Equality For Women In The 1970's
The 1970s in America highlighted women’s fight for advancement and liberation from their lives formally known as homemakers and caregivers. Although women had the right to vote for over fifty years, the Equal Rights Amendment had still not passed since it had been introduced to congress in 1923. With the inequality still widespread, it came as no surprise women were still fighting for their equality in all aspects of their lives. Many women in this time turned to newspapers and magazines for the news and advice on the topic of women’s liberation. One such magazine, Redbook, targeted young married women with children. Although the magazine did contain several articles discussing women’s advancement, Redbook in 1971 perpetuated traditional gender roles as women being
…show more content…
housewives and men being the working factor of the family. A large portion of Redbook is advertisements. They are meant to pander to women and the items women would want to buy for themselves, which included undergarments, cosmetics, and weight loss programs; this is strikingly similar to the advertisements featured in the women’s magazines of today. Along with the traditional women’s items featured throughout Redbook were advertisements for items such as cigarettes, children’s clothing, furniture, and men’s clothing. The majority of the ads shown were very sexist, and some exploitive of the women’s rights movement. Virginia Slims cigarettes were the main exploiters of the feminist movement using their campaign slogan, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”1 In all their full-page ads, they feature a woman dressed in pants and smoking their cigarettes. The top half of the page shows women attempting to smoke in public and men not allowing it. Another of their ads following the same tone shows men in a bar with the caption, “The neighborhood bar, voting, and cigarettes are for men only…just like pants.” Virginia Slims uses smoking as an example of a previously male dominated activity, and now that women can do it as well they should do it as an act of feminism and how far they have come. However, the ads also proved to be slightly contradictory as in the fine print it describes how Virginia Slims cigarettes are thin and not like the “fat cigarettes” that men smoke. The exploitation of the women’s rights movement and the addition of how their cigarettes are made for women display how women were still being told that they need to maintain femininity even while doing manly tasks such as smoking. Roper Appliances had an ad for a gas and electric self cleaning stoves with the tagline “Roper votes for women’s lib!”2 There are women on the half-page advertisement holding protest signs reading “No pot watching!” and “No oven scrubbing!” In the ad, it discusses how using a new Roper range will give women more freedom in the kitchen and by choosing a Roper range women will make their “vote for women’s lib really count!”4 While the advertisement is meant to draw similarities to the women’s rights movement erupting at the time, it comes across as almost mocking the struggle. It jokes around about how women will get freedom from the boring activities in the kitchen, such as pot watching and scorched pans, but ignoring the fact that they are implying women will be remaining in the kitchen and performing traditional female duties, such as cooking and cleaning, for their families.
Along with the kitchen duty advertisements is an ad for Du Pont’s Teflon II featured in pots and pans. The ad has the Teflon II seal with writing above it reading, “Look for this seal and don’t get stuck in the kitchen.”3 By using pots and pans with Teflon II, the women will be able to spend less time in the kitchen doing their feminine tasks such as cooking and cleaning. Although they say using it will let the women not “get stuck in the kitchen,” they are still saying women will be doing the conventional womanly task in the kitchen, similar to the Roper advertisement.
Not every advertisement featured in Redbook was exploitive of the women’s movement, but they did perpetuate the feminine and masculine personas women and men were supposed to portray. An advertisement for Emeraude perfume shows a woman looking seductively into the camera and writing underneath it that reads, “Want him to be more of a man? Try being more of a woman.”4 The image along with the caption tries to promote the ideals that women are meant to be soft and delicate, and men are meant to be strong and masculine. Promoting femininity was not an isolated act, even Eve cigarettes had ads appealing to the feminine role women were expected to take. The advertisement shows the Eve cigarette package, decorated with a woman surrounded by flowers, and a caption claiming the cigarettes to be the “first truly feminine cigarette – it’s almost as pretty as you are…women have been feminine since Eve. Now cigarettes are feminine since Eve.”5 Eve being the first female, biblically, is shown as the epitome of being a woman. Since women know have the ability to smoke cigarettes like men do, they should not be subjected to smoke the ugly manly cigarettes men do. With Eve cigarettes, women can still express their womanly demeanor, because the cigarettes come in a pretty package and have a pretty filter tip as well.
