Tuesday, March 29, 2011

AD-dicted to Glamour?

Last, but not least. Glamour Magazine. Let's take a look at its cover!

Cover:

Typical women's magazine wtih a sexified celebrity gracing its cover. The magazine grabs your attention by its bright colors and intriguing headlines. This cover stresses the importance of  being sexy, losing weight, and making sure your sex life is at the top of its game! Because as a woman, those are the things that really matter, right? The funny thing is, little did I know that these 7 articles mentioned on the cover were pretty much the only articles throughout the magazine, the rest being ads. Next let's take a look at the content.

Content:

I don't have much to say about the content of the magazine considering there was so little of it. Here are a few articles that caught my eye.



Oh joy! A whole article dedicated to learning how to get rid of cellulite!
 Even with the model squeezing her cheeks, I can't seem to see any cellulite. Can you?

Next, I came across an article about how to lose those last 10 pounds. This model does NOT look like she needs to lose another 10 pounds. Why are women taught to be so obsessed with their weight? Whatever happened to the saying  "it's what's inside that counts"?



The next article I came across was titled "What Men Think About Your Number"( referring to the number of men a woman has slept with before him). Ha! We just talked about this in our Psych of Women class today. The sexual double standard where a man who sleeps around is considered a "Stud" (positive connotation) whereas a  woman who sleeps around is a "Slut" (negative connotation). This article goes on to discuss a double bind where men don't want a woman who hasn't had "enough" experience because she may be boring in the bedroom, yet they don't want a woman to be "too experienced" because that would take away from him feeling special. Give me a break! Damned if you do, damned if you don't, right?


Let's end this section on a positive note. I did like the article below. It showed fashion trends for different types of body styles including a plus sized woman. I was very surprised to see this, it's been a while since I've actually read one of these typical women's magazines, so it was nice to see 1 plus sized person in this magazine!



Advertisements:

Maybe I should have read Glamour before I read Ms. Magazine. It was so nice to read a magazine without being pressured into consumerism. Now, I've come back to reality. Ad's! The first 19 pages of the magazine were ads, followed by a 1 page table of contents, and 16 more advertisements. WOW!  Anyways, I will post a few of my favorites ads below with my 2 sense. Enjoy!



First of all, I liked the fact that they have Ellen on here because she portrays a positive image of a woman, whose lesbian sexual orientation hasn't kept her from becoming very successful. However, I don't like the fact that the name of the product line is Simply Ageless. What happens when we do start to age? There isn't any makeup in the world that can stop that process. Why should we put so much emphasis on looking young and defying the natural process of aging?



Ooh look! Another so called Anti-Aging Product. I better run to the store and get it now so that I won't look a day over 28 for the rest of my life.


All I have to say about this ad, is that I didn't know that shoes could be "naughty".

 An example of faceism. Her face is not important. Emphasis is on her body.


 The newest trend in modeling...Headless Models!

An example of Dehumanization. What is this ad selling? I have no clue...


No woman is complete without her hair and makeup products... =)

Hope you enjoyed my comparisons of Glamour & Ms. Magazine. I encourage you take a walk on the wild side and pick up a positive image woman's magazine. Try everything once. You just might like it!

* Moani *

Monday, March 28, 2011

Bitch-it-out Cosmo style?

When choosing which "postive women image" magazine I wanted to read, I immediately was attracted to bitch. Yes, to be honest it probably was because of the title but lets talk about my journey to the bookstore trying to find this magazine. Here I am standing in front of the wall of 100s of magazines, blinded by all the different sizes, colors and titles. Caterogorized by topic, I finally found the section labeled women's magazines. The first magazines I found were the typical women's mags like Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Glamour. Now as I started to narrow down my search, I was bombarded by all these fashion mags, ones about prom fashion and about 3-4 specifically regarding weddings. There was even one titled Mens Guide to Wedding Fashion! Keep in mind that I had never seen the cover of bitch and I had no idea of what kind of magazine I was looking for. Finally after a good 10 min of searching, I found bitch. Before this journey, I had decided to compare and contrast bitch with the Cosmo magazine that I had a subscription to. I am going to be comparing and contrasting these two mags in the same structure that Jennielee and Moani have in their blogs as well: cover, content and advertisment.

