Women's Media Genres

Abstract

Women's media genres include women's → magazines and romances in print media, the → soap opera on → Television, and romantic comedy in film (→ Film Genres). They are not generally the corollary of men's media but defined in contrast to general audience media such as newspapers or “family genres,” including situation comedies, quiz shows, and action series on television. In some cases, they are specifically made for female audiences. In other cases, they have, over time, come to be identified as “women's genres” due to their consumption by largely female audiences. For instance, the classic detective novel has long been typical reading for middle‐class women and as such has come to be known as a women's genre. Western women's movements, notably second wave feminism from the 1960s onward, pointed to women's media genres as sources of women's oppression (→ Women's Movement and the Media). They criticized the assumed effect on readers of these genres (→ Media Effects) because of the traditional gender definitions in them. To be referred to as a “women's media genre” is not particularly a mark of distinction for a media form. It is sometimes used as an indication of (overly) high emotional or sentimental content (→ Emotions, Media Effects on). Audience reasons for using women's media genres include widely divergent arguments ranging from the everyday usefulness of traditional women's magazines (Winship 1987; Hermes 1995; Currie 1999; Gough‐Yates 2002), via recognition of real‐life dilemmas in soap opera, to the guilty pleasures afforded by romantic fiction.