Another post in my Monday Musings subseries called Trove Treasures, in which I share stories or comments, serious or funny, that I come across during my Trove travels.
Today’s story popped up as I was looking for articles on women readers in general, and I couldn’t resist sharing it as a treasure. In 1946, just after the war, Prudence of Melbourne’s The Sun News-Pictorial (31 August 1946) ran a competition – not a survey – asking readers “What do you like to find in the women’s pages of your daily newspaper?”
She apparently received hundreds of replies from (presumably mostly women) readers throughout Victoria. The paper says:
Judged as a whole the entries in this novel contest make it outstandingly clear that women are first and foremost homemakers and like to read helpful and constructive matter which is applicable to everyday life.
In addition to this, 90 per cent of women readers like to read interviews with women who have made a success of their chosen careers whether at home or abroad.
I would add to this, from the replies shared in the paper, that women like to see articles from other women.
The main winner, Edna Anderson, dot-pointed her main wishes, saying she liked:
- “Any ideas for improvement in method of work that will increase my efficiency or save my time.
- Something to take my mind off the house — such as interviews with women I’ll probably never meet — travelled women or women who have interesting careers or jobs, I skim.
- Child welfare articles or any thing about children.
- Little human interest stories—I skim through reports of activities or through reports of organisations looking for little personal bits about people concerned.
- Articles that keep me abreast of the trend in fashions.”
What came through clearly in all the winning entries was that although women will, as Mrs R Baines wrote, “read colorful bits of frothy gossip”, these are not what make them want to read the paper. These sorts of articles must not, she says, be the “main course”. Rather, a woman’s
appetite is for something more substantial; nourishing but digestible, solid but nicely garnished, a chop, as it were, but adequately crumbed and served as a cutlet and not drowned in domesticity, though lightly seasoned with such it can be very palatable.
Women, she and others wrote, are interested in what is happening in the world, in popular science that is applicable to life, and in the stories of people who “have contributed something worth while to the world, whether it be intellect, art in its many forms, sport, philanthropy of purse or spirit”. This desire, particularly regarding what is happening in the world, is repeated in articles I read that quoted librarians’ comments about women’s reading in this mid-40s period.
Mrs Baines says:
A tea-party is more memorable for a guest having said: “I read an interesting article in the women’s section the other day . . . “
An entrant using the nom-de-plume, New Lamps for Old, focused particularly on coping with the difficulties of this early post-war period. She was looking for ideas and interactions for “making the absolute best of the difficulties of living conditions today [which] are bound to continue until the post-war world has regained its normality”. And, she says firmly, these ideas “must [my emph] come from interviews with women who are actually facing up to these difficulties”.
She is serious about this. She continues that “interviews with women who are managing on a moderate allowance are of more value than columns describing society weddings”. Indeed, she propounds:
Until the world has righted its problems “glamor” should be deleted from our vocabulary. We are Australians, not Hollywood stars, and have our own way of life.
“A little humor, a dash of seriousness, and a jolt to the men!” (L. Rees)
L. Rees expands on the above points, with her own angle. She wants articles – ‘some with the humorous side to a serious question, others with plenty of “meat” so that we could eat, digest, and argue the ayes and nays’ – on topics ranging “from the children’s literature to any of the bugbears of our time”. She adds that, now the public can read political debates, articles explaining “the jargon used in the House would enable we lesser beings to understand what it is all about”.
Rees would also enjoy a mid-week short story and – this is interesting – she says that
If plays, concerts and films were “covered” by a woman critic, I think we would be better served.
I think I would have liked L. Rees, because, in addition to the above, I also loved her comments on personal and domestic content. Household and cookery articles get “rather monotonous”, she says, but admits they are “a necessity”. Then, although she thinks that “beauty hints are good”, she adds, subversively
instead of so many hints to wives on how to retain that first glamor glow, what about a few hints directed towards the men? How to keep your wife happy! A few hints from the right quarter, and who knows, the husband would be arriving home plus flowers and tickets for a show, instead of the usual routine — eat, read the paper, don slippers, and twiddle the wireless knob, and so to bed. There is no need to fear he won’t read the hints, for it’s astonishing how many men “just glance” at our page. So here are my ideas: “A little humor, a dash of seriousness, and a jolt to the men!”
I will leave that thought with you!
Comments?
