rhetoric by elsa

You Need A Man and You Are What You Look Like:
A Critical Feminist Analysis of Cosmopolitan Magazine

Of women’s magazines, Gloria Steinem said, “Most [of them] simply try to mold women into bigger and better consumers.” Flipping through the glossy pages of Cosmopolitan Magazine, Steinem’s words are apparent; models serve as merely canvases to show women how to be as shiny, hairless, and skinny as possible. But in our capitalistic economy, excessive consumerism focused to women, the biggest consumers, is to be expected. What is not expected, in our supposed egalitarian society, is to the gross extent to which women’s magazines treat women as vapid, shallow consumers of patriarchal ideals.
As an unassuming middle schooler at the height of my insecurity, I flipped through the pages of CosmoGirl, Cosmopolitan’s little sister, figuring out what to wear, do, and think. I had thoughtful parents and a fabulous older sister, all with feminist sensibilities, but I was still trying to decipher, “Does He Like You?” in a tell-all CosmoGirl quiz. Even at a young age, I found the magazine to be contradicting and confusing; how was I supposed to have confidence to attract my crush when I did not look like the smiley models within the pages. Was I supposed to know what kind of flirt I was at age twelve?
Frustrated, I actually wrote to my CosmoGirl editor. I wanted to know why all the models, with whom I the reader was supposed to relate, were so impossibly skinny. They’re thin, my editor replied, because designers only send size zero clothing to CosmoGirl. My first lesson that girls and women are simply dolls to be dressed up was a sobering one. I was mostly cured of the women’s magazine bug by high school; however, the verdict is still out on the lasting psychological damage of my years as a Cosmo girl.
Three million plus women can’t be wrong: Cosmopolitan is a big deal. With its yearly sales right behind Newsweek and Playboy magazines, Cosmopolitan is just the icing on the large, pink, money-making cake. Browsing in Boarder’s bookstore, twenty-plus women’s magazines line the 5 foot, 4 inch eye-level shelves, attracting hoards of women to peruse the word according to Cosmopolitan. Cosmo readers, mostly middle to upper class white women from teenagers to thirty-somethings, lap up style, sex, and guy tips from their “bible.”
Surprisingly, Cosmopolitan is written for women by women. With the exception of the director of photography, who undoubtedly captures scantily clad models in the shots women are used to viewing on a daily basis, Cosmopolitan has an exclusively female editorial staff. Yet, at the reigns of the Cosmo horse is a male-headed publishing board at Hearst Communications. In step with Corporate America, men call the shots, which explains the photos of half naked women and tips on how to sexually satisfy men on the pages of Cosmo.
Cosmopolitan and the like promote compliance to social norms of women as the subordinate to men. Promoting men as superior and commercial female beauty and domesticity, most women’s magazines are a backward response to the 1970s and Women’s Liberation. Women fought for an end to female objectification of women by men. Through Cosmopolitan, men are cut out of the equation: women are able to oppress themselves. In this, our post-everything world, Cosmo might as well be the fourth wave of “feminism.” For magazines like Cosmo, essentially anything that women do can be claimed in the name of feminism. What woman doesn’t want to worry about mascara when men like batting eyelashes and there are fifty mascaras to make her eyes flirty and fabulous?
Reaping the benefits of our feminist foremothers, women are now allegedly equal and liberated. Now that equality is in the bag, women, according to Cosmo, can concentrate on finding a man, living and breathing for him, and looking good while doing it. However, the fact that Cosmopolitan magazine is published month after month is literal proof that women are hardly equal. I argue that women’s magazines like Cosmopolitan are the same devises used to oppress women, yet inherently worse, because the oppression is supported by women under the guise of “liberation.”
Although the magazine exceeds two hundred pages, Cosmopolitan has only two messages to its readers: You Need A Man (And 500 Ways to Please Him) and You Are What You Look Like (You’ll Never Meet the Beauty Ideal, But Here are 1,000 Things to Buy). According to Cosmo, women are decidedly simple (read: stupid) and our main interest are catching a man, pleasing him, keeping him, and getting over a break-up. A woman’s other interest is, obviously, her appearance and Cosmo believes we are nothing but glossy lips, flowy hair, and trendy mini-skirt. But ultimately, we will be duped and confused by men and constantly unsatisfied by our looks. Fortunately, Cosmo divulges to its readers how to “decode” men and things to buy to live up to the impossible beauty standard set forth within its pages.
