mommy magazine

Guantlett describes the representation of women in media, especially in movies, as progressing very gradually from the 50’s to the 80’s and 90’s. By the 80’s, Gauntlett describes in “Media, Gender and Identity,” some movies had strong female characters and some more contemporary portrayals of men. But for the number of years that went by, there remained a number of classic stereotypes of women.
By the 60’s and 70’s some women’s magazines were going beyond the original magazines that were designed for housewives. Ms. and Cosmopolitan were including articles on politics and various issues, and were encouraging women to be sexy and confident.
Good progress, but the same stereotypes from earlier years were, and often still are, returned to for advertisements especially, which target women for home products and men for outdoor equipment, for example.

I paged through a current issue of Parents magazine, glancing at all of the ads. If the ad had an adult in it- it was a woman. The ads were for dryers, cleaning supplies, hair products, wrinkle cream... advertisers clearly expecting the audience to be women at home. The thing is that I expected it to be much more realistic- it is 2008- and include an even representation of moms and dads. It's not called Mothers, it's called Parents, but they still expect the woman to be reading the magazine not the man. Finally, I found an ad with a father. A State Farm ad with a young dad holding a baby. The tagline read "You know where Dude meets Dad? I'm there." It was the only ad with a man actively being a father, but then I started thinking- this might STILL be targeting women. He is young and attractive (he has scruff on his face, a tattoo on his arm, and a wedding ring), so I couldn't help stopping to look at the ad and think "how sweet, look at him with his baby." Then the ads continued with more women's hair products and kitchen appliances.