They read the magazine’s to get guidance and aspiration, and I think the editor’s portray this feeling they get well by use of colloquial language such as “Get Bikini Fabulous, 110s of sexy, figure-friendly bikinis. 45 look-toned-nows cheat. Fake your tan, not your confidence.” (Cosmopolitan, June, 05) The use of language in this quote is a very common style of writing women’s lifestyle magazines, as the magazines often form an encyclopaedia of the insecurities about women’s issues, both mentally and physically. The magazines are subconsciously designed to make you insecure about yourself. This makes me think of a study done by a theorist named McRobbie, whom in 1978, did a study of the “romantic individualism” encoded within JACKIE, (a women’s lifestyle magazine in the 70s). The study is described by McRobbie as offering “a systematic critique of JACKIE as a system of messages, a signifying system and a bearer of a certain ideology.” Only in the concluding paragraph does McRobbie admit that “this does not mean that its readers swallow its axioms without question” and that we need to know more about the girls that read JACKIE and how they encounter its ideological force.” What I mean by stating the above, about McRobbie and her input in socialisation, is that she is saying when women read magazines they do not think of themselves as passive readers. This mean’s although they may be regular readers of lifestyle magazine’s they do not necessary believe everything they are reading, and although it is put in a believable manner some readers may be part of the active audience. McRobbie was a theorist that looked at various women’s magazine’s however never considered the audience.
Another theorist, named Winship,(1987), followed a by McRobbie looked at magazines and also considered the audience. This study enabled her to get a better view of what women look for in a magazine and what the distinguishing characteristics between the magazines. Her book focused on the place of magazines in women’s lives, and the social processes and cultural codes which shaped their meanings. We learnt that although all magazines aim to cater for the reader in a certain style, they all offer something different, through the construction of society changing.
Assumptions can also be made towards the gender of women’s/men’s lifestyle magazines by simply “gendering” people. Since you were a young age, can you remember the toys and colours that surrounded you? Certain gender stereotypes of preference can be applied within magazines, it is known as “the nature-nurture” debate. When analysing the magazines you will notice that they use different colours and feature different images (e.g. pink for girls, blue for boys action toys for boys, dolls for girls,ect.) From the day a child is born, it is dressed in certain clothes, put in a nursery with certain wallpaper and given certain toys that relate to its gender. But gender is different to biological sex. We are born into a biological sex but the gender roles we are asked to take as men or women are cultural. Some people argue that the reason men like cars and women like flowers are not cultural but natural. It’s just the way it is a natural instinct to form certain interests which relate to women’s maternal and domestic programming. Others quarrel that culture dictates all and the reason that men and women often have different gender-specific ideas and tastes is because of the way we are socialised. Magazines are constructed to aspire to readers to be like their specified gender role.
Since the mid- 1990s, a gathering of very successful magazines designed at young men has been materialized, organized by the controversial LOADED. Followed by a variety of imitators and alternatives on the topic, LOADED, was celebrated by some as an inspirational, post-politically correct chance for men to rediscover their masculinity. Modern women’s magazines have moved on a vast deal from their past original, presenting dreams of femininity that entail independence and confidence as well as beauty and domestic concerns. However, a feminist analysis of magazines like MORE and RED will still find that women need to look good in order to attract men. On the other hand, it can be argued that men’s magazines are now doing the equivalent. When I compare a front cover and features of both MENS HEALTH and COSMOPOLITAN, they both have very comparable themes of maintaining a fixation with appearance that discriminates against women, for instance in the work place. This is post modern irony subtly giving men the right to discriminate women through text, by placing them nude in magazines which are focused on the new acceptability of male arrogance; the most worldwide successful is MENS HEALTH.