This week I have mainly been reading articles on ambivalent sexism; yes we all have our hobbies and among the interesting and thought provoking, I stumbled upon a few things I generally ignore...mainstream, glossy articles.
In the interest of research, I read a few. Wow, this is a strange and uncharted territory. Don't get me wrong, I have flipped through women's magazines at the doctor's and dentist's waiting room. But I think it was probably 1989 when I last looked inside the cover of Cosmopolitan. However, the article which really interested me, was this one in Marie Claire, Australia.
http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/marie-claire/features/reports/article/-/6530219/you-tell-us-who-s-the-sexiest/
Now I do understand, that most people will be familiar with this article and it looks as though it has, 'done the rounds' it was written in 2009 after all. But as I said the other day, I realised at an early age that I was destined to discover 'new' things which the rest of the planet already knew about!
Now, call me sad, but what a peculiar piece of propaganda this is. Using objectified female bodies, to confirm to the female readership that objectified female model-size bodies are in fact, not attractive.
The psychology of the body language used and the positioning of the people is constructed to ensure there will be only one possible outcome - the size 12. She is standing in the, 'I find you attractive' stance and also creates the 'full stop' in the 'reading' of the body sentence. I really do find such overt manipulation insulting! Couple with this the fact that the women are not the sizes presented...yes I took out a small scale ruler and measured and cross referenced the width of their frames as confirmation that this is a piece intended to manipulate me, the reader and I took offence! If these women are the size we are told, they have been stretch, or shrunk to conform to a standardised height and this has skewed the perception of the form. And that is just cheating! The size 8 model has the same width shoulders and hips as the size 12...ummmm. seems rather unethical to me!
If we are going to use pejorative and damaging journalism to undermine the beauty of women, or in fact to make 'beauty' the only goal worthy of attainment, at least make it an ethical photograph!
Now I am all for women celebrating beauty, as someone who has spent most of my adult life lacking body confidence and with issues around being labelled, I am fully supportive of articles which make women and men question their preconceptions about everything really! But why must we have one form of beauty as superior to another?
What a juxtaposition and bizarre contradiction these magazine-things are. Packed full of labels, real women are the most attractive being the sub-text of one article and how to lose weight and look like a rake the sub-text of another.
I tend to think that this media works so well at turning women into warring factions, and while we symbolically scratch each other's eyes out over a size label, we also subserviently don bras and knickers and line up to be 'compared' and 'contrasted' in the beauty stakes. The fact is, that while we all bitch about the vital statistics of Victoria Beckham or Kate Winslet, we won't be questioning society or demanding to be given the same career opportunities, or even expecting that other women will actually judge us for how we behave, rather than for what we wear.
In the interest of research, I read a few. Wow, this is a strange and uncharted territory. Don't get me wrong, I have flipped through women's magazines at the doctor's and dentist's waiting room. But I think it was probably 1989 when I last looked inside the cover of Cosmopolitan. However, the article which really interested me, was this one in Marie Claire, Australia.
http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/marie-claire/features/reports/article/-/6530219/you-tell-us-who-s-the-sexiest/
Now I do understand, that most people will be familiar with this article and it looks as though it has, 'done the rounds' it was written in 2009 after all. But as I said the other day, I realised at an early age that I was destined to discover 'new' things which the rest of the planet already knew about!
Now, call me sad, but what a peculiar piece of propaganda this is. Using objectified female bodies, to confirm to the female readership that objectified female model-size bodies are in fact, not attractive.
The psychology of the body language used and the positioning of the people is constructed to ensure there will be only one possible outcome - the size 12. She is standing in the, 'I find you attractive' stance and also creates the 'full stop' in the 'reading' of the body sentence. I really do find such overt manipulation insulting! Couple with this the fact that the women are not the sizes presented...yes I took out a small scale ruler and measured and cross referenced the width of their frames as confirmation that this is a piece intended to manipulate me, the reader and I took offence! If these women are the size we are told, they have been stretch, or shrunk to conform to a standardised height and this has skewed the perception of the form. And that is just cheating! The size 8 model has the same width shoulders and hips as the size 12...ummmm. seems rather unethical to me!
If we are going to use pejorative and damaging journalism to undermine the beauty of women, or in fact to make 'beauty' the only goal worthy of attainment, at least make it an ethical photograph!
Now I am all for women celebrating beauty, as someone who has spent most of my adult life lacking body confidence and with issues around being labelled, I am fully supportive of articles which make women and men question their preconceptions about everything really! But why must we have one form of beauty as superior to another?
What a juxtaposition and bizarre contradiction these magazine-things are. Packed full of labels, real women are the most attractive being the sub-text of one article and how to lose weight and look like a rake the sub-text of another.
I tend to think that this media works so well at turning women into warring factions, and while we symbolically scratch each other's eyes out over a size label, we also subserviently don bras and knickers and line up to be 'compared' and 'contrasted' in the beauty stakes. The fact is, that while we all bitch about the vital statistics of Victoria Beckham or Kate Winslet, we won't be questioning society or demanding to be given the same career opportunities, or even expecting that other women will actually judge us for how we behave, rather than for what we wear.
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