A two-page advertisement for do-it-yourself flooring exemplified the idea of women being incapable of doing traditional men’s work. Armstrong Place ‘n Press floor tiles created a quiz titled “What kind of man are you married to?”6 The questions asked how the woman’s husband would react to certain situations, such as what to do when a pipe breaks or when the last time he offered to help with the dishes. At the end of the quiz, the ad tells the reason for the questions is to sell the reader on selling her husband the flooring. Nowhere in the advertisement says the reader herself can install the flooring, or even suggest she might want to do it herself, but it does tell her how easy it will be for her husband to install it. The advertisers show how women were not thought of as key decision makers in their household, and needed to convince their husbands to make important purchases, such as new flooring, in her home.
La-Z-Boy Recliners advertisements did not discount the reader’s buying power, but did not sell the recliner for the reader herself. Instead, La-Z-Boy tried to sell the recliner as a gift to the reader’s husband. The full-page ad shows the recliner, with an inset picture of a man enjoying the comfort of the high quality chair. The caption reads, “I bought my man a La-Z-Boy Recliner, so on Father’s Day he’ll know I really care… …Besides, it’s mine during the day!”7 La-Z-Boy creates this vision of the reader spending the day lounging in the chair; she does not work as her husband does. When her husband does come home from work, he then gets to enjoy the comfort of the chair to relax while the reader takes care of other things in the house. It turns something as simple as a piece of furniture into a male item; when in reality, it is simply a recliner.
A recurring advertisement throughout multiple issues is for study from home adult education. One such ad for International Correspondence Schools has two separate information pamphlets to request: a “men’s success package” and a “women’s career kit.”8 The men’s success package comes with a “how to succeed” booklet, lesson sampler, and a booklet on the field of their choice. The women’s career kit, however, comes with information on the field of their choice. The difference in the information available to both sexes is not the only difference in the advertisement; the men’s packages offer more than twice the field opportunities than the women’s kits. Some of the women’s choices include art and design, secretarial, and interior decorating. The men’s packages feature drafting technology, small business management, and electrical engineering. The differences do not just show the lack of respect for women in traditional male roles, but also shortchanges opportunities for women to advance into those positions by not allowing them to become skilled in the man dominated fields.
The articles in Redbook are written by a seemingly set standard of authors. Opinion pieces and short stories were commonly written by women, which is expected when reading a women’s magazine. The articles giving medical, psychological, and even parenting advice and information were all written by male doctors. While the vast majority of doctors at the time were primarily male, there were still female doctors in America. Redbook decided to use the expertise of the male doctors over the females, representing the idea of men being the more intelligent sex.
In every issue of Redbook there is an article in the section “Your Health: A Guide for Women.” The articles are about gynecological health, one in particular on the topic of abortion. The article, written by a man, discusses the various methods of abortions and the changing of abortion laws in the country.9 While the author nor magazine takes no stance on whether they agree or disagree with the morality of abortion, and they only present the medical aspects of the procedure, many readers still took great offense to its inclusion in the magazine. Women from across the United States wrote in letters saying how the article on abortion is a guide to killing offspring, or it ignores the fact of human life existing in the womb.10
An article by Dr. George Christakis gives the “perfect diet” for women. The article denounces crash dieting and fad dieting, claiming they do not give proper nutrients and do not provide lasting weight loss. The diet Christakis created allows 1,200 calories a day with very specific amounts of meat, vegetables, and dairy.11 This set number of calories for all women does not provide allowances for differences between women in height or amount of exercise in a woman’s day. Ignoring the differences in women and promoting a diet that could easily be far too little for some women to consume endorses an unhealthy weight loss ideal. This can lead to poor body image, and even eating disorders in women. In the news section of Redbook is an article by Dorothy Gallagher about Betty Rufalo. Rufalo, a school teacher, became an activist in the teacher’s union fighting for better pay and smaller student-teacher ratio in classrooms. While on strike with other teachers in the union, Rufalo was arrested, and later charged with contempt. She had to serve a six month jail sentence, and chose to take her sentence in stride, hoping to later appeal her case. She did, and won; Rufalo only served thirty-two days of her six month sentence. What she did accomplish was better pay contracts for teachers, and reduction of class size to a maximum of thirty students.12 A story of a strong woman fighting for what she truly believed in, even after being faced with jail time, should be looked at by readers as inspirational and give them hope of the feminist movement moving forward. Some readers were impressed with her struggle and appalled with how the courts handled Rufalo. They believed someone in a position Rufalo was in should not be punished as a criminal for trying to help the education system. On the other side, some believed Rufalo ignored her number one responsibility in life, her family, by choosing to go to jail.13 The inclusion of the reader’s opinion that did not agree with the choice Rufalo had made shows the way some women opposed women participating in any type of civil rights activism, because it was hurting their families. Women were still believed to take care of their children and husbands as their top priority in life. Throughout various issues were articles about traditional female tasks. One such article is simply titled “How to Iron Less and Enjoy it More.”14 In this article it gives advice on how to iron and de-wrinkle clothing and linens faster by using the electric dryers. Another gives suggestions on choosing the right yarn and gauge of needles for different types of knitting and crocheting.15 “Making Mending Easier,” a recurring article in Redbook, gives options for sewing and keeping your sewing space organized better.16 The addition of these different how-to articles is meant to help the women reading, but still exemplify the traditional roles of women performing tasks as sewing and knitting. Redbook magazine tries very hard to help young women and give them quality advice on different aspects of their lives. They have a variety of authors and article topics, but still follow gender ideals of femininity and masculinity. Between the medical articles written by exclusively male doctors and large amount of entirely sexist and exploitive advertisements, Redbook fails to propel the young women of the time into the feminist movement one would expect of 1971.
