1792

The first women's magazine, The Lady's Magazine, begins publication in England. It creates the model for other popular women's magazines of the period by targeting upper-class women with a combination of fiction and articles focused on concerns such as fashion and etiquette.

1830

Godey's Lady's Book becomes the first fashion magazine published in the United States. It features sewing instructions as well as hand-colored plates exhibiting the latest fashions and, along with imitators such as Peterson's Magazine, is influential in creating the “cult of true womanhood,” which advocates that women should concentrate their energies on the domestic sphere and be submissive, pious, and pure.

1863

The Delineator, a women's fashion magazine that features tissue-paper dressmaking patterns, begins publication. It will eventually reach a circulation of more than 2 million before going out of business in 1937.

1867

Harper's Bazar, a magazine devoted to women's interests, including fashion and household matters, begins publication. It is still in publication today (now titled Harper's Bazaar with two a's), making it the oldest continuously published fashion magazine in the United States.

1892

Vogue is founded by Arthur Baldwin Turnure; in 1909 the magazine is purchased by Condé Nast, and it remains a leading fashion magazine today.

1896

Alice Guy-Blaché directs La Fée aux Choux, one of the first narrative films ever created. She will create more than 700 films in the course of her career in France and the United States.

1912

Sybil Herrold begins hosting a weekly radio program in San Jose, California; she is generally assumed to be the first woman radio announcer in the United States.

1924

The radio station WUMS, operated by David Thomas, begins broadcasting in Ohio. Thomas never obtains a license from the Federal Radio Commission, required after passage of the Communications Act of 1934, but manages to keep broadcasting until 1948.

1926

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) becomes the first national radio network in the United States, with the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) following a year later.

1927

The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, becomes the first feature film to include synchronized sound dialogue and ushers in the era of the “talkies” and the decline of the silent film industry.

1934

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is created in the United States to regulate domestic nonfederal use of the radio spectrum, including radio and television broadcasting.

Eleanor Roosevelt begins a weekly news commentary program on the radio, making her the first First Lady to have her own radio show.

1936

The Olympic Games in Berlin are broadcast to television parlors in several German cities, representing the first practical use of television.

Dorothy Arzner, who had been directing films in Hollywood for 10 years (including Clara Bow's first talkie, The Wild Party), becomes the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America.

Joe Weider begins publication of an early bodybuilding magazine, Your Physique, which in 1966 will be renamed Muscle Builder and in 1980 Muscle and Fitness.

1938

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster create the first Superman story, published by DC Comics, and usher in the era of the costumed superhero.

1940s

Talent search programs on American television and radio, such as Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts and Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour, involve audience members in the programs by allowing them to vote on contestants.

1941

The Amazon warrior princess Wonder Woman first appears in a DC Comics issue, and one year later she first appears on the cover of a comic. Wonder Woman is remarkable both for her superhero attributes (which include martial arts expertise and possession of magic bracelets that can deflect bullets) and for her well-developed figure and revealing costume.

1946

Regular television broadcasting to the general public begins in the United States.

1949

The American mathematicians Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver publish The Mathematical Theory of Communication, which refines theories of how messages are communicated and received, adding concepts such as the possibility of corruption in delivery and the ability of the receiver to affect the producer of the message.

1953

Playboy magazine, founded by Hugh Hefner, begins publication. Playboy becomes noted not only for its nude centerfolds (Marilyn Monroe was an early model) but also for publication of contemporary fiction and interviews with cultural leaders.

1954

The nonprofit organization American Women in Radio and Television is founded with 282 members; today it has more than 2,300, employed mostly at television and radio stations.

1959

Mattel introduces the Barbie Doll, an adult-bodied doll designed by Ruth Handler after a German doll called Bild Lilli. Barbie's fictional boyfriend, Ken, is introduced in 1961.

1960s

Television begins broadcasting in color, and by the end of the decade color broadcasting has become the norm.

1963

Hasbro introduces G.I. Joe, an action figure based on members of the U.S. armed forces.

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique criticizes role expectations for American women (including that they should forgo their own careers in favor of homemaking) and challenges contemporary images of the “ideal woman.” Although criticized as addressing primarily the interests of middle-class white women, it becomes a galvanizing force in the feminist movement.

1964

In the United States, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race or gender.

Sports Illustrated publishes its first swimsuit issue; it becomes phenomenally successful and evolves into an annual publication, relying on a formula featuring primarily supermodels posing in [Page xxvii]exotic locations but occasionally female athletes (including Steffi Graf, Anna Kournikova, Serena Williams, and Danica Patrick).

