Cosmopolitan-advertising sex and misogyny for way-too-many years
While it is possible I have an especially sensitive gendered-stomach, searching the Cosmopolitan for ads was a sickening experience. I happen to buy the “Cosmo� once before, for a women-studies assignment on body image I have completed in a Biology of women class, and nothing have improved between the editions. First, even if we strongly believe and have all the scientific evidence women just love pink, too much of a good thing is bad. The ‘Cosmo� suppose to be targeting young women and women adolescences, but it looks like it also ‘winks’ at these women’s partners by its broad display of semi-nude women and its advice to the women to “go easy� on their men.
The ads in the “Cosmo� mostly displayed nude (or semi-nude) women, extremely thin, smooth skinned and wearing pretty heavy makeup (so at least they were wearing something, and I hope this is not too crude of a joke in a Gender Women and Sexuality Studies site).
The women in the ads were mostly white, presumably middle or upper class (if I can judge by the very few clothes on their bodies and by the fact they must have spent hours on their hair, makeup, dresses, etc.) and “sexy�. They were never looked like they were in the middle of doing anything, rushing anywhere, or have any other purpose in their life than looking into the reader eyes with direct look (in big and always perfectly made eyes and eyelashes). Women in the “Cosmo� ads evade the readers’ gazes just if they were playfully trying to look like innocent (and younger) girls who are supposed to be so sexy by their playing of innocence as if they were not aware of their sexy clothes (or bodies) and makeup.
I could not see any specific emotions in the Cosmo ads, unless you call “I am here just for you and always ready for sex� an emotion. The beauty of the “Cosmo� girls is never natural, or neutral, it also well processed images that must require any real woman many hours of work on their makeup, hair and clothes, and possibly also some computer-editing of their pictures. The only things that seem to have changed in the “Cosmo� world in the past decades is its open and clear advertisement of sex; I am not sure if even ten or twenty years ago they would have advertise that many product for intimate apparel, from clothing to perfumes and razors. There is also much more skin and flesh in the ads; if in the past women were (at least supposedly) either innocent or housewives, today they are there for men’s sexual pleasure (and their own), and not much more than that. The articles (if to called this short segments of words in between the ads) in the “Cosmo� were following the same trend as the advertisement; they dealt mostly with “how to be beautiful and sexy for your man�, or alternatively, “how to be patient and accepting of your man and it does not matter whatever he does it is always your fault you have not being passive enough and obeying all his wishes and demands�.
The ads in the ‘Cosmo� were defiantly contributing to any problem spoiled white teenagers and young white women (with expandable income) may have, from eating disorder to sexual victimization, to self-poisoning by way-too-much-makeup, to plastic surgery. In this 310 (!!!) page advertisement book (with few words between ads to be qualified as magazine) there were not less than four full page ads for one company which does any cosmetic surgery or procedure under the sun (since natural women, in whatever way, should not, of course, walk outside in their imperfect condition). I hope this was the absolutely last “Cosmo� I ever had to buy (I still have one other GWSS class in the summer, but I hope that there will be no way to relate the “Cosmo� to feminist film studies), and I would have thrown it to the trash right now, if I would not need to show this (unfortunately popular) piece of misogyny to all of you tomorrow.