 24 issues of Good Housekeeping published in the years of 2016-2017.It applies thematic analysis and interpretive textual analysis as its key methodologies,seeking to explore what kind of femininity is constructed and its thematic focuses,and to find out the overlapped relationship among women's magazine,femininity and consumer culture.The thesis firstly gives a background introduction to American women's magazines and Good Housekeeping as well as a literature review centered on these two topics.It then presents the major conceptual and theoretical frameworks related to femininity and women's magazines.The thesis provides a thematic interpretation of the constructed femininity from the three perspectives of ideal appearance,domesticity,and feminine temperaments.It makes an attempt to explore the deeper contributing factors to such a construction,mainly discussing from the perspectives of ideological messages and consumer culture.Through a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the magazine,the thesis finds that femininity constructed in the recent two years of Good Housekeeping tends to be conservative.Femininity is idealized and perfected in the magazine.The primary messages of the ideal femininity are pursuit of feminine beauty and health,which is ageist in ideology.Secondly,the magazine gives prominence to women's roles as mothers and wives and the corresponding responsibilities,which continues to situate women in the domestic sphere.In addition,the constructed femininity is also manifested through its depiction of feminine temperaments,such as caring,emotionally expressive,compassionate,and courteous.The magazine has inherited its long established conservative style.The magazine is established on acommercialized base,and it advocates that ideal femininity is to be gained through“purchasing”.The conservative femininity constructed by the magazine is under the manipulation of modern patriarchy and modern consumerism.