Women's magazines are trashy – everyone accepts this, right? You read them to look at celebrity bodies being dissected for the slightest bit of cellulite or to look at hideous clothes that rich people are wearing. You don't read them for searing social commentary, and so to judge them against such criteria when they're not trying to fit it would be unfair. Right?
The problem I have with this is that considering that the millions of readers that subscribe to magazines like More, Cosmo etc in the UK include millions of smart, competent women, I just haven't been able to work out why these magazines are so full of utter CRAP.
I'm not even really talking about all the fashion stuff, or the celebrity gossip – I'm sure there are people who like reading that as mindless fun even if I don't, and I don't want to generalise to all women. But so few of these magazines talk about anything 'real' that I wonder if it's not so much that they're giving women what they want from a magazine – fun, men, and fashion – but rather telling them that what they're giving them is what they want so repeatedly, that the line becomes blurred and everyone forgets how it all started.
That aside, the main problem I have is the hypocritical nature of these magazines. Cosmopolitan's byline declares itself for 'fun fearless females who want to be the best they can in every area of their lives'. I spent a while trawling through their website, and while I can see sex and fashion tips in abundance and more celebrities than I could shake a stick at, I fail to see anything much more substantial than that. Now, I know it can very reasonably be argued that if you don't like this sort of thing, then nobody is forcing you to read the magazine. Very true, excellent point. But I take issue with a magazine that apparently prides itself on catering to ALL areas of women's lives when it only caters to a few 'important' areas of some women's lives. Either it needs to admit that it's fallen short of its target by a LONG stretch, or it thinks that women's lives revolve solely around fashion and sex – and mostly around men.
Not only is that hugely insulting, it's also dangerous, particularly for younger, impressionable readers of the magazine. I could well be wrong, but I feel that in doing this, the magazine simply isn't acknowledging that there is far more to being a woman than knowing 156 sexual positions and knowing how to dress well – in short, knowing how to please a man. By basing their magazine on these things yet having a byline like the aforementioned one, and with only the cursory 'real life issue' thrown in occasionally, the magazine seems to imply that women wouldn't, or shouldn't, be concerned with anything beyond this. There are women-related issues that extend beyond bitching about celebrities. How about what we think about the shockingly low amount of female MPs? Or how the most recent benefit cuts have affected working women with children? These are issues that affect us, and by not acknowledging these, magazines that claim to be for the Everywoman insult our intelligence on a weekly basis. A survey found that over a quarter of women's magazine readers have strongly feminist viewpoints, and yet the magazines themselves don't reflect this at all.
These are some of the things I've read in magazines that I think best illustrate this point.
1) Cosmopolitan – 'It's more feminine if a girl wears a little make-up, it shows she cares about her appearance.' Ian, 26, quoted in an article on Cosmo online about 'What Guys Secretly Think Of Your Makeup'. It was then followed by how to achieve this look, as well as more male opinions on what women should wear.
Dear Ian, 26. Thanks for your input into this issue. I don't remember asking for it, but still, glad you shared. I'm so sorry I don't adhere to your perception of what a real 'feminine' woman is. I'll try and work on that, really I will. After all, if Cosmopolitan decides to quote a random guy saying 'women need to wear make-up' then really, my only hope for survival in this bitter cruel world is to try and please him. Really Cosmo? Take the opinion of any random guy off the street and then persuade women that they need to follow it? You're not even trying to PRETEND that women wear make-up for any other reason than to please a man. And actually, I bet if he'd said 'I actually don't think women should wear make-up, ever', you wouldn't have published him.
By the way Ian, while we're at it with wildly perpetuating stereotypes, I hope you won't be offended if I tell you that I think that all men should work out at least twice a day. It just makes them more 'masculine', you know? Lizzie, 23.
2) Cosmopolitan again – An article on sex tips for women included the sentence 'For him, the illusion of resistance [from the woman to having sex] will heighten his arousal.' Great. I know I definitely want to meet a guy who's turned on by women who are physically resisting him.
3) Cosmopolitan again – On their Life Advice page (of which at least 70% of the articles are about men, which is a slight improvement from the rest of the site, where it's probably over 90%) 'It may be tempting to contact a guy after an amazing date, but resist the urge.' Apparently it 'lessens the thrill of the chase for him.' Really, Cosmo, in 2011 are you still putting that about? If he can't handle a simple text message without freaking out, then he clearly has issues, and if he needs the thrill of the chase to stay interested, then dump the guy and buy him a fucking Snitch.