Cover
Here are the covers of both magazines:

Instantly I saw that the covers were extremely different. Moani talked about the idea of judging a book by its cover in her blog and to be honest, this is exactly what I did. Why is there a picture of ladybugs on a flower and why is this the cover to a magazine that I thought would be more I guess you can say "loud"? I thought it was interesting how the title was all lowercase: bitch. I was expecting to see it as BITCH and  have all these bright colors and illustrations. On the contrary, it gave off a calm and relaxed vibe. Now when looking at the Cosmo cover, I had an idea of what I expected to see: the new Cosmo cover girl for that month and mini excerpts of what was going to be talked about in the mag that usually consisted of a title like "50 Ways to Seduce a Man". Usually Cosmo covers intentionally include excerpts like these that highlight topics involving a certain number of things, by this I mean titles like "10 Ways to Reduce Belly Fat" and like on this cover "6 Choices that Will Make you Happier". Overall, there are noticeable differences in the presentation of the covers for both magazines. Take a look at these closely... would you judge these magazines by their cover?

Content
One very noticeable thing that I caught right away while skimming through bitch, was how the entire magazine was primarily 2 colors except for the pages dedicated to advertisments. Another thing was the structure and types of articles that were included. After reading through some of the topics, I found two that were very interesting: one titled "From the Dept. of Gendered Science: Your Genes are Making You Slutty" and the other "Swift Judgement: Who made Taylor Swift the sex police?" The first one came off very informative and took the relaxed form of a psychology/science article. I thought it was very interesting. The second excerpt took more of an opinionated attitude towards the pop idol, Taylor Swift who most commonly is seen as a innocent, docile teenager who's inspiring lyrics have been powerful for the younger population of today's society. The different focus of these two articles were interesting to read and opened my mind to what this magazine was about.

In the Cosmo magazine, I was not surprised that most of everything involved sex, fashion, and the status of celebrities. One of my favorite sections titled Sexy vs. Skanky, takes a more humorous perspective to celebrities and their fashion oops. I don't think that purpose of the authors for this section necessarily is to send out any kind of message to their readers, but include it more for pure entertainment. This I think differs dramatically from bitch because I feel that everything written in the magazine has a purpose of educating their readers.

Advertisment
Not only does the type of advertisment differ dramatically between both magazines, but the number of advertisements is quite remarkable. When I first opened bitch, the first page included 4 advertisemnts: 2 on certain websites and the other 2 promoting the Adam and Eve website of adult products and the other promoting a new kind of pad called Lunapads. After this page, a table of contents was provided. Through out the rest of the magazine, I only encountered about 2 or 3 more pages of advertisment, all promoting female sex toys and helpful websites for women regarding many different topics.


On the contrary, in Cosmo, there were 5 pages of advertisment before the table of contents. These 5 pages all were about makeup, hair products, and perfume. After the table of contents, there was a remarkable 17 pages of advertisment before I got to the first article that was mentioned on the cover! Cosmo is FULL let me repeat FULL of advertisements and they are not subtle. Here are just a few that I chose:
                                                                     Cmon really a spray to help women lose weight?!

 Overall it was a learning expereince to really look at these two types of magazines and compare the differences and see if there were any similarites. The differences are so dramatic. In general, I somewhat enjoyed bitch but I did find it difficult to understand alot of the content. I really enjoyed the book, screen, and music reviews towards the end of the magazine because it provided a new point of view on media. I would reccomend reading bitch, but just let it be known that it is hard to follow if you have not read any other magazines with a similar structure and or content.

ALSO, dont forget to take a look at the other two magazines that Jennielee and Moani read and blogged about! They are also very interesting!

~Erica

ExpELLEd!

Reading Elle just wasn't as much fun for me as reading Bust. For one, there was less to read. For...two...much of the magazine's heft came from advertisements for things I will never be able to afford. And it probably goes without saying that women were not represented particularly positively.

Cover: The cover of Elle shows Katy Perry with her shirt unbuttoned practically to her waist:



Yay for Katy Perry. It's pretty much what we're used to seeing on women's magazines. Not that that makes me care for it.

The headlines depressed me more than the picture. The cover lets us know that inside we'll find answers to pressing issues like why we (women) hate our looks, why we're always angry, and how to get a love life:

God forbid I like my looks.

Could it be headlines like these?

Why?

I was troubled by the assumptions implicit in these statements: that women hate themselves as they are, have little right to be angry, and desire a love life above all else. The one about hating your looks is followed up with "and how to get over it," so, to be fair, I attempted to find and read this article to see if it said anything positive. I couldn't find it in the table of contents or in the magazine. Maybe I'm just not practiced enough in the art of searching through the ads. I'm sure it's in there, but it continues to elude me.