Marshall McLuhan publishes Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, which advocates studying the media themselves because they affect society over and above any content they may carry; this gives rise to the popular formulation “the media is the message.”

1965

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is created in the United States to investigate complaints of discrimination based on characteristics such as race and gender.

1966

Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, and colleagues found the National Organization for Women (NOW), currently the largest women's liberation organization in the United States.

That Girl, a television program starring Marlo Thomas, becomes the first American situation comedy to focus on an unmarried woman living alone.

Lawyer and civil rights activist Florynce Kennedy founds the Media Workshop to counter racist representations of minorities in the media.

1968

The Kerner Commission, created by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the underlying causes of racial unrest in the United States, identifies in its report a lack of diversity among the staff of newspapers and television stations, leading to a lack of coverage of issues important to racial minorities.

1969

Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman publish “After Black Power, Women's Liberation,” which points out the inequalities within the civil rights movement and the New Left while taking on the issue that U.S. feminism was widely understood to be the concern of white women.

The Brady Bunch, an American television program created by Sherwood Schwartz, begins broadcasting. The show presents a “blended family” in which the parents both have children from previous marriages; the father (played by Robert Reed) is described as a widower; the reason that the mother (Florence Henderson) was not married is left open.

1970

Electronic versions of popular role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons are developed by users, often on mainframe university computers.

The videocassette recorder (VCR) presents a relatively cheap and easy way for people to watch movies at home at their convenience and also to record television programming for use on their own schedules.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show, created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns, becomes the first American situation comedy to focus on a career woman who is not seeking a husband.

1971

The groundbreaking American sitcom All in the Family, produced by Norman Lear, begins broadcasting. Over its run (to 1979 in its original form, and from 1979 to 1983 as Archie Bunker's Place), this show addressed many controversial issues, including women's liberation, homosexuality, racism, menopause, and impotence, and was also one of the most popular shows of its era.

Ken Robinson directs Some of Our Best Friends, an early documentary featuring gay activists and other members of the community (some of whom appear in shadow).

1972

John Berger and four colleagues create Ways of Seeing, a British television series as well as the title of a book published to accompany it, which argues that power relationships based on gender and class are evident in both modern advertising and historical western European art. One famous example is Berger's observation that in European art “men act, and women appear” and that women in art were represented for the pleasure of men, an early formulation of the theory of the male gaze.

Maude, a situation comedy spun off from All in the Family, features Bea Arthur as a liberal, feminist woman who is the opposite of Archie Bunker in every way (in All in the Family Maude was the cousin of Archie's wife, Edith). The program incorporated serious themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, and abortion.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 stipulates that girls and women in the United States must have equal opportunity to participate in educational programs. This is interpreted to include school sports teams, leading to a great expansion of organized sports for women at the high school and college levels.

Gloria Steinem cofounds Ms. magazine, the first major U.S. magazine to focus on women's issues from a feminist point of view.

The television drama That Certain Summer, which focuses on a teenage boy who learns that his father is gay, becomes the first television movie to deal with gay issues.

1973

Stuart Hall publishes Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse, which states his theory that media producers encode messages in media content, which is then decoded by audience members.

The Miller test (as developed by the U.S. Supreme Court while considering the case Miller v. California) becomes the standard for defining pornography: Pornography must appeal to the prurient interest (as defined by community standards), describe sexual conduct in a patently offensive manner, and lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

1974

Molly Haskell publishes From Reverence to Rape, an early work of feminist film theory and one of the first books to focus on images of women as presented in the movies.

1975

Laura Mulvey publishes her groundbreaking essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” in Screen. This essay explicates her theory of the “male gaze,” basically that the conventional Hollywood movie is created to appeal to a male viewer and that story lines, shot selections, and other technical elements are governed by this male point of view.

Susan Brownmiller publishes Against Our Will, which attempts to redefine rape as a crime of violence (usually against women) rather than sex.

1976

Barbara Walters becomes coanchor (with Harry Reasoner) of the ABC Evening News.

1977

Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives is released by the Mariposa Film Group; this documentary features 26 gay men and lesbians willing to be interviewed on camera about their lives.

The American television comedy Soap features the bisexual character Jodie Dallas, played by Billy Crystal.

1978

In the United States, the FCC issues its Statement of Policy on Minority Ownership of Broadcasting Facilities, which attempts to remedy the underrepresentation of women and minorities as owners of broadcast licenses.

The Sundance Film Festival, originally titled the Utah/U.S. Film Festival, is held for the first time; it will go on to become a major showcase for independent American films.

1979

Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis create Usenet, a worldwide Internet discussion system that allows users to read and post messages to newsgroups.

