Cosmopolitan Magazines

Description:

This photo is of a collection of Cosmopolitan magazines owned by a friend. I realize there is already a photo of magazines up on the blog, but this is my sociological interpretation of a certain genre of magazines.

Sociological Interpretation:

Cosmopolitan advertises fashion, how to lose weight, as well as sex positions and tips to find the perfect man. There has not been one Cosmo magazine that I have seen without the word ‘sex’ on it. This creates expectations for women to uphold in society. In the earlier days, women’s magazines portrayed women fully clothed and with a healthy amount of weight on their bodies. Women, such as Marilyn Monroe, made a healthy figure gorgeous. In the present day, our society has created a set of social and behavioural norms that an individual is expected to follow. Young women read these magazines and realize they look nothing like these females on the covers. This creates low self-esteem and impossible expectations to live up to since the subjects on the covers are air-brushed and have a large amount of make-up on.

Our culture has created a definition of what femininity is and if a woman goes outside of this norm, she is looked down upon and is defined as ‘different’ or ‘abnormal’. The pressure that is put on women of all ages is tremendous and there is a great need for resocialization. By using resocialization, our society can change into a community that does not have gender roles, gendered expectations, and is free of gender bias.