Today's Pinup Fashion a Sly Wink to the Past - New York Times

[LolitaHaze]

Fine point. I suppose personal responsibility can only go so far, but I suppose I disagree with the idea that it is all media's fault and only the media's fault that the world has self esteem issues. I suppose I am referring to those that don't take ANY responsibility. Like gaining weight from eating only McDonald's and then getting mad at McDonald's for making them fat. I also can't personally fault media for marketing sales, because no one would make money selling only to those that want to buy it when they need it. They would go under so quickly! I'm just saying that isn't smart business and you can't fault someone for that. You can't fault McD's for making something look tastey and then not take any fault for your own choice to eat it no more than you can blame media for producing appealing images and then not taking responsibility for buying it and then feeling bad and getting mad they made you feel bad.

I think we agree to a degree on the situation of the world. I think we both agree the answer to the problem is 4, you just think it is 2+2, I think it is 1+3.

 

[Juliet]

I'm definitely not saying that it's ALL the media's fault. In fact, I believe I've stated before that parents have a huge responsibility too.
It' just that many people shrug it off as something entirely unimportant. Maybe I was a tad too stressful in making my point. If so, forgive me.

P.S. Believe me, the amount of airbrushing and editing that goes in a fashion editorial today is in no way comparable to vintage photo editing. You should also hear the comment some of these people make about the models while working on an image - it's very disturbing.

 

[sheeplady]

Perhaps I may be in the minority of women's thinking here, but I never thought Cosmo or any women's magazine's for that matter make women feel bad or inadequate, at least I never have. I see nothing wrong with offering suggestions/articles on how to better one's self or life.

I have no problem with a magazine that is directed towards a woman improving herself. I have no problem with women improving herself in whatever way she feels fit- it is her body- as long as she doesn't hurt others in the process. I do have a problem with how these messages are delivered.

I have never felt inadequate because of a magazine either. But I had a good upbringing and a good dose of self-confidence because of that, and it sounds like you did/do too. I do think that a young woman or girl who doesn't have that (and may actually have a poor upbringing as opposed to a just not good one) can be influenced by these magazines. Even worse are those girls and women who might have a predisposition to having low self-esteem- such as verbal or physical abuse victims, those with unstable homes, and mental illness (such as depression, anxiety, or an eating disorder)- find this material triggering. The material doesn't really cause low self-esteem, so much as it triggers existing stuff.

Sorry for being explicit in the next part, but here is an example. There is no reason why an article on sex has to be presented in a way that says "5 moves you have to/ need to know in bed to satisfy your partner." Why can't it be "5 moves you should know in bed to make your sex life better?" Sex isn't just about pleasing your partner- it's about pleasing everyone involved. So throw in some articles on pleasuring your partner, but most of them better be about pleasuring yourself- or how to make sure that your needs are met in the act. But most of Cosmo's tips aren't actually that good to even begin with, so most women might be better off with the internet for that info.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think the point about parents needing to take responsibility for teaching their kids is a perfectly valid one -- but we live in an era in which parents themselves are as much a captive of marketing as their kids are. Marketing is far more sophisticated now than it was even in the Mad Men era, when Vance Packard produced his exposes of the industry, and the rise of new media means it's pretty much impossible to escape it unless you sequester yourself in a bomb shelter or a cabin in the woods.

This is why I insist society carries a substantial share of the blame for what we see around us. The Boys from Marketing don't care two cents for your well being or my well being or the well being of any individual. All we are to them is sheep waiting to be shorn -- and they have no compunctions whatever about using the most sophisticated research possible to pinpoint exactly what every demographic group's emotional weaknesses are -- and using those weaknesses agains them to sell them stuff they don't really need. That's what I find morally repugnant -- that cynical exploitation of personal insecurities for the sake of profit -- and sexual insecurities are the ones that are the easiest to exploit, especially with teenagers who, emotionally speaking, are still children. No matter what their parents tell them, they're only a page flip or a mouse-click away from someone who'll exploit their insecurities for all they're worth, and it's the rare kid indeed who's able to recognize and reject their methods. Until and unless society itself rejects such techniques, this will never, ever change.

 

[1961MJS]

I will repeat again... Cosmo is not feminism. Cosmo is not feminism in practice. It is the * opposite* for feminism in practice. You can't say that something is the face for feminism when it represents the exact opposite ideals of feminism. It does not stand for feminism in practice, theory, or on the moon. If any one thinks that Cosmo *is* feminism it it because they are either really uneducated, wish to remain willfully ignorant, or spread lies about what feminism is.

Only a tiny minuscule of women in general would see Cosmo as "encouraging" yet alone "empowering" women to do the things you mention. Cosmo doesn't encourage (yet alone empower) women to have sex, drink, etc. It does encourage women to feel really bad about their weight, their ability in bed, and about being a female in general....

Well, I looked at the online version and I would have to agree with you. From their online index, it appears to be primarily a sex magazine for women. I would have called it a feminist magazine had I not looked. I think that many American's would have had the same notion of the magazine. It's not the ONLY magazine I don't spend much time reading, so I wonder how many other incorrect assumptions I've made.