Works Cited
“How to Iron Less and Enjoy it More,” Redbook March 1971, 57.
“Letters to the Editor,” Redbook April 1971, 166.
“Letters to the Editor,” Redbook March 1971, 166.
A Redbook Guide to Knitting and Crocheting,” Redbook October 1971, 105.
Armstrong, "Place ‘n Press Excelon Tile Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, October 1971)].
Carter, Meg, “Making Mending Easier,” Redbook March 1971. Page number unknown.
Christakis, George, M.D., “The Perfect Diet,” Redbook January 1971, 55, 92-100.
Coty, "Emeraude parfum" (1970), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, January 1971)].
Du Pont, "Teflon II Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, April 1971)].
Eve Cigarettes, "Eve Cigarette Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, February 1971)].
Gallagher, Dorothy, “The Teacher who Chose to go to Jail,” Redbook January 1971, 58-59, 160-164.
International Correspondence Schools, "International Correspondence Schools Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, February
1971)].
La-Z-Boy Chair Company, "La-Z-Boy Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, June 1971)].
Margolis, Alan L., M.D., “Abortion,” Redbook January 1971, 26.
Roper Appliances, "Roper Appliances Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, May 1971)].
Virginia Slims, "Virginia Slims Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, March 1971)].
housewives and men being the working factor of the family. A large portion of Redbook is advertisements. They are meant to pander to women and the items women would want to buy for themselves, which included undergarments, cosmetics, and weight loss programs; this is strikingly similar to the advertisements featured in the women’s magazines of today. Along with the traditional women’s items featured throughout Redbook were advertisements for items such as cigarettes, children’s clothing, furniture, and men’s clothing. The majority of the ads shown were very sexist, and some exploitive of the women’s rights movement. Virginia Slims cigarettes were the main exploiters of the feminist movement using their campaign slogan, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”1 In all their full-page ads, they feature a woman dressed in pants and smoking their cigarettes. The top half of the page shows women attempting to smoke in public and men not allowing it. Another of their ads following the same tone shows men in a bar with the caption, “The neighborhood bar, voting, and cigarettes are for men only…just like pants.” Virginia Slims uses smoking as an example of a previously male dominated activity, and now that women can do it as well they should do it as an act of feminism and how far they have come. However, the ads also proved to be slightly contradictory as in the fine print it describes how Virginia Slims cigarettes are thin and not like the “fat cigarettes” that men smoke. The exploitation of the women’s rights movement and the addition of how their cigarettes are made for women display how women were still being told that they need to maintain femininity even while doing manly tasks such as smoking. Roper Appliances had an ad for a gas and electric self cleaning stoves with the tagline “Roper votes for women’s lib!”2 There are women on the half-page advertisement holding protest signs reading “No pot watching!” and “No oven scrubbing!” In the ad, it discusses how using a new Roper range will give women more freedom in the kitchen and by choosing a Roper range women will make their “vote for women’s lib really count!”4 While the advertisement is meant to draw similarities to the women’s rights movement erupting at the time, it comes across as almost mocking the struggle. It jokes around about how women will get freedom from the boring activities in the kitchen, such as pot watching and scorched pans, but ignoring the fact that they are implying women will be remaining in the kitchen and performing traditional female duties, such as cooking and cleaning, for their families.