Whispering Gums 
Mum, who began being a house wife in 1950, read every Woman’s Weekly, Womans Day and English Woman. And I suppose she also read the women’s page in the (Melbourne) Sun.
The point is that in those days these were substantial reading with huge subscription bases. Yet in the late 60s someone, Kerry Packer I suppose, turned them into entertainment industry gossip rags. I have never understood why.
Yes, good point Bill about that change. The 60s was a time of change wasn’t it … and not all in the direction many of us were thinking? My guess is developments in mass media had a big hand in it.
If I were asked I’d want to also discuss what should be left out. Our paper is almost always about sports. Me ‘s sports mainly. The games, the people, the scandals, the wives clothes. Our paper did away with the cartoons. Most opinion pieces are by men. The letters to the editor are by the same people day after day. Past employees if the paper. I tend to skim headlines. The recipes are those that take two days to prepare or are so fiddly or have ingredients you;d need to be good at scavenger hunts to find.
When I get down to it I guess the most anticipated articles would be the weather report and are there any people in the death notices I know. I have more success with the Guardian and the New York Times for interest. Lol
Oh Pam, I love this! I know what you mean with nearly all of these, including the recipes. We don’t all want to be on MasterChef!
Maybe those people are the only ones who write Letters to the Editor!!
I like The Guardian online, The Saturday Paper which is not your daily paper of course, and another non paper, The Conversation.
I like reading the book reviews 🙂 and I love the puzzles, 9 letter word and cryptic crossword. I have made the recipes from the papers before though and agree many of them are too over the top.
I would like more ‘news’ less click bait headlines. I had to read about 4-5 articles this morning to work out how the budget changes would work as the first articles were all sensationalist describing the outcome and not what the decision would be.
Oh yes, Rach, I like the puzzles too. And good point re current news. The first one I read this am was The Conversation’s which did a good summary I think, and which came through my email system. The click bait headlines drive Mr Gums up the wall because he clicks and then can’t find the content promoted in that bait.
I read the Saturday Paper at times and have a subscription to the Guardian. It is the only paper I feel I can rely on.
My favourites too Pam. (Thought I’d replied to this but it was on my phone and sometimes those comments don’t seem to take.
All the older women in my family read the women’s magazines and then discussed and/or compared and/or complained. Required reading.
I actually really like the NYT cooking app; in the past I’ve stuck with print cookbooks, for a variety of reasons (including stubborness) but their recipes not only call for ordinary ingredients but the comments are so popular that you can find substitutions and variations straight away too. This is as domestic as I get. (I like the end quote, suggesting beauty hints for me could have a place!)
Thanks Marcie … I like a few online recipe sources and apps for the same reason. I kept a small selection of recipe books in our downsize but that was for sentimental reasons. I don’t use many of them much at all. I particularly like the comments and suggestions that you say. I also like the recipe apps that provide detail – whys and hows- about the recipe.
Me too! I can’t believe how much I’ve learned from a single comment in brackets that someone bothered to include next to, ohh an ingredient in a list, or, maybe next to the timing instruction. Tidbits of shared wisdom: love it.
Yes, exactly …
there are also those who just have to share the way they improved a recipe by adding this, swapping that, in obvious ways that feel like wanting to be noticed rather than truly value adding.
Am I understanding this correctly? That the winner wanted to read articles by women who are just like her but whom she will never meet? And that if someone has a life not focused on domesticity, she skims their work? What a, I dunno, small life? Maybe I’m thinking too much like a person from 2026!
Good question Melanie. The language is interesting but I think it’s something like that though she doesn’t say focused on domesticity. And she does skim not skip those seemingly more exciting lives! I think it’s worth noting the time (1946) and the clue in another of the top responses who talks about the difficult times. It may not be a small life but a tough life?
I loved your final respondee and her wish for subtle hints for male improvement ! My kind of gal.
And like Rach I have struggled to find an article that simply discusses the budget without all the speculation of what might happen. Thankfully Mr Books trained as an accountant so has some know-how to offer up but I will seek out the article you mentioned above – thanks.
Yes, thanks Brona … I reckon she should have been the winner.
Let me know what you think about the article. My feeling is that it was descriptive and analytical rather than speculative.
Yes, that’s how I felt too and I found another one about tax rates that I also found useful. Thanks
A pleasure. It’s certainly confusing isn’t it.