1 Megan Kelley Jessica Schley English 1102 April 21, 2014 This is NOT What Women Should Look

Like or What Men Should Look For Blonde, perfect body, and with a bold title placed next to her: Super Cut; flipping through the first few pages of my guy friends magazine was a bleach blonde model flaunting a yellow bikini fitting two sizes too small. Below the photo was a small caption reading, behind the scenes at King Kongs vasectomy, was this beautiful model straddling a bolt cutter. Come to find out, she was actually advertising Olympian Tools 48-Inch Center Cut Bolt Cutter in this weeks Maxim magazine. In the media, and specifically in the two magazines (Glamour and Maxim), I will be talking about how women are portrayed in such an unreal, sexual and perfect ways. In comparing the similarities and differences of womens clothing, body language, and ethnicity within the two magazines, there are unreal and perfect ways yet also some healthier ways that these models are displayed. In examining the products these models are promoting and the subjects of the articles they are associated with, and how they are related to how they are portrayed, there is a wide range of differences in results between the two magazines.

Maxim April 2014 cover

Glamour April 2014 cover

[Type text] While looking at the covers of the two magazines, Maxim and Glamour, it is obvious which of the two is more interested in fashion and informing the reader and which is more interested in pleasuring the reader. The Glamour magazine provides readers with beauty tips, clothing fashion tips, sex tips, as well as articles about body image and eating disorders. On the contrary, the Maxim magazine provided portrayed Sophia Bush on the cover half naked and a special lingerie issue. Using provocative images of young, rising actresses has become a successful strategy for mens magazine, Maxim, according to an article published by The Haworth Press. Maxim features a scantily dressed woman on it cover each month, persuading readers to buy it erotically branded magazine with a repetitive cover formula (Lambiase 111). There are never older actresses who may not be as sexy as they once were so why is this so necessary for the magazine to do? According to The Haworth Press, they call it simply their

Table 2. Presenting the number of covers Maxim used their formula and how Detail adopted the cover theory in 1999.

cover formula and they use it as marketing and circulation technique. Since their first launch in spring of 1997, they have been steadily successful and other magazines have adopted the formula as well. During 1999, less than two years after Maxims debut, at least one competing mens magazine, Detail, completely abandoned its prior cover formula and adopted the Maxim formula

3 almost wholesale (see Table 2) (Lambiase 118). While it may be an effective strategy to sell their magazine, it wont make a girlfriend or a wife happy if she sees that sitting in the bathroom. The Glamour magazine cover on the April 2014 issue displays a healthier woman who, by the caption, seems to be fairly confident in her body and covered in a professional manner, not all of Glamours covers display a women of a healthy bodily image with clothing that covers up certain aspects of their body. In a study done about the Magazine Ideal, an Elon student found that although womens magazines promote a healthy lifestyle in their articles, the majority of the models shown on the magazine covers are fairly thin and showing off their assets. An examination of the women displayed on magazine covers revealed that 100% of the covers of both the men and womens magazines showed a thin female model or celebrity in excellent shape. Most of the women shown were young and wore revealing clothing (Morgan 8). The women on the cover of Aprils Glamour magazine may be a healthier looking size but rest assured the models throughout the magazine all display a body of size three or less with clothing I would never be allowed out of the house in. For example, in an ad for a new Physicians Formula BB cream, a beautiful blonde model is presented as what appears to be completely naked. BB cream is for your face, and being completely naked has absolutely nothing to do with your makeup. Being a young woman myself, I get caught up looking at all of these ads and think to myself that if I wore that makeup and dressed like these model and did the types of things they do, I may be able to look like that. The media is filled with magazines full of ads with women wearing revealing clothing according to The Magazine Ideal study. Nineteen of the twenty four magazine photos studied focused on the model or celebritys cleavage through clothing. The revealing clothing accentuated the females breasts and added sex appeal (Morgan 8). Not only are women half naked, showing off attributes of their body in mens magazines, but it is extremely common in womens magazines as well.

