Beyond Buying and Posing: Feminist Teen Magazines

At least once a day I hear myself saying some version of the following to my two daughters, ages ten and thirteen: “We didn’t have X when I was young.” Depending on the situation, the next sentence will be, “And we got along just fine without it” or “I sure wish I’d had that when I was your age.”

In the latter category are feminist magazines. As I remember them, the magazines of the fifties and early sixties aimed at girls were all about celebrities, looking good, being nice, and snaring a guy. My friends and I read them avidly. What would it have meant to receive a magazine that told me it was OK not to look like a movie star, that I could be a politician rather than a politician’s wife, that asked why boys coul...