Femeia

Femeia
in 2008
CategoriesWomen's magazine
FrequencyMonthly
PublisherSanoma Hearst Romania
Founded1878
CountryRomania
Based inBucharest
LanguageRomanian

Femeia (Romanian: The Woman) is a women's magazine in Romania which was established in 1878. From 1946 on, it served as one of the propaganda publications of the Communist regime. The title was acquired and restarted by the Finnish media company Sanoma in 2006 as a mainstream women's magazine.

History and profile

Founded in 1878, Femeia has adopted different political stances. These can be divided into three headings, as follows:

Feminist magazine

The magazine was started in Bucharest in 1878 under the title Femeia română: ziarul social, literar şi casnic (Romanian woman: A social, literary, and domestic magazine).[1] Its founders were a group of women led by Maria Flechtenmacher.[1] The magazine adopted a feminist approach, making it one of the early Romanian publications focusing on women.[1] The magazine's slogan was Libertate prin lumină! (Romanian: Liberty through Light).[2]

It reported significant events for women, including the First International Congress of Women's Rights held in Paris in 1878.[3] It was one of the supporters of the establishment of women's associations in the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia.[3] The Romanian novelist Sofia Nădejde was among the notable contributors to the magazine,[2] which came out twice per week until 1881 and produced 230 issues during this period.[1]

Communist magazine

The magazine was renamed Femeia Muncitoare (Romanian: The Working Woman) in 1946, becoming one of the propaganda periodicals of the Communist government.[4][5] It was attached to the National Council of Women and frequently reported the women-related decisions of the Communist Party.[6] It also featured articles on women's rights, their condition in the modern society, health, beauty, housework, literature and fashion topics.[7] The magazine came out monthly.[8] It had a sister publication entitled Dolgozó nő which was printed in Hungarian language.[9]

Femeia fulfilled its propagandistic role until the 1990s, along with Săteanca (Romanian: The Country Woman), targeting women.[4] It was an imitation of the Soviet women's magazine Rabotnitsa in terms of its content, layout, and strict communist ideology as late as 1960.[4] Over time, Femeia developed its own political stance and design, which were a reflection of the changes in the ideology of the Romanian Communist Party.[4] Thus, the magazine supported much softer communist ideology between 1960 and 1965.[4] Femeia focused on cosmopolitism from 1965 to 1972 but then returned to its former stance, a softer communist ideology, in the period between 1972 and 1979.[4] It adopted a much stricter communist stance from 1980 to 1989.[4]

Mainstream women's magazine

The license for Femeia was acquired by Sanoma in 2006, and it was restarted as a monthly magazine.[10] Its target audience is women aged between 25 and 45, and the magazine mostly features articles on fashion, beauty, home decoration, and hobbies.[10] Sanoma Hearst Romania, publisher of the magazine, claimed 459,000 readers for Femeia in 2008.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Ionela Băluţă (2016). "Women and the Family in the Late Nineteenth-century Romanian Feminist Press: Defining Alternative Gender Roles". Journal of Family History. 41 (1): 67–68. doi:10.1177/0363199015617474.
  2. ^ a b Magda-Elena Samoilă (2018). "Romanian Women's Education and Social Activism at the End of 19th Century". In Vasile Chis; Ion Albulescu (eds.). Education, Reflection, Development – ERD 2017. The European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences. Vol. 41 (5 ed.). Cluj-Napoca: Future Academy. pp. 858–866. doi:10.15405/epsbs.2018.06.103. ISBN 978-1-80296-040-2. Proceedings of the Education, Reflection, Development
  3. ^ a b Daiana Gârdan (July 2018). "The Great Female Unread. Romanian Women Novelists in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: a Quantitative Approach". Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory. 4 (1): 112. doi:10.24193/mjcst.2018.5.07. S2CID 166106465.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Denisa-Adriana Oprea (2016). "Between the heroine mother and the absent woman: Motherhood and womanhood in the communist magazine Femeia". European Journal of Women's Studies. 23 (3): 281–296. doi:10.1177/1350506815585177. S2CID 147743810.
  5. ^ Sorana-Alexandra Constantinescu (2017). "How Women Made the News. A Case-Study of Femeia Magazine in Communist Romania under Ceaușescu". Journal of Media Research. 34: 37. doi:10.24193/JMR.27.4.
  6. ^ Petruţa Teampău (October 2016). "Women leaders and lead workers in communist Romania: a discoursive approach". Europolis. 10 (2): 142.
  7. ^ Toth Godri Iringo (2017). "Propaganda Emancipation and Stalinist Internationalism In Romanian Communist Magazines for Women". Logos Universality Mentality Education Novelty: Philosophy and Humanistic Sciences. 5 (2): 13–25. doi:10.18662/lumenphs.2017.0502.02.
  8. ^ Manuela Marin (2015). "Creating the Myth of New Man: Propaganda, Politics and Turkish and Tatar Minorities in Communist Dobrudja". Caietele Echinox. 28: 187.
  9. ^ Jill Massino (2019). Ambiguous Transitions: Gender, the State, and Everyday Life in Socialist and Postsocialist Romania. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. p. 72. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1850hqs. ISBN 978-1-78533-599-0.
  10. ^ a b "FEMEIA the Most Read Women's Magazine in Romania". Sanoma Group. 23 May 2008. Retrieved 20 May 2023.