Women and Beauty Magazines by Christine Hetcher Beauty magazines, such as Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Marie Claire, are widely read by women throughout America . What do women actually think of these magazines? Do they feel the magazines are helpful, degrading, or simply something to read? This paper is a survey interview to determine what women in their late teens and early twenties think about beauty magazines in Americatoday. The purpose of this study is to determine whether women like or dislike beauty magazines, why they like or dislike them, and how frequently women read beauty magazines.
Background
This section reviews the previous studies conducted on the effects of women’s magazines. Magazines specifically written for women have been in circulation for over sixty years, discussing whatever issues were relevant to women at the time (Moskowitz, 1996). Some of the earlier magazines focused on a war-time rebellion of feminism. Moskowitz (1996) conducted a study about the effects of war-time magazines and said, “Women’s magazines of the Cold War era remain symbols of antifeminism” (p. 66). Moskowitz (1996) found that many women liked the articles because many magazines discussed important issues to them, such as stress, emotionalism, and feminism (p.66). Moskowitz (1996) said, “recognition of emotional tension was common for women’s magazines” (p.67). This recognition “presented a whole new genre of articles that gave housewives the freedom to interpret their own states of mind” (Moskowitz, 1996, p. 74). This freedom was an important issue of the early thirties and forties. Today, most women’s magazines focus on five basic concepts: health, career, personal well-being, fashion, and, of course, sex. Some articles from a recent Cosmopolitan were “Freaky Flow? Your Most Pressing Period Problems Ever,” “Cosmo’s Hot New Sex Position,” and “Ten Hollywood Haircuts to Copy Right Now” (Beland, Gotthardt, & Kemp, 1999, p. 250-278). Such cover stories would have been shocking in the conservative war era sixty years ago, but are now expected in the liberal nineties. Only recently have psychologists and women’s studies enthusiasts begun to wonder what effects magazines with such articles may have on women. McCracken (1993) found that some women enjoy reading these articles because they “like to imagine that they can be like the women in the magazine -- beautiful, successful, etc.” (p. 6). Other women read beauty magazines simply for entertainment. One woman stated, “[The articles] are fun to laugh at because they are so far-fetched,” while another said, “I like to look at the fashions even though no one I know dresses like that and I know I never could” (McCracken, 1993, p. 7). Other women read the magazines because they feel that the advice is helpful and informative (McCracken, 1993, p. 6). McCracken (1993) stated, “Many readers experience a pseudo sense of community; the advice columns aid them with their problems and help assure them that other women experience similar difficulties (p. 6). While some women find beauty magazines entertaining and helpful, others find them appalling and degrading. McCracken (1993) stated, “Disillusionment can occur when the magazine’s ideal world does not correspond to real life” (p.7). The contents of beauty magazines offend some women because the magazines “encourage insecurities, heighten gender stereotypes, and urge redefining definitions of self-through consumer goods” (McCracken, 1993, p. 9). Although much research has been done on women’s opinions of beauty magazines, the results have been inconclusive as to whether more women like the magazines and read them regularly or whether more women dislike the magazines and never read them. In the research reported here, I interviewed young women in order to determine which factors cause the opposing viewpoints of liking or disliking beauty magazines. I attempted to discover why women chose to read or refused to read these magazines. I expected to find a higher percentage of women who liked beauty magazines and regularly read them than those who disliked beauty magazines and never read them.
Present Study The next section discusses the present study. It explains how the sample was chosen, describes the instrument used, and analyzes the results. This study focused on young women’s opinions of popular women’s magazines and why women liked to read them or refused to read them.
SAMPLE
The sample used for this study consisted of twenty young women between the ages of nineteen to twenty-five. The women interviewed were randomly selected from students attending theUniversity of Minnesota at noon on three separate days: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The students filled out questionnaires distributed to them while they were engaging in various activities. The activities they were engaging in were either sitting in Coffman Union, walking on campus, waiting for a bus, studying at a library, eating lunch, playing a sport on the lawn, or waiting for a class. First, the women were asked if they were between the ages of nineteen to twenty-five. If they fit the age group, then they were asked to immediately answer a questionnaire and return it to me upon completion.
INSTRUMENT
The instrument used was a questionnaire consisting of six questions. The six questions focused on how often the women read beauty magazines, what they thought of the contents, on what they thought the magazines should change or increase focus, how beneficial the magazines were to them, how often they take the advice given in the magazines, and which magazines (if any) was their favorite including the reason why it was their favorite. The format of the questions consisted of both a nominal scale and an ordinal scale of answers according to their responses. The following are the questions from the questionnaire administered:
QUESTIONNAIRE
1. How many times per month do you read beauty magazines?
3 or more, 2, 1, Less than 1, Never
2. How do you feel about the contents of beauty magazines?
Strongly approve Approve, Neutral or no opinion, Disapprove, Strongly disapprove
3. Which are do you think beauty magazines should emphasize more?
Nothing (magazines put good emphasis on all areas), Health, Sex, Career, Fashion, Personal well being, No opinion
4. How beneficial do you think beauty magazines are?
Very beneficial, Slightly beneficial, Not at all beneficial, Slightly harmful, Very harmful, No opinion
5. How often do you take the advice or tips given in beauty magazines?
Very often, Frequently, Rarely, Never, No opinion
6. Which beauty magazine is your favorite?
Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, Glamour, None
Why? _________________________________ _________________________________
ANALYSIS
In order to determine the results of this study, the answers were tabulated and then statistically computed. This computation found the relative frequency, or the percentages, of each response to each question. Here are the relative frequency charts and histograms for each question:
1. Frequency and Relative Frequency of Times Beauty Magazines were read per month: | Frequency | Rel. Freq. | Never | 6 | 0.30 | less than one | 0 | 0.00 | 1 | 5 | 0.25 | 2 | 6 | 0.30 | 3 or more | 3 | 0.15 | Total | 20 | 1.00 |