Reading Chatelaine: Dr. Marion Hilliard and 1950s Women’s Health Advice

Abstract

This article explores key themes and discourses surrounding women’s health advice written by Dr. Marion Hilliard between 1954 and 1957. Her works, published in eight Chatelaine articles and a 1957 book, are of particular significance because they demonstrate some of the many paradoxes Canadian women faced: women were told to stay at home and be housewives, but that they could have an identity of their own; that women too were sexual beings, but that their sexuality was confined within heterosexual, monogamous limits. Hilliard’s articles are important because they not only demonstrate the extent to which patriarchy defined women’s roles, nature, and sexuality, but also how the mass media at times provides opportunities to challenge these dominant ideologies.