1980s

The first participatory reality television programs are broadcast in the United States. The genre receives a strong boost in 1988 during a strike by the Writers Guild of America.

Cable television becomes popular in the United States, providing subscribers with access to more specialized programming than is available on the broadcast channels.

1980

The American Psychiatric Association recognizes transsexuality as an official disorder.

1981

The African American feminist bell hooks publishes Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, which examines the portrayal of black women in the media, as well as a number of other issues relating to racism and sexism.

The maze video game Ms. Pac-Man, featuring a female protagonist, is released in North America and becomes one of the most popular video games of all time.

The prime-time soap opera Dynasty begins broadcasting. The show will stay on the air until 1989 and feature American television's first recurring gay character, Steven Carrington (played by Al Corley and Jack Coleman).

1983

Oprah Winfrey begins hosting the television program AM Chicago, which rapidly becomes the most popular talk show in Chicago. In 1986, the program begins national broadcast as The Oprah Winfrey Show, which soon becomes the most popular daytime talk show in the United States.

1984

The Times of Harvey Milk, a film about the gay politician directed by Robert Epstein and produced by Richard Schmiechen, wins the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

1985

The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), one of the oldest virtual communities in the world, is founded as a dial-up bulletin board system by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant.

The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) drama An Early Frost, starring Aidan Quinn and D. W. Moffett, becomes the first television movie to deal with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

Janice Radway publishes a book-length study of the audience for romance novels, which argues for reader response criticism (looking at how audiences receive and interpret a work) rather than the close readings (focused on the text itself), typical of New Criticism, to understand the impact of romance novels on their female readership.

1988

Murphy Brown, an American situation comedy starring Candice Bergen as a journalist and news anchor, begins broadcasting. In the show's 1991–1992 season, one story arc concerns Murphy becoming pregnant and choosing to raise the child as a single mother, a choice that becomes famous when Vice President Dan Quayle refers to it in a speech as emblematic of the decay of family values in America.

1989

Kimberlé Crenshaw coins the term “intersectionality” to emphasize how race, class, and other attributes together influence the unique experience of minority women.

1990s

Internet chat rooms such as those in the America Online (AOL) network become popular sites for social interaction, a practice celebrated in the popular 1998 feature film You've Got Mail. The potential in such chat rooms for people to assume an identity different from their own (changing gender, age, and other traits) led to the caption “on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog,” featured in a New Yorker cartoon.

Many girl-oriented video games come on the market, including Hawaii High: The Mystery of the Tikki, Barbie Fashion Designer, and Tomb Raider, the latter featuring archaeologist Lara Croft.

Satellite broadcast companies such as the Dish Network offer television viewers an alternative to terrestrial broadcast and cable programming.

1990

A touring exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, is shown at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center. Because some of the photos are sexually explicit (although they have been exhibited elsewhere without fuss), the center and its director, Dennis Barrie, are both [Page xxx]charged with promoting obscenity, although they are ultimately cleared of the charges. The episode is chronicled in the 2000 television movie Dirty Pictures, directed by Frank Pierson.

1991

With Daughters of the Dust, Julie Dash becomes the first African American woman to direct a feature film shown in general theatrical release.

1994

The U.S. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) produces a miniseries based on Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, which is popular but controversial because of its inclusion of homosexual characters, drug use, and explicit sexual situations. The conservative backlash against the program leads PBS to decline to produce the sequel, More Tales of the City, which is produced instead by the cable network Showtime.

1995

The television program Xena: Warrior Princess, a spin-off of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, offers a new role model to women in the form of the leather-clad warlord, Xena (Lucy Lawless), and her best friend, Gabrielle (Renée O'Connor).

1996

The magazine Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture begins publication; its particular focus is to respond to antifeminist messages in mainstream media for young adults and to provide alternatives for young women.

In the United States, the Telecommunications Act deregulates much of the media market, dropping rules against local monopolies (such as those that had prohibited a company from owning both a newspaper and a radio or television station in the same city) and allowing for consolidation of media ownership.

Tim Draper and Steve Jurvetson use the term “viral marketing” to describe their practice of attaching advertising (for Hotmail) to every e-mail sent through the Hotmail system.

1997

Popular actress and comic Ellen DeGeneres comes out (publicly declares her sexual preference as homosexual) on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

1998

Sex and the City, a television series loosely based on the book of the same name by Candace Bushnell, begins airing on HBO. The show focuses on four professional women in New York City (played by Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon) and includes frank discussion of issues such as female sexual fantasies and desires, promiscuity, and sexually transmitted diseases.

