women in magazines

Media present in our lives can be a bit harsh at times. In the case of a woman the media has taken an unusual role of degrading women as objects, especially in magazines. For example there are two magazines that can be used to show this to be true. Cosmopolitan and Shape magazine do a good job showing that woman are forced into a lifelong beauty contest that they don’t have a say in, but feel forced to. Women are forced to be more feminine than they actually are in order to gain social status. Certain races are more dominant in magazines as well as sexual orientation. We are diverse as women and that needs to show through our media. We live in a very diverse culture. As women we all have different interests. This means that no one subject appeals to every woman. The problem is what are women choosing to focus on? With media as out of control as it is, it makes things hard to believe or too believable. The problem is how women are portrayed in the media; most are degraded as sex objects. Magazines such as Cosmopolitan do a good job showing that this is true. A magazine that is trying to focus on women as an instrument to life would be Shape magazine. Both are all for women looking and feeling good about themselves, but they go about it in a total different way.

Melissa Ames