Representation of gender in women's magazines

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/media-magazine/articles/15854
Article written by Julian McDougall MediaMagazine 8, April 2004
(talks about how most mens magazines will feature mostly women unless it has something to do with health)

Here are a few starting points for such an analysis. A textual analysis of the covers of Nutsand Zoo (and if I appear to be lumping them together it is because it is hard to distinguish between them at this level) reveals a clear formula shared by both titles – a semi-naked woman stares into the camera in a sexual pose on every issue, performing clearly for what Laura Mulvey calls ‘the male gaze’. Have you noticed that women’s magazines tend to feature female cover models, and wondered why this is? The only male magazine that features a male model on the cover is Men’s Health, and the image is always in black and white as this provides more distance from the heterosexual reader (who would not want the newsagent to get the wrong idea, I suppose). Returning to women’s magazine covers, Janice Winship’s feminist reading (1987) of the genre analysed what is at stake in the semiotics of the female cover star, concluding that

The gaze between cover model and women readers marks the complicity between women seeing themselves in the image which the masculine culture has defined. - Janice Winship Inside Women's Magazine


How female celebrities represent women in women's magazine.

Beyonce GQ magazine as a case study

'she as graced more magazine covers than any black star in the world'
'her mass appeal means she has the ability to reach out to massive audiences'
'she is fiercely controlling of her own image and representation'
'Beyonce's stance is a provocative one: her arms are held above her head-clutching her hair- and her top skims her cleavage while her pants reveal her extremely toned stomach'
'she gazes directly at the camera in attempt to attract the male gaze'

Changing reps of women - Nick Lacey 2010 mediamagazine
'Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.' - berger 

'on the whole women were represented as passive and less important than men, and the emphasis was upon their sex appeal'

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/more/g620/Kim-Kardashians-body-secrets_/?slide=1

Key ideas in media by Mike Edwards
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9g2DzGywU2AC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=trevor+millum+study+of+womens+magazines&source=bl&ots=EbRXGlfwg_&sig=k9pqw9Yq7bG0bJHZiy_1ABCvI8s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIraTwmuXUAhUKLsAKHbAWBgcQ6AEIVDAL#v=onepage&q=trevor%20millum%20study%20of%20womens%20magazines&f=false

(BODY IMAGE)

'representations of the female body are one of the most densely packed with meaning of all signs in modern society'

'magazines offer roles models, heroines and heroes, idols and icons for people's dreams and fantases and mirror the world back to them'

'it raises innumerable issues for the reader in terms of control, unattainable ideals, stereotyping, eating disorders, anorexia etc.'

'some of the typical codes and conventions of female representation in magazines are as follows:

• head and body tilting. the tendency to push forward the head or lean the body towards the camera. often emphasised by the lighting.
• the lowering of the head and eyes lowered slightly can be conventionally read as submissive and passive, and an eyelid wink read as a 'come on' sign.
• child-like, playful, kittenish poses, wide expansive smiles and open eyes can be read as 'cuteness', innocent sexuality, trust. often when combined with other elements, such as fur, cuddly toys, animals in the mise en scene, they can be read as betraying a lack of seriousness'
• open body postures with the arms behind the body can be read as openness and trust into which a reliance of the goodwill of the onlooker can be read
• hands over the eyes, lips, parts of the face can be read as suggesting obedience, mystery, secrets, intrigue, enigma.
• an unfocused gaze can suggest sexuality, inner secrets, dreaming.
• where eyes meet the gaze of the viewer it can be read as a challenge (in much the same way as hands on hips) or as a come on.
• images of exaggerated emotional display such as tears, laughter, arms in the air can be read as typically female signs in that traditional representations tend to foreground such emotional display by women'

Femininity

'There's plenty of evidence that traditional femininity is no longer popular. virtually everybody wants young women to be successful, so the characteristics of femininity -  passivity, reticence, assuming that men and authority figures are probably right and that you are probably wrong - are therefore redundant'.

'meanwhile young women have a wide range of other assertive 'girl power' role models to choose from in magazines, movies and pop music'

'today, magazines such as cosmopolitan suggest ways in which cunning women might use 'feminine' tricks to get certain things from gullible men'.

'femininity, then, whilst seen as a 'nice' thing for women traditionally, is increasingly irrelevant today.'

'femininity now is just  swishy kind of glamour -  and ideally is just a masquerade, utilised by a confident woman who knows exactly what she's doing'.

Queer Theory Summary

'the binary divide between masculinity and femininity is a social construction built on the binary divide between men and women - which is also a social construction'

'we should challenge the traditional views of masculinity an femininity, and sexuality, by causing 'gender trouble'.

'women might well have unique experiences in common - experiences of childbirth, of menstruation'

model - 'you have a body - you may perform an identity - you may have desires.'