Making Her Up: Women’s Magazines in Slovenia

In Making Her Up, the authors try to elucidate the precise ambivalence of the image of the modern woman, which is (un)wittingly created by the producers of women’s magazines in co-operation with capitalistic advertising mechanisms and, not least, their own readers. Through the discourse and content analysis of a diverse selection of Slovenian women’s magazines (Cosmopolitan, Jana, Modna Jana, Glamur, Naša žena, and Moj malcek), the writers have uncovered a few representative topics: the contradictory contents of ‘universal women’s culture’; the phenomenon of subtle advertising, with its inexhaustible options among the various types of magazines; fashion as the main theme of each and every one of these magazines; the disciplining of a woman’s mind through the disciplining of her body; cosmetics advertisements; medicine, pregnancy, birth, and the cult of motherhood, which still prevails over the image of the independent, successful, emancipated woman.

Contributors: Majda Hrženjak holds a doctoral degree in sociology and works as a researcher at the Peace Institute; Ksenija H. Vidmar holds a doctoral degree in sociology and works as a lecturer in the sociology of culture at the School of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana; Zalka Drglin has a master’s degree in the sociology of culture; Valerija Vendramin has a doctoral degree in women’s studies and works as a researcher at the Pedagogical Institute; Jerca Legan is a postgraduate student at the Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis (Ljubljana); Ursa Skumavc is a student of the sociology of culture at the School of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana.

At the book presentation, Majda Hrženjak, Ksenija H. Vidmar, Zalka Drglin, Valerija Vendramin, Jerca Legan, and Vlasta Jalusic, the founders of a research group for reviewing women’s magazines at the Peace Institute, will take part in a conversation moderated by Brankica Petkovic, the editor of the MediaWatch series.

In cooperation with: Cankarjev dom, Založba/*cf., Mirovni institut / The Peace Institute.