University of Galway

Course Module Information

Course Modules

Semester 1 | Credits: 10

This course will look in detail at women’s work in Britain & Ireland 1900-1922, 1922-1939, in wartime Britain and women in Emergency Ireland and emigrating to Britain, 1939-45 – and women in postwar Britain and Ireland 1945-75. Some comparative references to North America will be made along the way, as there were some parallel developments in e.g. waged work, and ideas about women working. Also women’s magazines and women’s media, advertising, household and motherhood advice books in the early 20th century and later magazines.
(Language of instruction: English)

Learning Outcomes
  1. Students will learn to identify prescriptive literature wherever it appears – guidebooks, magazines, women’ pages, problem pages.
  2. Students will learn how to read this prescriptive literature, first of all by relating it to women’s living conditions at all social levels at that time, and secondly by relating it to dominant – often conflicting and competing, and ever-changing – discourses about what it meant to be female, at varying ages and social classes. They will also learn how not to read it i.e. not to assume that it was slavishly followed by, or imposed upon, women.
  3. Students will also get an insight into the kind of topics assumed to be of interest to girls and women, in magazines and women’s pages, and how these changed over this 75-year period.
  4. Students will try to arrive at some understanding (and this is the trickiest of all) of how females read this literature, how and if they related it to their everyday lives. Some oral evidence,letters to the editor, and for the UK, Mass Observation archives in the library, can be used to attempt to find this out. No firm conclusions can or will be reached, but the complexity of the material will be understood.
  5. Students will be encouraged to understand how magazines and popular media are produced, and to appreciate the role played by advertising in magazines and women’s pages.
  6. Students will become familiar with the secondary literature on all of these topics, and will arrive at a critical understanding of some of the ideas of media and cultural studies.
Assessments
  • Continuous Assessment (100%)
Teachers
Reading List
  1. "Inside Women’s Magazines" by Janice Winship
  2. "Women’s Worlds: ideology, femininity and the woman’s magazine" by R.Ballaster, M. Beetham, E.Frazer and S.Hebron
  3. "Reading women’s magazines: an analysis of everyday media use" by Joke Hermes
  4. "The Parlour and the Suburb:domestic identities, class,femininity and modernity" by Judy Giles
  5. "Roughing it in the Suburbs: reading Chatelaine magazine in the 50s and 60s" by Linda.Korinek
  6. "Constructing Girlhood:popular magazines for girls in England 1920-1950" by Penny Tinkler
The above information outlines module HI583: "Problems in the use of popular print media in Ireland and Britain, 1900-1975" and is valid from 2017 onwards.
Note: Module offerings and details may be subject to change.