So let’s talk about something I hate.

Girl magazines.

I see them every time I buy gas or pick up stuff at the pharmacy: girl magazines. They’re everywhere. Feminism is a very important topic for me, so I think it’d be good if I take a moment and explain why I’m always bitching about these magazines on Twitter. Let’s start with the worst offender, Cosmopolitan.  This is the image that has been assaulting my eyes at least thrice weekly for the past month.

We’re gonna ignore Megan Fox for the moment, mainly because discussing her picture is irrelevant. But as an aside, I really dislike it.  All right, let’s look at the articles. “Bad Girl Sex,” “The Sexy Ass Workout,”  “What 81% of Men Expect on a First Date,”  “Sex Panic,”  “The 26 Best Beauty Products?”  Are we sensing a theme here?

So let me be clear, am I in favour of frank and open discussions about sex?  Yes. My problem is that this magazine and the several dozen others that copy it – thus occupying an entire shelf at the convenience store – seem to discuss little else.  So, why is this a problem?  Can’t it be the girl equivalent of something like Penthouse? Well, putting aside that I have issues with Penthouse and its companions, the problem with Cosmo is the enormous number of women who read this crap and believe this magazine actually has something of value to say.

Girl magazines, like this, are obsessed with sex to the point of excluding all other topics; but they talk about these raunchy topics under the guise of feminism and female empowerment. And there’s the rub.  How do I know this?  Because I’ve read some of these magazines. This shouldn’t surprise you, I’ve had women in my life: family members, girlfriends. I wanted to see exactly what these magazines say to them.

And to summarize the point (since this is not an academic paper), the message is pretty simple: master your sexual power and you’ve mastered your femininity. You’ve essentially conquered the gender divide. In short, the only strength a woman needs to acquire is sexual in nature.  If she’s good at being beautiful, being desirable, and having great sex, a woman has “liberated” herself.
*BUZZ*

Wrong.  Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

A book that you all might want to check out is called Female Chauvanist Pigs by Ariel Levy. In this book, Levy documents the ways in which this generation of women (25 and under) have applied to themselves the same sexism that men were notorious for up until the 1970s.  Now, before any of the guys get up and shout “See? They’re doing it to themselves!” I’m going to say one thing: Levy’s book makes it quite clear that men are encouraging these girls to disenfranchise themselves!

Female Chauvinist Pigs follows several young women on the Girls Gone Wild tour. I’m sure you can all guess what happens: the girls strip in front of the camera,  there’s a lot of hooting and hollering and it all gets put on video and sold for a nominal fee. So, while she was following the Girls Gone Wild tour, Levy interviewed many of the young women who appeared on camera and they mostly said the same things. “I feel liberated!” “I feel free!” “I’m empowered!”

In short, the book documents that to SOME women, putting on a thong is equated with casting off the shackles of male-oppression.

So, what’s the problem with Cosmo? The magazine sends this exact message and repeats it ad nausium.

Stripping is not empowerment.  Sexual desirability is not empowerment.  And if you’ve ever read a single public statement by Megan Fox, it should be entirely clear that she is not the kind of woman that any girl should emulate.  While I don’t know her personally, every single public statement that Fox has uttered makes her sound vapid, stupid and self-centred. So why is Cosmopolitan promoting these kinds of behaviours? Heaven forbid we should see a female philanthropist, a savy entrepreneur or anyone we might like our daughters to emulate on the cover.

And I know you’ve probably heard it before, but when the only thing a  women’s magazine talks about is sex, it sends the underhanded message that the only thing women are good for is sex.

Feminism is a complicated issue – or maybe I should say set of issues – that largely revolve around recognizing the roles of women in society and treating them with the same dignity and respect that men have always received. While comfort and confidence regarding sex is an issue in feminism, it is by no means the only issue; and few people would tell you that it is the most important.  Other issues include wage equality, appreciation of women’s rights, power imbalances, perceptual biases and appreciation of female perspectives in art, literature, politics and science.

And I want to be clear that female perspectives are not more important than male perspectives, but equally important.  All of the above disciplines should have a mix of male and female perspectives.  Another important branch of feminism is finding common ground between the genders.  But will women’s magazines ever address any of these issues?  No.

Will Cosmo ever do an article on wage equality? No.  And why?  Because that would upset their corporate masters if companies suddenly had to start paying female employees more. So, Cosmo and its peers will remain nothing more than the gossipy manifestations of celebrity culture that keep us dumb, distracted and compliant.  And that, my friends, is why I despise this magazine (as well as 90% of everything else on store shelves).
Well, that’s it for me.

Rich.