Essay - Understanding Women's Magazines by Anna Gough-Yates

Post-Fordism, Post-Feminism and the 'New Woman' in late 20th-Century Britain

• Woman's magazines are a 'culture industry', which has to be understood as both 'cultural' and 'economic.' pg 26
• Fordism = the use in manufacturing industry of the methods pioneered by Henry Ford, typified by large-scale mechanized mass production.
• Since the Second World War there has been a shift from a 'Fordist' era to 'post-Fordism'. Accounts vary as to what routes lead to this, but they share a common belief that the economic change which happened in the 1970s and 1980s brought about the transformation. Also in part a response and reproduction of cultural discourse. pg27
• The Fordism that grew after ww1 had 'working practices and systems of work relations that were inflexible, hierarchical, and de-skilling in character.' Monetary management and capitalist principles were vital in keeping it stable, as were the 'mass consumers' and mass advertising making mass consumption a norm. pg27
• The market became too fluid after ww2, the shifting patterns of taste were difficult to keep up with. Deregulation and the free market robbed Fordists of their 'safety net'. pg28
•  Fordism was resolved by greater economic flexibility and new technological innovations, maximising the use of the small and skilled (rather than the large and unskilled.) pg28 

• A major criticism of Fordism from a feminist perspective was that its labour market regulations and traditional ideologies about gender roles, clustered women at the bottom of the hierarchy. pg33
• In 1975, in upper socio-economic groups: women - 5% men - 20%. In lower socio-economic groups: women - 40% men - 22% pg33
• Women had lower pay, less occupational security, fewer promotional prospects and fewer employment rights. pg33 for more employment inequality stats.

• 'Academic postfeminism draws inspiration not only from the intellectual heritage of the women's movement, but also from an engagement with the concepts of postmodernism,  post-structualism and post-colonialism, together with attention to the interests of 'marginalised, diasporic and colonised cultures.' (Brooks,1997:4) pg 35 
• Murray suggests the complex theoretical writing for accedemic postfeminism is meaningless and works to exclude for 'ordinary woman'

From Fordism to post-Fordism in the British magazine industry:

• Women's magazines are 'a place where the cultural meanings and representations of modern femininity are forged, fought over and understood.' They are also products of an industry, effected by production and consumption. Unlike zines we have to analyse magazines looking at their economic context and business imperative. pg 39
• The industrialisation of British magazine publishing was relatively slow, but by the 1890s a range of new technologies was being widely introduced to process of paper production, typesetting and printing. This was developed and refined over time, with specialised departments and bureaucratic work routines. pg41
• This dominated until the 1970s when in 1977 the market predictability fractured and there was a sharp drop in circulation of magazines like 'Woman'. pg42
• In the 1980s and 1990s there was much readjustment and increase of flexibility and technological innovation. (post-fordism)

Seriously Galmorous or Glamorously Serious? The 'Working Woman':

• Many publishers and advertisers like the idea of targeting young, professional, middle-class women but this came with questions. How was the 'new woman' to be represented in a way that was agreeable to both advertisers and readers. It's interesting how zines never had to consider an advertisers opinion, so were very honest and raw, deliberately causing offense for success.
• Advertising developed in this sense, feeling exclusive and matching the style of the new 'modern women' magazines. 'Visual benchmarks.'
• Advertisers relaunched their magazines rather than entirely rebranding, to go from the old 'mass-market' to the new 'lifestyle' market.