Magazine thesis

I've talked before about the nostalgia for that-which-never-was that is inspired by old magazines from the 1950s and 1960s. There's still some of that, as I continue marching through my button/magnet project; clipping apart glossy little vignettes of perfection. (It's not a metaphor!)

But as I've been flipping through magazine after magazine, ranging from the late 1940s (just a few of those), through the 50s (more of those, but still rarer), and the early and late 1960s (lots of those, and should be counted as two separate decades in terms of tonality), I can't help but notice major patterns in tone (see aforementioned 1960s).

If I were still in college I could spend a lot of time and effort doing a complex analysis about what these types of magazines (women's lifestyle mags, mostly) said about what women's roles should be, the darkness of the era, the shift to youth-centric culture, etc and whatever. There are multiple angles one could take. I'll list a few stray observations:

• The 40s and 50s and very early 60s emphasize a homemaker role, but a fairly empowered and understated one. You're making the decisions, because of course, but you're making them as part of your role and your family. There is no need to hammer this down your throat, here. In the mid-60s this started to change radically--almost as though they were trying to construct (or go along with) a backlash to woman's lib. 
• Seriously, though. The backlash is strong. If you look at the 50s and early 60s, things look pleasant. There may be sexist roles, but advertisers are comfortable in them. In the late 60s, early 70s--ads marketing to women are overtly hostile to women. Is this because being a homemaker is now a choice one has to defend, so there's some in-fighting between the women who work and those who don't (in the 60s? I would think it too early for that), or is there some sort of shaming and subjugation going on. If I had a paper to write, I could do a broader analysis. As it were, I only have stray observations. 
• Likewise, men get kind of stupid in the late 60s. You MUST be housewife and wink-wink we all know what a pain that extra-large child in your house is. 
• Unsurprisingly gendered ads, with the gendering getting heavy-handed in the late 60s. "Pink is only for girls, and you're a girl, aren't you? Use our pink lustre creme..."
• Weight control remains consistent throughout the decades, though the tone and purpose change. In the 50s you want to be slim to fit into the stylish fashions. In the late 60s you want to be thin because you can't be schlumpy for your husband. 
• Women. We have always had pervasive pressure to be slim. You should see some of the "reducing" diets through the decades. It is illuminating to see how crazy it actually is. 
• Ads shift radically in the late 60s from targeting the late-20s-40s homemaker mother/wife to just-marrieds, youth, and young mothers. 
• Shit got dark and cheap in the late 60s. Dark paneling, dark veneer. Everything new looks dingy. From my Mad Men TLo study, this reflects the mood of the era. Lots of unrest and everything just got...dark. 
• Douche/noroforms/birth control messaging gets more and more obvious.