As a form of entertainment, popular magazines such as Seventeen, In Touch Weekly, OK! Magazine, and Cosmopolitan are known for spreading celebrity gossip, offering advice columns and even updating people on the latest fashion and other pop culture. While some of these may not seem to have malicious intent, there is something else these magazines do to people, more specifically, women who are ages 18-24. Magazines reinforce gender stereotypes, teach young adult women to strive for perfection in their looks, to be submissive yet independent, and that no matter how they act people will find a way to use it against them. Women in these magazines are more often talked about with a negative connotation, while men are spoken about less harshly.
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Weight loss advice is offered adjacent to food advertisements and articles making fun of women who tried to alter their physical appearance and failed. A good example of this is a small article in issue 14, volume 40 of In Touch Weekly, where someone is criticizing Victoria’s Secret models for being “too thin”, but then on a later page there is an advertisement for a magazine that claims to be a guide to being happy, healthy, and sexy; while also promising that you will “be slimmer”, “be more beautiful”, and “be confident” if you subscribe and read their magazine. This kind of language teaches women that losing weight will help them get further in life and feel more fulfilled, and that they can’t be confident without a body that looks good by society’s standards. Women are taught from a young age that they have to be independent yet assertive, achievement oriented but also demure, physically attractive, quiet, underweight and respectful to men (Adams, 2003, p. 75). There are many contradictions in the things females are taught from childhood, and as they get older they see it even more through these advertisements and articles. Lastly, women are also taught that the way they dress dictates their status and how people treat them. This is discussed by Adams as well, in that cheerleaders are awarded popularity because of their short skirts that would otherwise …show more content…
For example, in most magazines there are sections titled “Who Wore It Better?” that put women into a competition they never intended to enter. Celebrities wearing the same outfit are compared side by side and the person who looked worse in the outfit are dragged down. Wolf states that the beauty myth is more about behavior rather than appearance, and that competition between women has been made part of the myth in order to further divide women from each other (1990, p. 14). This type of competition seeks to harm feminists on a psychological level, and to keep women out of power. Not only do women feel like they have to measure up to others in the way they dress, but magazines also give contradicting messages on plastic surgery. An example of this is the way there is a four page story on Kylie Jenner and how she has been ruining her life. The Kardashians’ and Jenner’s are extremely famous and people tend to look up to them, maybe not in the way they act but in their physical appearance. In this story, the writer talks about how it is possible she has had many operations done including cheek and lip fillers, eyelid surgery, a nose job, chin implants, Botox and breast implants. The pictures used in the story follow a timeline from 2011 to September 2015, and the final photo is a photograph that hasn’t been taken professionally like all the others and makes her
Weight loss advice is offered adjacent to food advertisements and articles making fun of women who tried to alter their physical appearance and failed. A good example of this is a small article in issue 14, volume 40 of In Touch Weekly, where someone is criticizing Victoria’s Secret models for being “too thin”, but then on a later page there is an advertisement for a magazine that claims to be a guide to being happy, healthy, and sexy; while also promising that you will “be slimmer”, “be more beautiful”, and “be confident” if you subscribe and read their magazine. This kind of language teaches women that losing weight will help them get further in life and feel more fulfilled, and that they can’t be confident without a body that looks good by society’s standards. Women are taught from a young age that they have to be independent yet assertive, achievement oriented but also demure, physically attractive, quiet, underweight and respectful to men (Adams, 2003, p. 75). There are many contradictions in the things females are taught from childhood, and as they get older they see it even more through these advertisements and articles. Lastly, women are also taught that the way they dress dictates their status and how people treat them. This is discussed by Adams as well, in that cheerleaders are awarded popularity because of their short skirts that would otherwise …show more content…
For example, in most magazines there are sections titled “Who Wore It Better?” that put women into a competition they never intended to enter. Celebrities wearing the same outfit are compared side by side and the person who looked worse in the outfit are dragged down. Wolf states that the beauty myth is more about behavior rather than appearance, and that competition between women has been made part of the myth in order to further divide women from each other (1990, p. 14). This type of competition seeks to harm feminists on a psychological level, and to keep women out of power. Not only do women feel like they have to measure up to others in the way they dress, but magazines also give contradicting messages on plastic surgery. An example of this is the way there is a four page story on Kylie Jenner and how she has been ruining her life. The Kardashians’ and Jenner’s are extremely famous and people tend to look up to them, maybe not in the way they act but in their physical appearance. In this story, the writer talks about how it is possible she has had many operations done including cheek and lip fillers, eyelid surgery, a nose job, chin implants, Botox and breast implants. The pictures used in the story follow a timeline from 2011 to September 2015, and the final photo is a photograph that hasn’t been taken professionally like all the others and makes her