Magazine Movements

Laurel Forster is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Her research interests and her range of publications contextualize the portrayal of women and women's cultures in magazines, women's writing and on television.

• IntroductionChapter 1: Writing Friendship and Support in CCCChapter 2: Refashioning Femininity in Wartime HousewifeChapter 3: Linking Private and Public Over the Airwaves in Woman's HourChapter 4: Exploring Sexuality in Arena 3Chapter 5: Politicising the Personal in ShrewChapter 6: Networking the Magazine Format in HousepartyChapter 7: Mukti: A Magazine 'Against Oppression as Women, Black People, and Workers'Chapter 8: Feminism on the Internet in the f-wordBibliographyIndex

Ever since the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1963, academic studies have sought to gauge the extent to which mass-market commercial magazines directed toward female readers in the US and UK have either contributed to gender stereotyping or offered arenas in which women could contest stifling gender roles. Forster (media studies, Univ. of Portsmouth, UK) makes a solid, important contribution to this ongoing debate by investigating a group of British “magazines” published from the mid-20th century to the present that have been almost entirely overlooked by scholars. These include not only print magazines—Arena Three (1964–71), the first openly lesbian magazine in Britain; Mukti (1983–87), aimed at South Asian women; and a number of overtly feminist magazines—but also the television magazine Houseparty (1972–81) and various radio magazines. The most fascinating chapter examines the history and significance of the Cooperative Correspondence Club (1935–90), a small group of women with diverse geographic, religious, and class affiliation, which twice monthly hand-produced a copy of a magazine, comprising individual women's letters, that circulated among the group's members. Forster's extensive archival research, incisive analysis, and jargon-free writing makes this book a pleasurable as well as an educational experience. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.