|
HC Investigation Horoscopes New Members Psychology Sitting With Shyla Survey Results |
Temujin - Representations of femininityMy group decided to look through various teenage girl magazines (CosmoGirl, Bliss and Shout) to see how femininity is represented via makeup. Various things came to light, the most obvious being a paradox. Many articles and ads talked about "the natural look" or similar. But, if you want to look natural surely you shouldn't be wearing makeup? Further, it suggests that what nature gave to many is lesser or even inadequate compared to others. True or not, hardly an ideal message to feed youths. An interesting comment was made by the other 4 group members, all girls. They all laughed at how stupid it was that girls were being told the only way to look beautiful was to buy the products advertised and yet most of them had done, or still do, the same thing. The magazines are read almost exclusively by girls and are contributed to mostly by girls and yet the emphasis is on looking good, in large part for boys/men and to make up for natural deficiencies (I use the term loosely). And yet, men are not the problem. Femininity here is being used as a bargaining tool by big business. One letter was from a girl who thought she had short eyelashes, and instead of replying with "You probably don't, don't stress" the 'Agony Aunt' replied with "Yeah, you're right, buy false eyelashes". For all the feminist campaigning and male co-operation and acceptance of equality etc a large portion of women seem perfectly happy with the barbie doll image and makeup/fashion obsessions. However, there's a difference between grown women choosing this and indoctrinating teenagers. I do think that teenage girls are partly to blame for this situation by buying into the various magazines. Consumers drive demand and if no-one bought these magazines then they wouldn't be able to be used as platforms for largely unnecessary beauty products. However, the greater burden of blame is clearly on the magazine creators and contributors. Teenagers of both sexes are notoriously self-conscious and their usually false fears do not need feeding by a capitalist cosmetic company. |