Details of Short Paper II:
1) The paper needs to be 4-to-5 pages long (1200-1500 words of text).
2) Use either APA or Chicago Style, being consistent with the one you choose. You should have citations for your sources and a formal Bibliography beyond the 1200-1500 words (perhaps that will be page 6.)
3) Content: Now that the course is within the last half century, more and more materials are available in photographs, TV shows, or films. These visual presentations of the lives of women offer important, image-shaping depictions which may or may not relate to the actual lives of women. So, too, do the women’s magazines present an image of women which may idealize their daily lives and experiences.
So, find as a Primary Source a depiction of the lives of women in some media form between the 1930s and the 1960s. The topic is broad: it can be an iconic photo such as the impoverished Hooverville woman with child in her lap that one of you posted. It can be Marlene Dietrich in one of her most sophisticated films. It can be a photo and article from the LADIES’ HOME JOURNAL. It could be an issue of VOGUE. Think about what you want to discover most about women from somewhere in this thirty-year period and look for the presentation in some media.
I would suggest you look over once more the marvelous and varied images of women from the Women’s HIstory Collection in Week Five. There, you can surely find a photo that can be the basis of your paper.
Then, find a source or two (at the most) that attempts to show the real life of women in that regard. The paper should then compare and contrast, or describe and analyze the differences and/or similarities between the mediated presentation of women and what you can find of their real lives. Sometimes the data bases that come from the Social Sciences can offer scholarly studies of real situations for women. Further, if you choose to go to the 60s, the range and variety of presentations grows even farther.
I have made the assignment purposefully broad so that you can pursue an aspect of women’s lives that interests you most. It may even be something that you can work on further for the research paper. You might want to segment your choice of “real lives” to those of African American women, or Japanese American women, or lesbian women, or elderly women, or teenagers, or obese women, or anorexic/bulimic women. In brief, narrow your topic so you can make some genuine distinctions between the media presentation and the real lives of women you choose.
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