While most media outlets are buzzing about Clinton and Obama and the tanking economy, Cosmopolitan’s front page news is “Are You Letting Your Man Be Man Enough?” Cosmo’s news analysis asserts, “Modern guys are attracted to strong, confident women. But there’s a fine line between being bold…and busting his balls.” Lesson number one, Cosmo Girls; if you’re a strong woman, he’s just not that into you. Men don’t want women who don’t need them, so a Cosmo girl should let her man “take control” or he might feel “emasculated.”
In twenty-plus pages, Cosmo tells its readers “what’s on his radar” therefore what should be on our radar. Harkening back to pre-feminist ideals, women are to pander to his every need. Cosmo believes that the modern woman is so liberated, that she needn’t worry about anything but keeping her boyfriend satisfied. While the magazine encourages women to be at man’s beck and call, Cosmo knows men don’t like needy women.
Lesson number two from Cosmo world: he’s in control and could dump you any minute. With articles like “Needy Moves You Must Nix,” Cosmopolitan, with complete contradiction, warns women to walk a fine between needed a man and being needy. Nelson, a real live man says, “My girlfriend's sister won't buy a pair of earrings without getting her boyfriend's okay.” Interestingly enough, Cosmo readers will stumble upon articles like “Accessories He’ll Crave.”
In the numerous articles about relationships, women’s relationship needs aren’t even on the backburner, they’re off the stove. For a women’s magazine, it is troubling that every article about sex regards men’s desires. “10 Moves That Will Drive Him Wild” and countless articles like it tell women that their needs, both personally and professionally, are secondary to the desires of men.
Cosmo does little to offer intelligent perspectives on the genders. For Cosmopolitan, only two genders exist and in step with societal expectations, men are dominant and women are subordinate. According to Cosmopolitan, the sexes are polar opposites and through the magazine, women are to spend their life trying to figure out the “mystery” of males. And while men are highly contested, they are held to no higher standard than women. Cosmo depicts men as simple Neanderthals; Neanderthals women try to trick into relationships nonetheless.
For women, men are only secondary to our looks. For without our delicate feminine beauty, how are we to attract a man? Today, girls and women are inundated with the dangerous misconception that their greatest attribute is their looks. Cosmopolitan does little to contradict this message; instead, it promotes this message! A woman’s appearance, Cosmo contends, is what enables women to acquire power, sex, and the ultimate: a husband.
Cosmo’s message is simple: I buy, therefore I am. Consumerism makes the world go ‘round and since women’s appearance is of primary importance, women are essential in driving the beauty economy. Women are the majority of the consumers in the economy; therefore advertisers supply the demand of women wanting the newest shimmering hand lotion. Although not exclusively a fashion magazine, Cosmopolitan devotes over seventy pages bright, shiny things to buy. The magazine includes over ninety pages of hefty advertisements dedicated to clothes, cosmetics, weight-loss, and physical augmentation and improvement.
Cosmopolitan serves as a cycle of consumerism and insecurity for women; the magazine promotes things for women to buy because they aren’t pretty enough and women buy what Cosmo sells to quell the inadequacy they feel as they flip through the magazine. As a business, Cosmo knows there is always something new to sell to women who feel substandard to an unrealistic beauty ideal.
Cosmopolitan, “the number one women’s magazine,” is the supposed ticker on the heartbeat of women. However, in actuality, the magazine is skewed and grossly impractical representation of women in America. In the pages of Cosmopolitan women of color, gay women, and lower class women are all but invisible. The magazine is almost entirely dedicated to sex, yet there is only one mention about birth control; a small blurb about condoms. In two advertisements for birth control, the pill’s main selling point is that it will stop a woman’s period. The modern woman lives for her boyfriend, shops, and doesn’t menstruate. “Cosmo Girls” do not exist; it is physically, emotionally, and economically impossible to live up to the standards set by the magazine.
Unless equality is taking a backseat to your boyfriend and choice is choosing between pink and red lip gloss, Cosmopolitan Magazine is the antithesis of feminism. Cosmo is a cog in the patriarchal machinery that aims to oppress women strategically in the name of fabulous flirty fun. Cosmopolitan expects so little from its readers that it returns to them anti-woman rhetoric dressed up in pink.