Content: I started with the editor's letter (which, though one of the first pieces in the magazine, doesn't appear until page 142 because of all the ads). Most of it laments all of the accusations Elle has received recently for altering the appearance of cover models, whether by lightening their skin, decreasing their waists, or only showing young women (all are denied). In actuality, claims the editor, Elle shows "women of diverse body types, skin colors, and ages such as Rihanna, Julia Roberts, Diane Keaton, J.Lo, and Drew Barrymore" (March 2011). I see that J.Lo and Rihanna are supposed to represent ethnic diversity while Diane Keaton represents middle-aged to older women, but I don't see any evidence of diverse body types. Or, if that is a diverse spectrum, I must be an extreme outlier. The entire letter was defensive and unhappy-sounding.

In the letter, the reader is referred to an article on "the importance of beauty to one's self," so I flipped to it (as it was one of the few multi-page articles available). In it, the author discusses feeling simultaneously guilty and joyful about her use of Botox, and she wonders how she can justify her use to her daughters, whom she constantly teaches about inner over outer beauty. Botox makes her feel hypocritical, but she doesn't plan on stopping because of the 2-3 day "high" she experiences right after application. She also talks about listening to feminist speakers explain that outer beauty isn't the end-all be-all of everything, and takes a tone of "well, that's okay for them, but they don't have my line of work." In the end, she decides that every woman must decide for herself how far to go in bodily alterations. The whole thing just made me sad--there was that defensive tone again and the author's dissatisfaction with her body, particularly surrounded by glamorous co-workers at Elle, was painfully apparent.

Even the title implies that beauty is a matter of life and death.
Another article talked about Bollywood make-up. The author got made-over by the preeminent Indian make-up artist, including dark kohl lines around her eyes. Though she acknowledges that health-care practitioners warn against eyeliner inside the eyelid (it can lead to irritation and swelling of the glads in your eyelid), she dismisses it with, "it's in my character to practice bad habits." This suggests that women should prize looking beautiful over their physical health. No pain, no gain? No thanks.

Advertisements: They were numerous. Have I mentioned that yet? Elle is at least half an inch wide, and I'd be willing to bet that two-thirds of that comes from ads. Most were for designer clothes, shoes, and accessories. There were also several for engagement rings (because we all need that romance...) and plenty for cosmetics, particularly anti-aging cosmetics (what is the average age of an Elle reader?). As we've discussed in class, the models were, with one exception that I found, white. They were also thin and young. They did not encourage me to spend money I don't have on clothes that will not fit me, by the looks of the ads.
Why is her face the only thing covered?
The man is active and strong, while the woman only gets to look on and be looked at. Also, where are the clothes I'm supposed to be craving?

She is literally an object: a doll.

Overall, I wasn't impressed with Elle. I will own up to the fact that I'm just not as interested in fashion as the target audience likely is, but the fact remains that within these pages, women are treated as though only their external characteristics count for anything and that these are probably lacking and need to be changed with make-up, procedures, or clothing. It says that the way you are just isn't enough, and hides this as the "freedom" to express yourself with fashion. I don't think there's anything wrong with personal expression through clothing and accessories, as long as it's just that--personal.

Think I was too hard on Elle? Make up your own mind by checking out their website.

~Jennielee

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Sexual double standards

This week in class we're going to talk about the double standard between women and men concerning how they're viewed based on the number of sex partners they've had. A friend posted this article on Facebook, and it's relevant, so I thought I'd share.

It's called Slut-shaming on the playground.

Happy reading.

~Jennielee

Saturday, March 26, 2011

opti-Ms.-tic

Ms. Magazine, although hard to find on the bookstore shelves, was a very refreshing magazine to read. If you judge a book by its cover, you most likely wouldn't pick up a copy of Ms. Magazine. It's cover was very plain as compared to traditional women's magazines. It had very little text, little color, and a picture of a confident Nancy Pelosi on its cover. The magazine's content, however, was very inspiring.

                                                                             Cover:


Content:  
One of the first things that you see when you open the magazine is an advertisement for a National Young Feminist Leadership Conference being held in Washington, DC to discuss the issues of women's reproductive rights, violence against women, and more. It was very refreshing to see an advertisement that inspires you to make a difference as opposed to an ad trying to sell you something.