Along with the kitchen duty advertisements is an ad for Du Pont’s Teflon II featured in pots and pans. The ad has the Teflon II seal with writing above it reading, “Look for this seal and don’t get stuck in the kitchen.”3 By using pots and pans with Teflon II, the women will be able to spend less time in the kitchen doing their feminine tasks such as cooking and cleaning. Although they say using it will let the women not “get stuck in the kitchen,” they are still saying women will be doing the conventional womanly task in the kitchen, similar to the Roper advertisement.
Not every advertisement featured in Redbook was exploitive of the women’s movement, but they did perpetuate the feminine and masculine personas women and men were supposed to portray. An advertisement for Emeraude perfume shows a woman looking seductively into the camera and writing underneath it that reads, “Want him to be more of a man? Try being more of a woman.”4 The image along with the caption tries to promote the ideals that women are meant to be soft and delicate, and men are meant to be strong and masculine. Promoting femininity was not an isolated act, even Eve cigarettes had ads appealing to the feminine role women were expected to take. The advertisement shows the Eve cigarette package, decorated with a woman surrounded by flowers, and a caption claiming the cigarettes to be the “first truly feminine cigarette – it’s almost as pretty as you are…women have been feminine since Eve. Now cigarettes are feminine since Eve.”5 Eve being the first female, biblically, is shown as the epitome of being a woman. Since women know have the ability to smoke cigarettes like men do, they should not be subjected to smoke the ugly manly cigarettes men do. With Eve cigarettes, women can still express their womanly demeanor, because the cigarettes come in a pretty package and have a pretty filter tip as well.
A two-page advertisement for do-it-yourself flooring exemplified the idea of women being incapable of doing traditional men’s work. Armstrong Place ‘n Press floor tiles created a quiz titled “What kind of man are you married to?”6 The questions asked how the woman’s husband would react to certain situations, such as what to do when a pipe breaks or when the last time he offered to help with the dishes. At the end of the quiz, the ad tells the reason for the questions is to sell the reader on selling her husband the flooring. Nowhere in the advertisement says the reader herself can install the flooring, or even suggest she might want to do it herself, but it does tell her how easy it will be for her husband to install it. The advertisers show how women were not thought of as key decision makers in their household, and needed to convince their husbands to make important purchases, such as new flooring, in her home.
La-Z-Boy Recliners advertisements did not discount the reader’s buying power, but did not sell the recliner for the reader herself. Instead, La-Z-Boy tried to sell the recliner as a gift to the reader’s husband. The full-page ad shows the recliner, with an inset picture of a man enjoying the comfort of the high quality chair. The caption reads, “I bought my man a La-Z-Boy Recliner, so on Father’s Day he’ll know I really care… …Besides, it’s mine during the day!”7 La-Z-Boy creates this vision of the reader spending the day lounging in the chair; she does not work as her husband does. When her husband does come home from work, he then gets to enjoy the comfort of the chair to relax while the reader takes care of other things in the house. It turns something as simple as a piece of furniture into a male item; when in reality, it is simply a recliner.
A recurring advertisement throughout multiple issues is for study from home adult education. One such ad for International Correspondence Schools has two separate information pamphlets to request: a “men’s success package” and a “women’s career kit.”8 The men’s success package comes with a “how to succeed” booklet, lesson sampler, and a booklet on the field of their choice. The women’s career kit, however, comes with information on the field of their choice. The difference in the information available to both sexes is not the only difference in the advertisement; the men’s packages offer more than twice the field opportunities than the women’s kits. Some of the women’s choices include art and design, secretarial, and interior decorating. The men’s packages feature drafting technology, small business management, and electrical engineering. The differences do not just show the lack of respect for women in traditional male roles, but also shortchanges opportunities for women to advance into those positions by not allowing them to become skilled in the man dominated fields.
The articles in Redbook are written by a seemingly set standard of authors. Opinion pieces and short stories were commonly written by women, which is expected when reading a women’s magazine. The articles giving medical, psychological, and even parenting advice and information were all written by male doctors. While the vast majority of doctors at the time were primarily male, there were still female doctors in America. Redbook decided to use the expertise of the male doctors over the females, representing the idea of men being the more intelligent sex.
