Career Options as Portrayed by Popular Advertising and Romance Comics

This weekend while catching up on my blog reading, I came across the above advertisement for Playtex tampons over at Retrospace. The overarching message of the 1971 ad, "women just like you," along with its imagery of nurses, stewardesses, models, and college girls, got me thinking about the portrayal of career women in romance comics who very often fall into these same categories. It is possible to read romance comics from the '60s and '70s and get the impression that these particular career paths were the only ones available to women. Charlton however, challenged that notion with a little featurette titled "Choosing a Career" from their workplace oriented title, Career Girl Romances. Here are two discussing educational training, salaries, workload, and benefits for the occupations of engineer and dietitian.

"Choosing a Career - Engineer" Career Girl Romances #57 (June 1970)

"Choosing a Career - Dietitian" Career Girl Romances #73 (February 1973)

Though women were pigeonholed by advertising and media to fulfill certain societal roles (often of the super sexy and ultra-feminine caretaker variety) it is refreshing to see that Charlton made an effort through these columns to broaden their readers' horizons.