Will and Grace, a broadcast television situation comedy featuring two gay male characters (Will, played by Eric McCormack, and Jack, played by Sean Hayes), begins airing. The program is highly rated and wins numerous awards but is also criticized for reinforcing stereotypes through the superficial, flamboyant character of Jack.

1999

American soccer player Brandi Chastain makes media history when, after scoring on a penalty kick that won the championship game for the United States, she peels off her jersey and falls to her knees in celebration. The photo of Chastain in her sports bra is widely featured in the mainstream media, including on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

2000

Queer as Folk, an American gay soap based on a British series of the same name, premieres on the premium cable network Showtime. The program follows the stories of a group of gay men and is far more explicit than previous television programs, including numerous scenes of same-sex lovemaking and dramatic elements such as drug use and cross-generational romantic relationships.

Robert McChesney publishes Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times, which argues that consolidated corporate media ownership in the United States compromises journalistic integrity, creates conflicts between the public interest and the corporation's desire for profit, and reduces consumer choice, because the most profitable genres and formulas tend to be repeated and others ignored.

2002

Julie Powell blogs about her project of cooking all the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This project becomes one of the first [Page xxxi]blogs to be adapted to book form (in 2005) and made into a film (2009), both titled Julie and Julia.

One of the first reality makeover television programs, Extreme Makeover, begins broadcasting on ABC. This program features extensive makeovers (sometimes including plastic surgery) of individuals (mostly female) who were presented as being transformed from ugly to beautiful.

2003

Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis create Skype, a software program that allows users to make voice calls and other forms of communication, including instant messaging and video conferencing, using the Internet.

The social networking site Myspace is founded to compete with sites such as Friendster, Xanga, and AsianAvenue; it becomes the leading social networking site by 2005 but in 2008 is overtaken by Facebook.

Second Life, a virtual world that uses three-dimensional modeling to allow users to create avatars that can interact with other avatars, engaging in many of the same activities common to the real world, including sexual relations.

The cable channel Bravo begins airing Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a reality television show in which five gay men perform a makeover on a straight man, giving him advice about grooming, clothing, cooking, home decorating, and relationships. It became a popular hit and won an Emmy in 2004 and in later seasons included women and gay men as makeover subjects.

2004

The groundbreaking program The L Word, a Showtime series based on the lives of a number of lesbians, begins airing.

Mark Zuckerberg and several collaborators found Facebook, a social networking service originally limited to Harvard students but later expanded to other universities, then to high school students, and finally anyone age 13 or older.

2005

Logo, an American cable channel that focuses on gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual programming (including reality shows, original dramas, and travel programming and films) begins service.

The video-sharing Website YouTube, which allows individuals to upload their videos and watch the videos uploaded by others, begins operation.

The Huffington Post, a news-aggregation and opinion Website, is created by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti. It becomes extremely popular and influential, winning numerous awards, including a Webby Award for Best Politics Blog in 2006 and 2007, but is also criticized for its policy of relying on content created at other sites and for not paying many of those who create its unique content.

2006

The social networking and microblogging site Twitter is launched by the San Francisco–based company Twitter, Inc.

Internet pornography in the United States is reported to be a $2.8 billion business.

2009

Glee, a television drama about high school students participating in a glee club (show choir), begins broadcasting. The series, created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan, is notable for featuring the out gay character Kurt Hummel, played by Chris Colfer, another character (Rachel Berry, played by Lea Michele) with “two gay dads,” and guest appearances by gay icons including Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel.

RuPaul's Drag Race, a reality television program featuring the drag queen RuPaul, begins airing on Logo.

2010

Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to receive the Academy Award for Best Director, for her film The Hurt Locker.

Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University, commits suicide by jumping from the George Washington Bridge. Clementi, who was gay, was videotaped by his college roommate, Dharun Ravi, during a sexual encounter. Although Ravi was not charged with Clementi's death, he was convicted in 2012 on a number of charges, including [Page xxxii]invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, and evidence tampering.

Dan Savage and Terry Miller found the “It Gets Better” project in response to teen suicides. Many celebrities (and non-celebrities) post videos speaking about the bullying and harassment they experienced in their childhoods and teenage years and the better lives they are currently enjoying as adults.

2011

Journalist Peggy Orenstein publishes Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the New Girlie Girl Culture, detailing the cultural pressures on preteen girls to adopt sexualized clothing and appearances.

ESPN airs Reneé, a film about the transsexual tennis player Reneé Richards.

2012

In January, gay civil union laws go into effect in Delaware and Hawaii.

In March, Maryland becomes the eighth U.S. state to allow same-sex couples to marry.