This is a content analysis of magazines. Drawing on the lecture and readings about work and gender, and using your analysis of a women’s magazine and an equivalent men’s magazine (some examples are GQ and Cosmopolitan, Maxim and Glamour, Men and Women’s Health Magazine), write a seven page paper that analyzes their approaches to success at work. How do these magazines present these topics to their differing readerships? What do these approaches tell us about how ideas about work and gender are cultivated, inculcated, and spread?
The following are some general instructions for the observations that will provide some of the evidence for your assertions:
•What are the foci of the articles and editorials? For example, if you chose men’s and women’s health magazines, why do the articles or editorials claim health is important? What claims are targeted to men and how do they compare to the claims targeted to women?
•Look at the ads. What is being advertised, to whom, and how? What differences in these do you discover? How do advertisements define success for women and men? How often do references to work show up in ads targeted to each sex?
•What is the amount of content dedicated to thinking about the workplace in these magazines? How do they compare? Are—and if so, how are—the messages being sent about what work means to men and women different? How are they the same? Considering Ryle’s discussion in chapter 8 (see pages 348–349): do men’s magazines reinforce the idea that men should “Be a Big Wheel” or the ideals of “Marketplace Manhood”? Does your investigation find equivalent ideas available to women?
•Investigate implications. Why are your findings important? In other words, think your ideas all the way through. What are the consequences for girls/women and boys/men in what you’ve found? How is work constructed for men and women? Is it seen as a reflection of their natural tendencies? Are gender differences being perpetuated? Or do you see signs of convergence?
Stimulate your sociological imagination. Focus your observations to help shape the analysis you deliver in your paper.
Your paper should be seven pages in length, double-spaced, in twelve point font, with a title and bibliography or works cited. Be careful to define your terms and cite sources using APA or MLA style. When writing your paper, consider the following:
•Be analytical in organization and focus. Its introductory section should assert a conclusion about gender and work and how the media approaches this topic. The paragraphs in the body should “read” the contents of the magazines and their overt and covert “messages.”
•Be sure to employ the specialized vocabulary of the course, perhaps thinking through the magazines in terms of ideas including one or more of the following: agency, subject/object relations, socialization, double standard, “third shift,” etc.
•Support your argument with your own observations as well as points made by relevant readings and the lectures.
•Pursue implications of your findings and thoughts: What are the consequences for girls/women and boys/men in what you’ve found? How do the magazines we read shape our expectations about work and leisure? Ambition? Qualities of the workplace and the worker? What characteristics of work are gendered female or male?
This project draws on your own research. Please note that this paper is not a personal opinion piece. It is a short research project that demonstrates how you have gathered data and are now engaged in a conversation with other theorists. As such, remember to draw on your readings and lectures for support of your ideas. A GOOD RESEARCH PAPER HAS ONE TO TWO CITATIONS PER PARAGRAPH. CORRELATE ANALYSIS WITH THEORIES IN THE LECTURES.
Since your project incorporates your own research, you do have some latitude in your writing style. However analysis, evidence, and argumentation are valued. You are not required to run any statistical analyses, but you should discuss your findings in terms of proportions when applicable. You may use headers to separate the different sections of your paper, such as:
•“Introduction,” which should include two to three paragraphs that contain a brief discussion of the theories you will be using and your thesis;
•“Methodology,” which includes one to two paragraphs that briefly provides the titles of the magazines (magazine titles should be in italics), why you chose them, and what specifically you looked at to compare and analyze;
•“Findings/Analysis and Discussion,” which constitutes the bulk of your paper, where you describe what you observed and use the theories to help explain what you found; and a
•“Conclusion” that discusses the implications of your findings.
Textbooks using: Robyn Ryle Questioning Gender: a sociological exploration (2018)