4) Glamour magazine – Diane Kruger picture (above) – Do's and Don'ts - Caption 'DO let your curves do the talking'. Curves?! What curves? The woman looks like she hasn't eaten since 1993! And Christ, from the expression on her face, it's not through lack of hunger. Here's a tip, Glamour... DON'T hold up women like this on pedestals for what we should be trying to achieve, and furthermore DON'T have the nerve to call an emaciated woman 'curvy', when you know full well that any woman who weighs more than she does (read: everyone who actually eats more than a rabbit) will look at their own real 'curves' and hate themselves just a little bit more. It hardly presents a positive body image.
5) Seemingly every women's magazine – The word 'He' appears more times than the word 'You' Not only does this encourage women to think about what would make their partner happy more than what would make themselves happy, which is bad enough in my book and hardly encourages us to think for ourselves and be our own person – it completely excludes women who are single, particularly women who are single and perhaps aren't looking to date anyone. With articles in their hundreds entitled things like 'What HE thinks of your make-up', women who don't have a 'He' are automatically excluded, especially because they present the situation of having a 'He' as the 'norm', and therefore the thing to strive towards. What's more, anyone with same-sex preferences aren't even slightly given a look in, which once again excludes a section of women and divides our sex even further. Heterosexuality and having a boyfriend are still portrayed as the most normal and most important things in these magazines, and that just makes me sad. These aren't magazines that represent women fully, as much as they'd like to pretend they are. Women are much more complex and three dimensional than any of these glossy pictures and frothy articles give any of us credit for. I'm not at all saying that women shouldn't have partners and that magazines shouldn't acknowledge this; I'm simply saying that there is more to all of us than who we choose (or don't choose, in many cases) to date. And magazines should acknowledge that.
In addition to all of these ridiculous (and sometimes frankly bizarre) things that magazines tell us, there are even more harmful undertones, The attitudes towards weight loss and general appearance from women's magazines are appalling, and are one of the big reasons why it's been shown that women who read women's magazines tend to have lower self-esteem than women who don't. Perhaps they have lower self-esteem anyway, and read them for advice, only to have pictures of women who look like they need to be fed some cake shoved in their faces. And so the vicious cycle begins. Tons of adverts for cosmetic surgery to make you feel 'normal'. Make-up 'hints' in their hundreds. Articles entitled things like 'Lose that bit of tummy' or 'Tone up those thighs' alongside other articles on how obesity really isn't a laughing matter, it KILLS people. But most of the time, we're not talking about obesity. We're talking about normal women who weigh more than the stick-thin models with hunger trapped in their eyes that are plastered on every second page of these magazines and hailed as 'beautiful', making these women feel like they're not normal EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE. Lose that bit of tummy? Why the hell should you? I think what most women would like to lose (including myself) is that sickening feeling of looking in the mirror and feeling like they're not good enough. And that won't go away with 50 sit-ups a day and a juice-only diet – low self-esteem isn't related to being 'overweight', as the magazines would have us believe, it's related to not being happy in yourself.
For the most part, I try not to write about personal things on this blog, as I feel it detracts from more important issues and I don't want this to be all about me. But sometimes, using a personal example can be instructive. A year ago, I weighed at least half a stone less than I do now. While I berate myself for putting on this weight, and gaze wistfully at Facebook pictures where I was thinner (I know, pathetic), I have to take into account that this feeling of insecurity I have about my weight hasn't sprung up out of nowhere. I had it last year, when I was much thinner. And about 2 years before that, when I was around a UK size 6 for a while. I still wasn't happy, not to mention I looked pale and drawn. So I'm forced to conclude, really, that whatever my size, I will only ever really be happy with how I look when I stop worrying about it and accept that I am who I am, which is nigh-on impossible if I compare myself to these women in magazines that feed off our insecurities. This, unfortunately, is much easier said than done.
It doesn't matter how much weight we lose, or really how many new skin routines we try or how much fancy make-up we buy that's guaranteed to 'change us', that feeling will always be there as long as we subscribe to the impossible beauty ideals put before us in the media, and as long as those magazines insist on putting these ideals on a pedestal and hailing them as a common goal that we should all be striving towards. These magazines don't promote individuality, or celebrate the beauty of all the female forms, no matter what they say. They promote one very specific type of 'beauty', and leave the rest of us who don't conform to this out in the cold, desperate to be accepted for who we are. The only way of losing this is for magazines to woman the hell up, stop exacerbating insecurities, be on OUR side for once and embrace the not-so-radical notion that beauty comes in many forms, and that nobody should have to change who they are to be accepted. In short, as Kat Banyard comments in her book The Equality Illusion, they need to stop 'picking the wound and then selling us the plaster'.
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