Gender Depictions in Children’s Magazines


Date: January 1, 1970
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This study examines gender-behavior modeling in children’s magazine imagery. This type of research commonly deals with the media of children’s television and books, and until now children’s magazines have escaped this critical attention. It is evident that children detect sex-role differences in media and seek to mimic socially constructed and widely accepted gender roles. Therefore it is necessary to look at all forms of children’s media, including magazines, for gender stereotyping. Using a content analysis of four U.S. children’s magazines, this research explored the gender of the 1,404 characters and what roles and activities the publications assigned to male vs. female characters. Findings indicate that males are significantly over-represented and stereotypical gender behaviors are prevalent. Across categories such as parenting, working in paid occupations, using tools of production and engaging in strenuous activities, the children’s magazines resorted to conventional depictions of masculinity and femininity. This research shows that children’s magazines do not differ from other children’s media in presenting traditional patterns of gender behavior and maintaining sexist stereotypes.


Publisher: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, TBA, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 22, 2008
Year of Publication: 2008

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