Ideology in Magazines in Modernity and Feminist Critique:
From the 1950s to now, the art of beautification is what most magazines perpetuate. They offer tips on makeup, hair, and exercise tips to be the “best” and most “confident” young woman that you can be. Magazines offer idea on how women should and ought to be. By this I mean, trendy, tone, thin, and beautiful. Although this feminist critique has grown, much improvement has not been seen as imagery in which women are objectified is still dominant. It can be argued that the readers of magazines today resemble members of a religion or cult. Magazines are the bible and femininity the religion. Not just any femininity but a particular brand of it, where she is constantly keeping up with trends and looking her best while living with a hectic work schedule. For more information on this topic in particular one can read The Beauty Myth by Nomi Wolf. She offers an insightful feminist critique of a wide range of imagery in magazines. While magazines like Ms. offer a feminist critique, they are not as widely read as mainstream magazines such as Cosmopolitan.
Civil rights:
The civil rights movement called for diverse models and representations of different culture to be displayed in magazines. While this did happen, people of color-such as Asian, Latino and African American- are still underrepresented in magazines. When they are they are usually stereotyped without the audience really taking notice as certain images have become part of dominate culture. Often times, generic looking models are used to reach a larger audience. However this did lead to the creation of magazines targeted at specific audiences such as Ebony, to African American females. Women’s magazines still seem to struggle to keep this concept of diversity separate from adding stereotypes, and it is something that is still widely pronounced in many magazines, but it is something that they utilize to target their vast spectrum of readers, and that is their main focus.
