Representations of women and gender relations in Bulgaria (1960s)

This work aims to analyze women's representations and gender relations in two Bulgarian women's magazines during the period 1960 - 1970. The main objective of the study is to illustrate how social trends are presented in magazines' content and to follow how these trends are changing. The book uses the approaches of history of everyday life and history of representation for the purposes of the research. Basic methodological approach is discourse analysis - analysis of texts, published in the magazines, as well as visual analysis - analysis of the representations (pictures) in the magazines. An important accent of the book is comparative study between the two chosen magazines. Mains conclusions of this study are that significant changes occurred in Bulgarian society for a relatively short period of ten years. These changes are visible and could be followed in magazines' content. By analyzing texts and images of these two Bulgarian magazines, I could follow up social changes and discover how official policy of government towards women was applied in Bulgaria during the period of the research.