Negatives of Beauty Magazines Portrayal of People

Document Type:Thesis

Subject Area:Religion

Document 1

beautiful and ugly or masculine and weak instead of considering the various variables that occur in the day to day lives of the consumers of these magazines’ content. These portrayals may not break any set laws or policies in their market locals. However, ethically speaking, these stereotypic print publications cause more harm than good in the context of individuals who do not embody the high standards of beauty or masculinity that they set. As such, it is apt to state that American citizens should boycott popular magazines that promote unreasonable representations of beauty because these magazines can severely damage men and women's self-esteem. Francesca Albani states, “Thinness …the symbol of bodily perfection” in his excerpt Thinness Matters: The Impact of Magazine Advertising on The Contemporary Beauty Ideal.

Sign up to view the full document!

The trend of feminism as a cultural identity leaves its ideals open to capitalistic exploitation. All notions emanating from “women’s empowerment” are becoming popular hence becoming a niche to entrepreneurs to vend merchandise to the female populous. Nevertheless, most of the aforementioned entrepreneurs fund governmental operations which openly and forcibly defeats and thereby constrains the progression of women’s rights. In using miniscule effort, a customer could gain knowledge through these media publications on which political affiliation the biggest purveyors are in support of. For instance, Procter Gamble’s method of getting women to purchase their many products by the female populous is by giving a major slice of its political financial aids to republicans who are in opposition to the rights of women reproductive.

Sign up to view the full document!

It does so by illustrating results from the pool of case studies encompassing a comparison of men and women health magazines published in the period between 2006 and 2011. The results obtained from the prominent captions and the magazines’ overall objectifying thematic and phrases for instance, the placement of emphasis on the body as an object in place of considering it a conduit of capabilities illustrated two stereotypes. First, is that the women’s magazines portrayed women as feminine and placed this as the ideal type of woman. On the other hand, the men’s masculinity was the major portrayal of the ideal body type in the men’s magazine illustrations. These stereotypes may not have implicating effects on the health status of the readers.

Sign up to view the full document!

Instead, she focuses on the knowledge that these collective groups hold in the clarification of what feminism should be. As such, she is uplifting the female gender instead of downgrading it as the stereotypes prior mentioned do on their daily, monthly or annual prints. An instance of such mental disorder cases is anorexia which is a condition encompassing characteristics of an individual obsessing about what and when to eat as well as their body weight. There are a number of research studies whose results illustrate a support for the notion that pressures on both men and women by the popular media platforms, i. e. WORK CITED Andersen, A. , and L. DiDomenico (1992) Diet vs. shape content of popular male and female magazines: A dose–response relationship to the incidence of eating disorders International Journal of Eating Disorders, [283–287] Bazzini, Doris G.

Sign up to view the full document!

From $10 to earn access

Only on Studyloop

Original template

Downloadable