Contesting Images: Representations of the Modern Woman in the German Illustrated Press, 1924-1933

Contesting Images: Representations of the Modern Woman in the German Illustrated Press, 1924-1933 Public Deposited

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Creator

Lynn, Jennifer M.
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of History

Abstract

Images of the Modern Woman emerged during the interwar years alongside the expansion of the illustrated press, a new form of mass media, which reached a broad social strata. Thus far, scholars have concentrated on this consumer orientated image without acknowledging the tensions and contestation between differing conceptions of femininity in the broad and changing political spectrum of postwar Germany and the nuanced differences found in the visual and textual representations produced in a wide range of illustrated magazines. Questioning the dominant depiction of the New Woman, I argue that illustrated magazines of different political backgrounds incorporated, modified and emphasized different elements of the Modern Woman and thus presented conflicting constructions of femininity while locating modernity within the female body.

Date of publication