Maggie Andrews is a Professor of Cultural History at the University of Worcester.

Sallie McNamara is a Senior Lecturer in Cultural Theory at Southampton Solent University.

The media have played a significant role in the contested and changing social position of women in Britain since the 1900s. They have facilitated feminism by both providing discourses and images from which women can construct their identities, and offering spaces where hegemonic ideas of femininity can be reworked. This edited collection features tightly focused and historically contextualised case studies which showcase current research on women and media in Britain since the 1900s. The case studies explore media directed at a particularly female audience such as Woman's Hour, and magazines such as Vogue, Woman and Marie Claire.

Introduction Maggie Andrews and Sallie McNamara Section 1: Women and Media in the Era of Enfranchisement, 1900-1939 1. "Elated, Exhilarated and Emancipated": Representations of Women's Motorcycle Riding in the Motorcycling Media, 1903-1914 Rosey Whorlow and Sallie McNamara 2. "From Women's Hour to Other Women's Lives: The BBC Talks for Women and the Women Who Made Them, 1923-1939 Kate Murphy 3. Lady Eleanor Smith: The Society Column, 1927-1930 Sallie McNamara Section 2: Women in War and Peace: The 1940s and 1950s 4. A View from the Frontline: The War Photography of Lee Miller Janet Harrison 5. Prostitution, Adultery and Illegitimacy: Tortuous Couplings and Unstable Sexual Repression in Wartime Film Maggie Andrews 6. Striving for Editorial Autonomy and Internal Recognition: The Setting Up of BBC's Woman's Hour, 1946-1955 Kristin Skoog 7. Women's Viewpoint: Representing and Constructing Femininity in Early 1950s Television for Women Mary Irwin 8. "But What About Mum?": Journalist, Architect, Wife, Mother: Diana Rowntree Glenda Strong Section 3: The Long 1960s: Cultural Revolution? 9. Women and Woman: Representations of Youthful Femininity in the "World's Greatest Weekly for Women", 1954-1969 Rachel Ritchie 10. The Gendering of Racism in Social Problem Films Maggie Andrews 11. "Should Women Be Bus Drivers?" Defending a Permanent Position for Women on the Buses in ATV's Regional Television News, 1963-1979 Gillian Murray 12. Pin-Up Culture and Page 3 in the Popular Press Adrian Bingham Section 4: '80s and '90s: Thatcherism and Its Legacy 13. The Iron Lady and the Working Girl: The Image of the Prostitute in 1980s British Cinema Paul Elliott 14. Feminism and Femininity: The Potential Politics of Consuming Popular Culture: A Case Study of Marie Claire's Reportage of Global Humanitarian Politics Maggie Andrews 15. What's Luff Got to Do with It? : Teenage Magazines, Sexuality and Regulation in the 1990s Fan Carter 16. Fantasies, Factions and Unlikely Feminist Heroines in Contemporary Heritage Films Maggie Andrews