In every issue of Redbook there is an article in the section “Your Health: A Guide for Women.” The articles are about gynecological health, one in particular on the topic of abortion. The article, written by a man, discusses the various methods of abortions and the changing of abortion laws in the country.9 While the author nor magazine takes no stance on whether they agree or disagree with the morality of abortion, and they only present the medical aspects of the procedure, many readers still took great offense to its inclusion in the magazine. Women from across the United States wrote in letters saying how the article on abortion is a guide to killing offspring, or it ignores the fact of human life existing in the womb.10
An article by Dr. George Christakis gives the “perfect diet” for women. The article denounces crash dieting and fad dieting, claiming they do not give proper nutrients and do not provide lasting weight loss. The diet Christakis created allows 1,200 calories a day with very specific amounts of meat, vegetables, and dairy.11 This set number of calories for all women does not provide allowances for differences between women in height or amount of exercise in a woman’s day. Ignoring the differences in women and promoting a diet that could easily be far too little for some women to consume endorses an unhealthy weight loss ideal. This can lead to poor body image, and even eating disorders in women. In the news section of Redbook is an article by Dorothy Gallagher about Betty Rufalo. Rufalo, a school teacher, became an activist in the teacher’s union fighting for better pay and smaller student-teacher ratio in classrooms. While on strike with other teachers in the union, Rufalo was arrested, and later charged with contempt. She had to serve a six month jail sentence, and chose to take her sentence in stride, hoping to later appeal her case. She did, and won; Rufalo only served thirty-two days of her six month sentence. What she did accomplish was better pay contracts for teachers, and reduction of class size to a maximum of thirty students.12 A story of a strong woman fighting for what she truly believed in, even after being faced with jail time, should be looked at by readers as inspirational and give them hope of the feminist movement moving forward. Some readers were impressed with her struggle and appalled with how the courts handled Rufalo. They believed someone in a position Rufalo was in should not be punished as a criminal for trying to help the education system. On the other side, some believed Rufalo ignored her number one responsibility in life, her family, by choosing to go to jail.13 The inclusion of the reader’s opinion that did not agree with the choice Rufalo had made shows the way some women opposed women participating in any type of civil rights activism, because it was hurting their families. Women were still believed to take care of their children and husbands as their top priority in life. Throughout various issues were articles about traditional female tasks. One such article is simply titled “How to Iron Less and Enjoy it More.”14 In this article it gives advice on how to iron and de-wrinkle clothing and linens faster by using the electric dryers. Another gives suggestions on choosing the right yarn and gauge of needles for different types of knitting and crocheting.15 “Making Mending Easier,” a recurring article in Redbook, gives options for sewing and keeping your sewing space organized better.16 The addition of these different how-to articles is meant to help the women reading, but still exemplify the traditional roles of women performing tasks as sewing and knitting. Redbook magazine tries very hard to help young women and give them quality advice on different aspects of their lives. They have a variety of authors and article topics, but still follow gender ideals of femininity and masculinity. Between the medical articles written by exclusively male doctors and large amount of entirely sexist and exploitive advertisements, Redbook fails to propel the young women of the time into the feminist movement one would expect of 1971.
Works Cited
“How to Iron Less and Enjoy it More,” Redbook March 1971, 57.
“Letters to the Editor,” Redbook April 1971, 166.
“Letters to the Editor,” Redbook March 1971, 166.
A Redbook Guide to Knitting and Crocheting,” Redbook October 1971, 105.
Armstrong, "Place ‘n Press Excelon Tile Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, October 1971)].
Carter, Meg, “Making Mending Easier,” Redbook March 1971. Page number unknown.
Christakis, George, M.D., “The Perfect Diet,” Redbook January 1971, 55, 92-100.
Coty, "Emeraude parfum" (1970), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, January 1971)].
Du Pont, "Teflon II Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, April 1971)].
Eve Cigarettes, "Eve Cigarette Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, February 1971)].
Gallagher, Dorothy, “The Teacher who Chose to go to Jail,” Redbook January 1971, 58-59, 160-164.
International Correspondence Schools, "International Correspondence Schools Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, February
1971)].
La-Z-Boy Chair Company, "La-Z-Boy Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, June 1971)].
Margolis, Alan L., M.D., “Abortion,” Redbook January 1971, 26.
Roper Appliances, "Roper Appliances Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, May 1971)].
Virginia Slims, "Virginia Slims Advertisement" (1971), advertisement [from Redbook Magazine, (New York: Hearst Publications, March 1971)].