The next thing that caught my eye was a half a page article dedicated to informing and getting women to speak out about the Gender Pricing Gap in similar products for men and women. In the article it shows the price difference between Men's Nivea body wash costing $5.49 and Women's Nivea body wash costing $6.99. Another comparison was of Speed Stick Deodorant for Men costing $1.50 per ounce, and Lady Speed Stick Deodorant costing $2.16 per ounce. This shocked me! I never realized the price differences for men and women. If anything, shouldn't women's products be made available for a cheaper price since we are getting paid less to do the same jobs as men? The good thing about this article is their encouragement for women to speak out about this difference and Ms. Magazine is launching a campaign to end the gender pricing gap.


The next thing I came across gave me a laugh! It was a comic that depicts the gender gap in salary's between men and women in the same job positions. Check it out!



On a postivie note, the next thing that I came across was a list of achievements by women who are slowly making a difference for the equality and status of women in politics, media, and education. One of them being Tina Fey winning the prestigous Kennedy Center Mark Twain Award for American Humor. She is the third woman in history to win this award. You go Tina! Throughout the rest of the magazine were articles about inspiring women such as Nancy Pelosi and all her efforts in politics to make a difference for women.

 Another topic discussed in this magazine is the issue of female infanticide and sex selective abortion occuring throughout the world, especially in India. Female infants are being drowned in the river or are being aborted when their sex is identified. This article informs the reader about what is really going on, but it also talks about positive efforts being made in India to encourage families to consider adoption rather than abortion. They are also offering cash incentives to families to raise girls. Below is a picture from the article, of a billboard in New Delhi, encouranging the birth of girls.




Another cool thing about this magazine is the list of book reviews and DVD's that are inspring to women that can be considered the next time you are at a book store or movie rental store. I seen a few that sounded interesting that I wouldn't mind watching the next time I get a chance to rent a DVD.

Toward the end of the magazine was a page containing 3 ads from other women's magazines that were found offensive and because of women speaking out, have been since removed from certain media. Ms. Magazine encourages its readers to send these offensive ads into them and they will take action. See below!



                                                                        Advertising:

I think the most refreshing thing about Ms. Magazine was the lack of advertisements. It was nice to pick up a piece of literature and to read it without it being suggested to lose weight, eat healthy, buy clothes and makeup, and be sexy at all times! Ms. Magazine had few advertisements and the ones they did have were inspiring and encouraging. I loved how Ms. Magazines encouraged its viewers to recognize such inequalities such as gender pricing gaps, and offensive advertising, and to question them. Not one of their pictures of women contained sexual objectification, faceism, or showed women as vulnerable. Instead the pictures that were present in the magazine showed females as positive role models, confident, and powerful.


I loved reading Ms. Magazine and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read a magazine that empowers them, and makes them feel proud to be a woman! Thanks for reading!

* Ms. Moani *




Thursday, March 24, 2011

BUST-ed.

I thought I'd start off my reviews with a little pop quiz called "Which is Which?" It goes like this:


Which one is Elle, and which one is Bust, the positive image magazine? Have your guess yet?


...
 

A+ for you if you guessed right! As you can see, Bust looks pretty much like any other women's magazine. There's a pretty, skinny, youngish, female celebrity on the front. The front also says "SEX" in giant letters. So...does Bust live up to its positive reputation? To make the task easier, I decided to divide both my magazine reviews into three sections: Cover, Content, and Advertising. 

Cover: Yeah, Bust's cover has similar features to other women's magazines, as mentioned. But let's look at what ISN'T there: headlines about dieting, fashion, or beauty. Instead, the cover promises articles on sex bloggers, the top 10 adultresses of all time, DIY depression remedies, and tapping your own maple syrup, among other things. I liked the balance between the familiar "magazine-y" look and the unconventional headlines. It was nice that the cover designers didn't immediately assume I want to look pretty and lose weight. Also, the person on the cover, Portia de Rossi, may be similar to other "covergirls" in that she's attractive, blond, and has perfect hair, but she's also a lesbian. The cover isn't showing an image of women that screams "I want to attract men!" and I found that refreshing, too.

Content: Though the cover may look traditional, the stories inside Bust are not.This issue (Feb/March: the sex issue) featured stories on subjects ranging from the sexual politics of shaving to a pattern for a plaid cloak to Portia de Rossi to Christian anti-porn support groups for women. Very diverse, and very interesting. I read all of the articles and never once felt like the authors were intending that I behave in any certain way. I liked a lot of the regular features, too: lots of DIY projects, some recipes (none were for dieters), reviews of books and movies showing women in a positive or at least not submissive light. My favorite may have been the feature called "museum of femoribilia," which this issue explained "how bespectacled lasses got stereotypes for their glasses." Here's a peek at the table of contents and a few articles:


I love the hand-drawn illustrations for this article.