[Type text] Body language is a key factor throughout advertisements in both men and womens

magazines. For example, Sophia Bush on the cover of Maxim magazine was depicted grabbing at her breasts with one hand and her stomach with the other in a very seductive pose. Lena Dunham on the cover of Glamour magazine was shown with one arm up by her head and the other showing off her tattoo. Both of these women with straight faces and a little opening of the lips, a facial expression you see quite often throughout magazines. By definition from the Collins English Dictionary, Body Language is the nonverbal imparting of information by means of conscious or subconscious bodily gestures, postures, etc. When flipping through any magazine, often times models are not showing off your typical selfie pose with a cute little smile and maybe a hand on the hip. It is much more than that. They are drawing the reader in with their eyes emphasized by professionally done makeup to make their eyes pop. They have poses that will make you look twice and with that will persuade you to read more into what they are promoting. You often see these more passive and submissive poses in fashion types of magazines as oppose to in womens home magazines, according to a study in the Psychology of Women Quarterly. Womens home magazines portrayed female models less often in passive positions compared to womens fashion magazines, and mens magazines. Womens fashion magazines and mens magazines did not differ in their likelihood of portraying women in passive poses (Conley 474). It was said that women are presented in more active poses in home magazines. What does this tell you about these magazines? Its all about the looks. In fact, you can see it all over their faces. When flipping though a magazine you tend to see white models far more often than you do other ethnicities. In a 250-page Glamour magazine, five of those pages presented a woman of African American ethnicity. Out of those 250 pages, one page presented two women of a different ethnicity other than those of White or African American. In Maxim, one page was

5 shown with an African American female on it the rest consisted of young, white females. It appears that white women are much more dominate in the media and in these magazines. Researchers who analyze images of women in advertisements often take for granted that these images apply to all women. However, most women in the images they analyze are White (Baker 14). According to a study titled: Images and Womens Sexuality in Advertisements, these ethnic minorities are often times not used in media and when they are it appears that they may have some racial stereotyping not only between the women but including men too. Minority women are excluded from much mainstream media, and, when included at all, they are often portrayed according to racially specific gender stereotypes (Baker 15). In magazines, black women have been portrayed as more aggressive and divergent compared to the more passive and submissive image that seems to be more prominent in society. These women are presented in such characteristics of independence, which is not a bad image to have as a woman, as well as dominant, and sexually aggressive. According the Images of Womens Sexuality in Advertisements, it doesnt look like a change is coming anytime soon to these ethnic stereotypes. Though the images of Black women were constructed quite a while ago, studies have shown that once images are established, they change very slowly, if at all (Baker 16). Women of all ethnicities are reading these articles and trying to benefit from them but with White women expressed throughout the majority of the magazines it can be unwelcoming to some women. As a result, alternative magazines have been created that are more race-oriented. In both men and womens magazines, there are advertisements that show no relation to the product, it goes for images that go along with articles as well. In the Maxim magazine Sophia Bush is half naked, and talking about, oddly enough, absolutely nothing that has to do with being dressed like a lingerie model. The article was a question and answer about recent role as a cop on Chicago P.D. Its an eight page article with 75% of the pages being full page shots of her in

[Type text] netted clothing grabbing at her body with sex written all over her face. Thinking about the magazine it is located in (Maxim) and what kind of audience that magazine pertains to (men), it makes sense. Its how they sell their magazines. Most men who are buying this magazine are buying it for pleasure and half-naked women not for the content of the article. Glamour magazine pertains to a different audience; women reading the magazine, looking for tips to better themselves. While yes there may be articles that provide health tips,

makeup tips, etc., but are the shots of these models and actresses really representing the article or ad the way they should? This is shown in the same manner when Marilyn Monroe was pictured in a bathrobe that is undone with an opening from her neck to her knee advertising hairspray. Similar to the mens magazines, women are presented in this way to sell these items and to draw the reader in. Different from men, a lot of women may not be looking at her for pleasure but admiring her beauty and asking themselves what they can do to better their image. An online blog about ads explained, Women have also been portrayed as sex symbols and objects of lust. Using idealistic images of women encourage women to purchase clothing in the hopes of emulating the model displayed in the advertisements (Marketing Degree). That is exactly what Glamour and other womens fashion magazines are doing. These magazines teach women ways to better their image rather then what they should be doing which is teaching women to accept their bodies for the way they are and embrace the woman that they really are. If there is one thing that I have learned while conducting my research, it is that these magazines provide society with a perfect image that subconsciously becomes expected of women. Straight from The Magazine Ideal study, Both men and womens magazines imply what women should look like and what men should look for (Morgan 18). I could not agree with that statement more. Although the contents of these two magazines are for marketing purposes, it is causing a great deal of damage to society. When I began this paper, I found myself

7 thinking only about how falsely portrayed and unattainable the ideal image was in the Glamour magazine and I had yet to even look in a Maxim magazine. After looking through both of the magazines, I found that Maxim portrays women in a much worse way then Glamour does. In the end they are both doing the same amount of damage to society in conducting this unattainable and unhealthy body image that so many women are striving for.