Images Continued- The Beauty Myth

I recently discussed how our society has developed to make women feel that they need to be skinny in order to be physically attractive. I addressed how advertising and the media plays a huge role in this, and luckily we started to read The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf and we also watched Killing Us Softly 4 by Jean Kilbourne. In a section in The Beauty Myth, Wolf talks about magazines: how they have evolved along with society, their positives and negatives, and their effect on women. Wolf states: "They (magazines) have popularised feminist ideas more widely than any other medium... It was through these glossies that issues from the women's movement swept out... Seen in this light, they are very potent instruments of social change" (71-72). We don't realise what an effect that magazines have on us. We read them monthly, cover to cover, with green eyes full of envy glaring at the stick thin models who are wrapped around almost every other page. Sex is probably the most common thing that is tied to these advertisements as companies are desperately trying to sell their products. And sex usually doesn't even have anything to do with the product. These ads teach us what is sexy, what we should strive to look and act like, and that if you do this (or buy this product), men will find you sexier and therefore you will find someone to be with. But how can buying a certain brand of beer, for example, make you sexier?

Another thing that Wolf addresses is the relationship between the reader and her magazine, a relationship that is completely different from that of a man and his Newsweek, for example. Wolf states: "Though the magazines are trivialized, they represent something very important: women's mass culture. A woman reading Glamour is holding women-oriented mass culture between her two hands" (Pg. 70). I find it strange to even refer to a relationship between a person and a magazine, just because it is a very trivial thing. But a magazine allow for a connection to be made between its reader and the issues that surround our everyday lives. A woman can find solace in the fact that other women share the same problems that they do. They aren’t alone in this world. And magazines are the cause of this realization.

Finally, Wolf is correct in saying that magazines represent and display an evolution of society through numerous decades. Unfortunately, as women have advanced, it seems to be that the things that hold them back became greater factors. As the articles and issues in magazines expanded for women, the advertisements started to gain momentum that catapulted them into a surreal world where it doesn’t matter how skinny their models are, or what message they are giving, as long as they sell products. Wolf addresses this contradiction that we find within magazines: “While the editors take a step forward for themselves and their readers, they must also take a step back into the beauty myth for the sake of their advertisers” (77). I find this contradiction to be extremely interesting in the context of human nature, with the fact that people are willing to sacrifice their own morals for money, essentially.