Seeing Gender

To define what exactly it means to be a certain gender according to the media is difficult to pinpoint. The media changes so much that it could be telling people that being a certain gender could mean a million different things. However, I think certain media sources have a fairly stereotypical version of what they think being a woman is today.

Looking at magazines like Cosmopolitan, Elle and Glamour, which are all targeted towards women of the same general age, it is fairly certain that they have a specific version of what they think being a woman means. This can be seen in the articles and advertisements they choose to run in their magazines.

These magazines run articles that pertain to beauty, sex and fashion more than any other type of content they run. These magazines also make an effort to make women aware of the issues that plague people today, but primarily these magazines do not serve that purpose.

It isn’t completely unreasonable for these magazines to run so many of these articles because people do enjoy them and find them interesting, but many of these magazines portray aspects of beauty, fashion and sex to an exaggerated degree. It seems as though these topics should be the most important subjects that women should be focused on, when in real life this is not the case.

Some of the values associated with these magazines are positive. It is good to take care of yourself and feel positive about how you act and look. However, when these values are dependent on the response of the opposite sex, they become unhealthy.

It is easy to see that these texts are directly aimed at females. They use female models, show feminine clothing, advertise towards females and have articles that only pertain to being female.
I do not feel particularly offended by this because usually I do not bother to think about it, but upon reflection, it seems as though these magazines limit what a woman should be by focusing only on these things.

These magazines are all about self improvement. They focus on looking better, flirting better, and overall becoming a better woman for the sake of men. It makes the reader see having a man as validation of their hard work on themselves. They ask the reader to look at themselves and try to improve their faults. This is not necessarily bad, but when coupled with the wrong reasons, it becomes negative to their self esteem.

I have been reading magazines like this for years, and frankly, I never really bothered to look at what they were saying about the female population. It has influenced how I feel about my appearance and myself in general. It has influenced how I feel that I woman should be, but not to an unreasonable extent. It has placed expectations on women that are not really fair. However, if people examine this media more closely, they will understand that they do not necessarily have to live up to their expectations.