Cosmopolitan: Friend or Foe?
Elizabeth Cutler
Issue date: 2/2/09 Section: Viewpoints
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This wouldn't be such a big deal, except that I had not bought it for nearly a year after immersing myself in the publication for a school research project.
I chose my own topic for the assignment and, I'll admit, I found exactly what I expected: it was easy to prove that articles in Cosmopolitan, their attention-grabbing headlines, and their splashy covers reinforce traditional gender scripts and box women into roles of subordinance to men. I reviewed 70 articles from the 12 issues of the magazine in 2007 and frustration with mainstream society and mass media mounted as I sifted through piles of the magazine. I recall feeling a certain sense of hope-hope that if I could do this, if I could prove my theory and demonstrate how demeaning Cosmopolitan is to women, I could play a small part in the bringing women forward.
I was proud of my paper, proud of my research, and felt vindicated as a feminist. After spending so much time tearing the magazine to shreds and criticizing its writers and editors for pushing topics onto women such as "If He Stops Wanting Sex, Something is Wrong," I eschewed it in favor of other, more respectable publications. Essentially, I decided it was time to un-Cosmo-fy my life.
In the following months, however, things changed. I went abroad, where I had my first relationship. Cosmopolitan took on a new meaning for me. The magazine's website guided me in my transnational romantic experiences. I was loving being abroad, but going through such a momentous experience without my friends terrified me. Cosmopolitan's monthly tome of life advice was the most accessible touchstone that I had to that normal life and the way I would have approached this experience back home in the U.S.
When my plane touched down on American soil and my spring amor stayed in Chile, my life resumed its lack of Cosmopolitan by habit, but not necessarily by moral choice. In my research prior to my travels, I had concluded that any given issue of Cosmo reflects themes of inherent gender inequality and misogyny. The precise wording of the attention-grabbing headlines underscores a socially accepted belief that it is the woman's job to maintain a relationship. They often pose questions of what makes a man fall in love-i.e. what you, the heterosexual, single female reader, can actively do to try to force someone to fall in love with you. In analyzing this, I used the feminist theory that I'd learned in class to argue that the semantics of a typical issue of Cosmopolitan teach women to take on some sort of unwieldy responsibility in a relationship that I perceived as unfair, unequal, and even sexist.
I did not, however, consider the idea that this could also be perceived as putting a woman in charge of her relationship. Perhaps Cosmopolitan was empowering women to control a significant part of their lives, a role previously played by men only.
Sure, the content might be sexualized and showy to grab attention and make sales, but the core of the message could also be understood as empowering instead of degrading. This revelation has completely changed-not to mention confused and muddled-the way that I interpret Cosmopolitan.
I do not now abandon my argument from just one year ago. On the contrary, I embrace it as the ultimate embodiment of my own brand of feminism, my ability to question and criticize the ideas that have been normalized and entered mainstream society. These ideas can range from the notion that Cosmopolitan is toxic to the idea that it is God's gift to women.
I still have my issues with the magazine. But I realize now that my insatiable desire to doubt and wonder and question even my own conclusions comes with the territory of being a budding political scientist. That won't change anytime soon. What can change, however, is how we choose to perceive the headlines and pop media articles that permeate our world-particularly those in popular publications like Cosmo. And that gives me hope.
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