Later

 

[sheeplady]

Well, I looked at the online version and I would have to agree with you. From their online index, it appears to be primarily a sex magazine for women. I would have called it a feminist magazine had I not looked. I think that many American's would have had the same notion of the magazine. It's not the ONLY magazine I don't spend much time reading, so I wonder how many other incorrect assumptions I've made.

Later

To be honest, I don't know anyone who reads Cosmo. The closest I've gotten is to flip through it at the grocery line. Most of the women I know and I've spoken to about it to/ heard talk about it think that is is a rather trashy rag. I'm not sure how they sell it. I think most women in the U.S. have been exposed to it enough to have informed an opinion on it- it is one of the most heavily marketed magazines out there towards women.

There's not that many (if any) feminist magazines aimed towards women out there that focus on "self help" or improvement. As far as a magazine purely about feminism, there is Ms., but that is a very liberal (politically) take on feminism (not all feminists are liberal politically by far); and there's not a moderate or conservative version I can think of.

Ms. does occasionally have really really interesting articles that cut across political lines, or at least they did. Several years ago, when Martha Stewart was jailed, Ms. ran a series of articles on how some feminists mocked Ms. Stewart because she focused on home crafts (traditional woman's work) but since she was jailed, many feminists embraced her as an entrepreneurial woman who was unfairly targeted because of her sex. What the articles were trying to point out is that it wasn't important that she was jailed: she was the same extremely successful woman before and after jail. The few feminists that were so quick to write her off because she was involved in home crafts, but so quick to band behind her after she was jailed, really weren't being supportive of her or really adhering towards the tenants of feminism. It was a really introspective series on how some feminists view other women, and I thought it was absolutely delightful that the magazine published them. I think it made a lot of people think.

Then Ms. has some articles that are really incredibly weird.

 

[LizzieMaine]

To be honest, I don't know anyone who reads Cosmo. The closest I've gotten is to flip through it at the grocery line. Most of the women I know and I've spoken to about it to/ heard talk about it think that is is a rather trashy rag. I'm not sure how they sell it. I think most women in the U.S. have been exposed to it enough to have informed an opinion on it- it is one of the most heavily marketed magazines out there towards women.

The seventeen year old girl who lives next door to me gets it. One copy was delivered here by mistake, and I had to send my mailbox out for prophylaxis.

While not an explicitly feminist magazine, the Atlantic Monthly regularly features in-depth articles targeting women's concerns. I don't agree with all of them, or even most of them, given the general upper-middle-class slant of the magazine -- I'll gag if they publish one more piece by Sandra Tsing-Loh whining about how hard it is to find a good nanny -- but they're at least thought-provoking and respect the reader's intelligence.

 

[sheeplady]

The seventeen year old girl who lives next door to me gets it. One copy was delivered here by mistake, and I had to send my mailbox out for prophylaxis.

Urgh. Poor girl. At that age it is undoubtedly her parents buying it for her, which is kind of twisted. It's really an adult magazine. I'm really not for censorship (especially at that age) but my under 18 child would have to sneak her copies of Cosmo into the house if she wanted them. I hate to say that any reading is a waste, but there are so many other things someone could read.

My mother did buy me "17" when I was 15 or so, but I didn't find it very useful. I didn't know who any of the stars were, didn't wear makeup, and didn't have the money to buy the fancy clothes. It did have some articles on how to deal with difficult situations and puberty/ becoming an adult, which I remember vaguely as being decent. I don't think my mother resubscribed me. But 17, even at it's worse, is miles away from Cosmo in my mind. But then I haven't seen a copy of 17 in about 15 years, so who knows what it is like now. I knew some girls who's lives revolved around getting their copy in the mail.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I used to get American Girl, which women my age will remember as the official publication of the Girl Scouts, and always found it interesting and worthwhile. I hadn't heard anything about it in years, so you can imagine how I felt when I googled it and found that it's now a magazine devoted entirely to the American Girl line of expensive collector dolls. That's a pretty sad commentary on our times.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I used to get American Girl, which women my age will remember as the official publication of the Girl Scouts, and always found it interesting and worthwhile. I hadn't heard anything about it in years, so you can imagine how I felt when I googled it and found that it's now a magazine devoted entirely to the American Girl line of expensive collector dolls. That's a pretty sad commentary on our times.

Then there's the now famous story about the kid doing research for a class assignment on the President and getting a porn site (whitehousedotcom) instead of the White House (whitehouse.gov).

 

[jamespowers]

Then there's the now famous story about the kid doing research for a class assignment on the President and getting a porn site (whitehousedotcom) instead of the White House (whitehouse.gov).

Hmmmmmm---wrong president.

 

[sheeplady]

The American Girl line of dolls itself has gone down the pits. It might have been part of the marketing, but the original owner of the company started it when her daughter was a girl and they said they couldn't find suitable girl dolls that weren't cheap or sexualized and she wanted something educational. They were incredibly expensive (upwards of $40 new) but meant as toys when they first came out. They were well made in the US, and they had a doll hospital which repaired them for you very inexpensively. The books were good too- they had a bit of history, the girls had a moral compass, and they had fun adventures where they learned from their mistakes. Most of the girls I knew had one growing up- either a new one or a used doll- and our small and rather pitiful school library stocked all the books, so you didn't need to buy those. A lot of mothers still sewed, and used to copy the outfits in the catalog with scrap material and make matching outfits for their daughters.

