ABSTRACT

Many women in present-day society are very conscious that the media projects certain stereotyped images of women. It is important to recognize that this is nothing new: when we look at the past we see that each age has projected particular images or dominant stereotypes, to which women were persuaded or coerced to conform. In this chapter I propose first to show why these images are so very important. Secondly, at much greater length, I shall survey the changing image of women in Britain from about the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War - looking particularly, where possible, at who devised these images, at the agencies through which they were projected and reinforced and asking why one image gave way to another. Brief allusions will be made to the reality of women’s lives – in counterpoint to the media images – but these references to reality must necessarily be brief and I shall leave the historical sources, outlined in later chapters, to reveal the real contrast. Thirdly, I should like to suggest a schedule of practical work, which can be undertaken on either of two levels: it can be as undemanding as sitting back and reading old copies of Woman and Woman’s Own and watching old films on television or, on the other hand, it can involve an attempt to assess the impact of what were, for the most part, national images on the lives and imaginations of women in various parts of Britain.