Manligt och kvinnligt enligt kvinnor och män : En kvalitativ undersökning av ledarna i fyra livsstilsmagasin

The purpose of this thesis is to study how femininity and masculinity is portraited in theeditorials of four Swedish lifestyle magazines; Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Moore and Slitz. Themain questions we based our study on are: What kind of relationship does the editor in chiefcreate with the intended reader? What conception of the world does the editor in chief createin the editorials? How does the editor in chief portray masculinity and femininity?In order to answer the questions above we performed a qualitative analysis of the editorials offour lifestyle magazines published during 2007. We used a discourse analysis with emphasison gender and how the editorials constructed masculinity and femininity and its stereotypicaltraits.Furthermore we based our results on a theory of the socially constructed gender. According tothis theory gender is constructed during our childhood and adolescense by the individuals andthe society surrounding us. These individuals and this society teaches us what is expectedfrom men and women in their traditional gender roles. Theories concerning stereotypes insociety and media were also helpful.During our analysis we found that there are several differences between how women portraythemselves in Glamour and Cosmopolitan and how men portray them in Slitz and Moore.There were also differences in how men portraid themselves in Slitz and Moore and howwomen portraid men in Glamour and Cosmopolitan. There were also several similaritiesbetween the different magazines.One of the most important similarities between the editorials was that all of them tended tolean toward the stereotypical description of masculinity and femininity. Also, the role of theopposite sex tended to be small and undetailed.The most important difference, on the other hand, we found was the language. While theeditorials in the lifestyle magazines directed to men used a harsh, sarcastic and humoristiclanguage, the editorials in the lifestyle magazines directed toward women tended to use amore friendly, educational and serious language