The (OSVi0 Cuffs:

Breaking Free of the COSMOPOLITAN

Laura Mooney
Arts Editor | ote-arts@unbc.ca

Nw” every young girl has gone through it. That day in
your life when suddenly the J14 and Tiger Beat magazines
were not enough and you found yourself perusing the magazine
aisle at the local supermarket for something a little more
“grown up,’ and chances are, like most girls, you chose an

issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. The flashy headlines claiming to
teach you all you need to know about men, how to dress to get
attention, how to apply the perfect eyeliner; the magazine’s job
was to suck you in, and, for most of us, it worked.

Since the 1960s, Cosmo has labelled itself as the magazine for
young career women and has featured articles meant to help
these women along in the more difficult aspects of life, while
maintaining a sense of fun about it. Today however, one only
needs to glance at the cover of any given issue to see where
Cosmo’s main focus has shifted for today’s blossoming women.
With the majority of the cover pushing articles such as “75
Hot Sex Moves to Please Him” or “Love Tricks to Make Him
Want You More,” it has become clear that the young women
should have only one thing on their minds; their partners.
While arguably maintaining a healthy and happy relationship
is usually high on any 20-something’s to-do list, the way in
which Cosmo presents their so called “magazine for women” is
borderline deplorable. Simply glancing through an issue one
can see that very rarely is the woman’s happiness or pleasure
ever mentioned, instead the focus is on pleasing your man with
no regard to your feelings in the situation. By using tactics
such as having the “inside scoop” on men through their male
correspondents, or writing articles that describe in great

detail the ideal woman, the magazine has, for years,
successfully used fear tactics to bully women nl

into becoming these “Cosmo girls.”

Now, the skeptical

Opinions

reader may disagree with this by stating that not all girls
would suddenly drop who they were just to please a man,
but the sad fact is that it is happening more than we would
like to admit. The magazine is most popular with girls who
are only 18 years old, meaning that they are pushing their
message on young women, the majority of whom have

not even experienced a long-term relationship yet. The
magazine is essentially dictating how young women should
not only be acting, but also looking and speaking when
men are around, all in the pursuit of getting one’s attention
and then keeping it once they are ina relationship.

Cosmo has been trying to break away from this prescriptive
formula that it has been pushing with the introduction of long
running articles based around job searching and friendships,
but, unfortunately, those articles rarely ever make it to the
front page. Cosmo has been a target for feminist groups for
years now with little avail; the only way to change the system
is with the consumer. The day that I stopped reading Cosmo
was the most liberating day I ever experienced in my early 20s.
Of course I did not realize it at the time, but putting down the
magazine made me more conscious of who I was than Cosmo
ever could. I stopped worrying if my clothing was sexy enough,
I stopped trying to perfect my body for a boyfriend, and I
definitely stopped obsessing over sex tips. In a way, cancelling
my subscription to Cosmo was like taking off a pair of
cuffs that had bound me since I was 15. It
was freeing, it was liberating, and
it was a step in the right
direction.

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