After the original owner sold the company the products have apparently gone down the drain, I don't think the doll hospital exists anymore, and they have all these "extra" dolls that aren't even based upon history or are educational. It's owned by Mattel now. And like most of Mattel stuff, it's gotten cheap.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Somebody once asked Fred Rogers why he didn't do more to merchandise the puppet characters on his program, suggesting that such a wholesome line of toys would be a great thing for young kids. But he didn't want to do it -- pointing out that the kind of play that's really wholesome for kids is the kind of play that comes entirely out of their own imagination, rather than building on someone else's marketed characters. Nowadays it's hard to find a line of toys that *isn't* based on some marketing concept or other -- one more example of how the Boys from Marketing capture us as soon as we're old enough to be manipulated.

 

[sheeplady]

Somebody once asked Fred Rogers why he didn't do more to merchandise the puppet characters on his program, suggesting that such a wholesome line of toys would be a great thing for young kids. But he didn't want to do it -- pointing out that the kind of play that's really wholesome for kids is the kind of play that comes entirely out of their own imagination, rather than building on someone else's marketed characters. Nowadays it's hard to find a line of toys that *isn't* based on some marketing concept or other -- one more example of how the Boys from Marketing capture us as soon as we're old enough to be manipulated.

Technically I don't think you can sell anything without marketing. Even designing a product that includes making people like it (easy to use, dependable)- is the most basic strategy of marketing. Everything you buy is marketed- from the food you buy to the cloth in your clothes or your form of transportation. By it being sold it's been marketed.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's marketing and then there's Marketing -- as defined by Vance Packard, the latter is the deliberate manipulation of desire, the creation of a want where no need exists for no purpose other than satisfying the want. In the case of children, it's making them want a brand of sugar cereal that's exactly the same as every other brand of sugar cereal by putting Sponge-Bob on the box. In the case of teens, it's the amplification and exploitation of personal insecurities for purposes of commerce. In either case, I'd like nothing better than to live in a world where it didn't exist.

In the case of marketing to kids, Dr. Susan Linn has done some seriously thought-provoking research about what it does to their minds. It might be something we take for granted, but it most certainly is not benign.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Mixed messages. Both from 1932:

I think the 1932 "Fats Girls" ad is pretty mean. If that doesn't make a woman feel bad, I don't know what would! It also appears to stress that a woman's worth is in her appearance and ability to snag a "sweetheart."

Nothing has changed!

 

[LizzieMaine]

What's really heinous about that Kruschen ad is that the product was a laxative. So it's implying that if you're fat, you're full of...

Those types of ads were strongly attacked by the movement which eventually grew into Consumer's Union. Researchers F. J. Schlink and Arthur Kallet pulled the wool off of fake health products in 1932 with "20,000,000 Guinea Pigs," and Schlink teamed with economist Stuart Chase the following year to publish "Your Money's Worth," which exposed the claims of other consumer goods. These were both best-sellers, and resulted in a lot of wised-up people who knew better than to believe the ads.

On a less serious note, "Ballyhoo" magazine offered an absolutely devastating continuous satire of contemporary advertising, and was one of the most popular humor publications of the Depression. Consumers in the '30s knew when they were being gulled, and didn't take it lying down.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

"Many women hasten results by going lighter on potatoes, pastries and fatty meats".

No sh*t, Sherlock. What horrific advertising :eusa_doh:

Though, to be honest, Chinese TV is no better today. The kind of advertising they can get away with here would never fly in the UK these days. Impossible (not literally impossible, but rare) body shapes, women (isn't it always?) with normal bodies shown eating almost always portrayed as pigs - their faces, literally, morphing and developing a snout in one ad - simply for enjoying their food. And believe me, this is a culture that REALLY enjoys food (Rightfully so, thats' one of the good things about it).

bk

 

[sheeplady]

Mixed messages. Both from 1932:

I'm pretty sure the second ad is portraying a woman they think is the ideal. Sadly, the woman in the first ad would be too "heavy" to be a model today and the media would call the woman in the second ad a "fatty."

I'm also overjoyed to be reminded that the anorexic and bulimic "trick" of using laxatives to lose weight is so long running.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

"Many women hasten results by going lighter on potatoes, pastries and fatty meats".

No sh*t, Sherlock. What horrific advertising :eusa_doh:

That really made me lol at work!!

I *LOVE* the weight issues advertising from the 20s-30s. And none of them bother me in the slightest. I am in the camp with Lolita Haze -- "women's" magazines are just throwaway entertainment to me. I've never felt bad about myself because of a silly magazine. I think it also boils down to personality types. Stronger personalities won't let that stuff bother them whereas weaker, more persuasive personality types will take the messages personally. That's just what I think.

Also here is a funny weight loss ad from 1924 lol

And your suggested weight for your height and age, 1931:

I *should* be 146 lbs, but my weight isn't even on the chart for my height!!!!