As I waited in the checkout line at Wegmans the other night, I was bombarded by a large collection of publications bearing pictures of celebrities, perfect bodies and beautiful women. They contained nothing new, only old and overused headlines, offering the latest ways to get flat abs fast or the newest fall fashions.
With cover stories like "How to Find your Sexiest Scent," and "The Ego Stroke that Keeps Guys Faithful," it seems surprising that these magazines, or anyone who reads them, can honestly take themselves seriously.
The problem lies in the fact that they do.
These magazines may serve as a source of entertainment, but they disturbingly portray a false sense of femininity to a generation of women who are insecure and struggling to live up to feminine standards that still exist today.
It is impossible for magazines that advise women to dumb themselves down to hold on to a boyfriend or offer a new guaranteed-to-work fad diet each month to help women more than they hurt them.
Fifty years ago, women were just beginning to emerge from the stereotype of existing solely as housewives and mothers, moving into the workplace, and establishing themselves on an equal playing field as their male counterparts. But as women changed, so did the standards they were expected to live up to. Marketers switched their gears, advertising for products such as makeup and clothing rather than for the cooking supplies and household products aimed towards women at home.
By altering the expectations of women to physical appearances, women in today's society may in fact be worse off than the un-liberated generations of women before them.
In her book "The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women," author Naomi Wolf writes of the burdens society places on women today. "The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through," she says, "the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us."
The beauty myth is the most recent set of expectations regarding feminine attributes and performance that women must live up to in order to be considered successful in our culture. In attempts to measure up to a standard of femininity, which is impossible to attain, women have developed insecurities and obsessive desires to become "perfect." Instead of using energy in positive ways, women turn their focus inward, creating feelings of guilt and unhappiness based on their physical faults.
These standards have had a disgusting effect on the female population.
Each year almost 150,000 women die from anorexia, and one in five college-aged students suffer from the disease. In addition, cosmetic surgery procedures continue to become more and more popular, as progressively younger clients seek out the perfect body, and a key to a perfect life.
In a recent survey, 34,000 women told researchers that they would rather lose 10-15 pounds than achieve any other goal. Also consider the prevalence of reality shows such as "Doctor 90210" and "The Swan," which promote surgery as an easy option.
Despite the fact that women today possess more professional success, power and influence than ever before, the social restrictions that accompany these advancements are just as much, if not more, restrictive than the traditional image of a woman as a homemaker and wife.
And I'm guilty, I admit it. I read my roommate's copy of Cosmo each month, and I'm not proud of it. I like seeing the latest fashions and reading the new bits of gossip, but it will be a sad day when I believe that the solutions to my problems in life lie in the glossy pages of a magazine like Cosmopolitan or Glamour.
Instead of reading these magazines like they're our bibles, we should see them for what they're worth: cheap information that can be entertaining, but which by no means should rule our lives.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
