Gender, Advertising, and Magazines 6

Adding to Ong's idea that writing divides, Damon-Moore and Kaestle pose that gender has influenced magazines and advertising since their inception. The article contains a history of a magazine that exemplifies how women were the largest target audience in the magazine market, The Ladies Home Journal. The Journal was highly successful for a century because their marketing strategy. Not only was the Journal for women, but also directed its advertising toward women. Damon-Moore and Kaestle state that this is because women were seen and thought of as the major consumers of goods at the time. The article continues with a history of The Saturday Morning Post, a magazine which started out to reach the significantly smaller male magazine market and became a family magazine. Then, the discussion shifts to men's magazines. Although the top grossing magazines tend to be geared towards women, special interest magazines have come to attract male readers. Playboy is mentioned and the article reveals that Hugh Hefner's careful selection of what advertisers he would allow in his magazine accounted for his success. The article briefly discusses the impact television had on major magazines. Advertising on televison became the fad and magazines lost much of their luster for advertisers. Ms exemplifies the modern woman's magazine and also the contradictions that come with it. Ms is a  magazine that was at the mercy of advertisers who they had attacked in the past for stereotyping men and women. In order to remain viable, Ms had to compromise their feminist principles. Ms highlights the fact that the relationship between advertising and magazines is powerful and seemingly infinte. In concluding their article, Damon-Moore and Kaestle talk about how the history of popular reading material reflects a society divided by gender. Magazines tell us what we are and what we should be. They reinforce sterotypes about men and women and impose mainstream gender roles on the masses.