However, I did have an issue with some of the photographs accompanying the articles, like this one:


This is Swedish artist Lykke Li, shown half undressed in a submissive position. Some of the pictures of Portia De Rossi were similar. For a magazine that aims to show women as strong, independent, and confident, I thought the images could have been a lot less sexualized and submissive. Which brings me to...

Advertising: Let's talk about this in two ways: what's in the ads and who's in them. A variety of "whats" are advertised, mostly crafted accessories, menstrual products, clothing, and sex toys. LOTS of sex toys (but this is the sex issue). So, a mix of typical and not-so-typical products advertised to women. Though, generally the menstrual products advertised in women's magazines are not these:


Unfortunately, the women in the advertisements look like women in advertisements everywhere: skinny, white, and young. This one particularly evoked the little-girl/come-hither dichotomy we've discussed in class:



Overall, I enjoyed reading Bust and thought it walked it a fine line between a "regular" women's magazine and a completely feminist publication. I think the balance may allow Bust to reach a wider variety of women than the latter. I would read it again, but I would hope to see better physical representations of women next time.

Want to read Bust for yourself? Check out their website! 

Coming up next: my review of Elle.

~Jennielee

Monday, March 21, 2011

"Ms. Glamour"

           So, since March is our Magazine month, I decided to go to Borders today to buy my two magazines. My two partners told me that they had picked Elle & Cosmo as their typical women's magazines, and Bust & Bitch as their positive women's magazines. Being that I'm not a BIG magazine person, I went to Borders figuring they would have the most selection to choose from. When I got there, it was very easy to find the women's fashion magazines and there was a great variety of them to choose from. I ended up selecting "Glamour" as my typical women's magazine.
          Now, was the tricky part, to find the aisle that contained the positive image women's magazines. I went down each aisle, scoping out the subjects such as Food & Wine, Men's Health, Women's Health, Women's Fashion, etc. I could not find a section dedicated to Positive Image Women's Magazines. I even had to go down the adult entertainment/men's interest aisle a few times just to make sure I didn't miss it. It was embarassing! Anywho, I  FINALLY found the microscopic section labeled "Culture". The magazines were all overlapped upon one another so that you could not see the titles of the magazine, or any part of the front cover what-so-ever. I had to pull up each magazine one at a time to find the type of magazines that I was looking for. First, I came across Bitch, which had already been selected by Erica, then I came across Bust which had been selected by Jennielee, finally I came across Ms. Magazine. It was the only other Positive Image Women's magazine that was available at Borders. So by default, I have selected Ms. Magazine as my Positive Image Women's Magazine. I haven't gotten a chance to look through it yet, but I wanted to blog my magazine shopping experience.


        
            I was shocked to see how hard it was to find a Postitive image women's magazine! Maybe if these magazines were more accessible and available, more women would choose to read them as opposed to other women's magazines. And why were these magazines isolated on the far end of the store in the "Culture" section, next to gay and lesbian magazines, and not near the Women's magazines? Another thing I noticed was how the types of magazines offered for women were so gender stereotypical. If I was an alien from another planet and I went into Borders to look at the women's magazines to get an idea of what "Earth women" are interested in, I would think that  Earth women are Fashionistas, who are majorly concerned with their body and dieting, who like to cook, clean, and do some gardening from time to time, and need a man in order to survive. LOL! These are just some of the thoughts that went through my head during this eye-opening magazine shopping experience. 

* Moani *

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

March: magazine madness.

Well, hello, and thanks for checking out our psychology of women (POW) blogging project. Each month, we plan to look at and record our thoughts on different media. This month is magazine month. Erica, Moani, and I will each be picking two magazines to review; one "typical" women's magazine like Cosmo, Elle, or Glamour, and one that specifically shows positive images of women.

I never really knew that positive image magazines for women existed (except for Ms., but the price tag is a little steep), so I was excited to check out the list Erica discovered on the Love Your Body campaign website. I chose to review Bust. I got it for about $4 at Barnes & Noble, since I've never seen it in a supermarket check-out line. For my "regular" magazine, I'll be using Elle. Check back soon for reviews!

~Jennielee