Hello, my name is Kate and I am a freshman at the University of Texas, Austin. For my Philosophy of Media course, we were assigned to do a research paper on something in the media. I would like to research the retreat of magazine articles geared toward the feminist woman since the mid-1980s. Lately, most magazines cater to women's want of improving themselves for men. I need to find information concerning this topic and the media's influence. If you would please help me out in any way that you are able, I would really appreciate it. Also, if you have web site addresses for women's magazine articles from the 1970s where I could research such feminist articles, I would appreciate that, as well. Thank you very much for your time.
Sincerely, Kate

Thanks for your note to FEMINIST.COM. I think you are on to something, which is "the retreat of magazine articles geared toward the feminist woman"-- however, I don't think this retreat has changed dramatically since the mid-1980s, perhaps with the exception of Glamour's latest turn away from feminism/politics. The exception to this rule, of course, is Ms. Magazine, which has been provided an outlet for feminist women since its creation in 1972. To learn more about how magazines have always mistreated feminism, you can look to a couple of places:

1.) Susan Douglas' book-- Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media.

2.) Laura Flander's book-- Real Majority, Media Minority: The cost of sidelining women in reporting.

3.) For more on Ms.--see Mary Thom's Book--Inside Ms.: 25 Years of the Magazine and the Feminist Movmement and Amy Farrell's--Yours In Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the Promise of Popular Feminism .

4.) Also, Susan Faludi's Backlash devotes lots of attention to this.

Those should be enough sources to get you started.

—Amy