Preschool Girls and the Media: How Magazines Describe and Depict Gender Norms

Abstract

This research investigated the presentation and content of magazines targeted at preschool-aged girls in Japan to analyse what gender patterns or gendered behaviours were encouraged and how the readers reacted to the media discourse. There were 13 magazines published in 2013 in Japan. Seven of them catered to girls, three to boys and three to both genders. The analyses focussed on the magazines for girls and their contents, layout and colours used. The analyses tell what is considered as appropriate in this national context for girls. Magazines for girls included information and illustrations of food, clothes and hairstyles and media celebrities such as popular musicians or fashion models and, therefore, focused more on entertainment and personal appearance. By analysing the readers’ pages, it was evident that the gendered patterns that the magazines conveyed were not always in line with the interests of the girls who wrote to the magazine. The writers and publishers of the magazines set up stereotypic expectations that describe and depict gendered norms for female children. However, as evident from the readers’ pages children did not necessarily accept all the stereotypic ideas related to gender.