Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 35
Writing Women’s Magazines
31
the magazines’ working class readership, it is women who are rarely heard or seen
who are made visible. In addition, the very presence of ordinary women in
magazines opens up the feminist debate discussed earlier, as definitions of what it
means to be a woman are explored through the lives of readers.
The agenda of women’s weekly magazines and the way they represent women,
remain largely in the hands of the producers, yet the magazines have opened up
their discursive space to allow readers to participate. Despite the claims of editors,
the magazines are not written by readers, but the readers’ presence allows a further
dimension to be acknowledged in the arguments around identity and femininity in
the pages of the woman’s weekly magazine.
University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
Caroline Oates
Acknowledgement: This paper is based on a research project on the use of product
market information in the design process sponsored by the UK Design Council, to
whom thanks are due. The opinions in the paper, however, are the author’s own
and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Design Council. The author would
like to thank Anne Tomes and Peter Armstrong for their contributions to the paper.
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