A Modest Proposal Part II: In Defense of the Beauty Magazine*

It’s hard to think of any type of periodical that accepts as much scorn these days as does the beauty magazine. We are all familiar with these types of publications- Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vogue. They are the type who churn out 200 secret sex tips per week, contain embarrassing stories which usually relate to masturbation somehow or another, and are so chock-full of advertisements that they would make Chomsky’s blood boil. These are the main whipping posts of the fashion mag- that they are over-commercialized, homogenized, sexualized. Perhaps beyond all of these issues, though, the one that stands paramount above them all is the image of body issue. It is quite obvious that the women we see in beauty magazines are not average. They are perfectly shaded and coiffed, perfectly proportional. Legs from here to Sunday and a waist the diameter of a small child’s arm. The basic argument is that, because these magazines have such massive circulations among teenage (and older) girls, that the pervasiveness of this above-average image of femininity becomes socially normalized. It sets an impossible benchmark for young girls- a tiny waist, broad shoulders and chiseled features cannot be possessed by all. It is an impossibility, a statistical dead-end. For some to look better, others must look "worse." The problem, though, is that these magazine lead us to believe that all people look good all the time, thus distorting the demands of personal presentation. Girls feel compelled to emulate the perfection they see in their magazines, and fall into all kinds of dangerous cycles to achieve that goal- bulimia and anorexia being the most pressing. I feel that these arguments, though, are incomplete and that they overlook crucial details and generalize too quickly regarding the intricacies of a beauty magazine. Here are some of those oft-overlooked details, which may just change the way you think about the beauty magazine.

1) The beauty magazine helps promote gender equality

It is a well known medical fact that when a woman experiences extreme weight loss, she loses some of her secondary sexual characteristics- wider hips, breasts, the ability to menstruate, to name a few. One of the common arguments leveled against beauty magazines, of course is that they encourage diseases such as bulimia and anorexia which tend to lead to the aforementioned symptoms. I choose to see this in a less negative light. By encouraging eating disorders that rob a woman of her ability to bear children, and turning her body from that of a woman into a gaunt, gender-neutral ghost, the beauty industry will have finally achieved a sense of gender equality. No longer will women have to contend with issues of fetishization and objectification! How can a woman be objectified if she looks like a 12 year old boy? It is plain to see, then, that the beauty magazine, by encouraging certain physical practices such as weight-loss and extreme emaciation, also encourages egalitarian gender roles. No more ovulation, no more problems!

2) The beauty magazine encourages a strong work ethic and works to develop efficient routines

Any girl or woman suffering with Bulimia or Anorexia will tell you that it takes an enormous amount of will power to keep up the regimen. In the case of the former, it takes a strict routine of binging and purging, deprivation and indulgence, pleasure and pain to find any kind of balance or satisfaction in your life. Not to mention the effort one has to put in to devising ways of avoiding detection! This kind of dedication and enslavement to irrational, manufactured fears is rare in kids these days. So often we hear complaints of young people slacking off, not following routine or strict order. Manufacture a fear of the natural human form, though, and they’ll be set in their ways like brick in cement. Once a young woman is afraid of her own body, afraid of food, afraid of natural construction, there’s no limit to what she can do. In the case of Anorexia, the same is true. To be able to resist natural urges and physical necessity, to starve yourself night after night, to shun nutrition in the pursuit of a discursively manufactured imaginary ideal? That’s dedication, kids. Nerves of steel. In short, give a kid rules, they’ll laze around, picking and choosing which ones to follow, give a kid an eating disorder, they’ll make their own.

Finally, 3) Beauty magazines and their quest for perfection in the human form fly in the face of postmodern martyrdom and gloom.

It’s just so easy these days to lose sight of beauty- war, famine, disease, global warming, et. al. So can we really look down our noses at beauty magazines for trying to reinvigorate some passion in beauty? Really, aren’t they just trying to make the world more lovely, find the extraordinary beauty in all of us- our inner, air-brushed, sucked, tucked, chiseled and plucked selves? After all, isn’t it just insanely attractive to see a woman starving and ill, slowly killing herself over irrational fears, no self-esteem to speak of? Don’t you just think “beauty” when you see a young model kept thin and gaunt by her agency to mirror a pre-pubescent sense of innocence? Isn’t child-porn chic just so in right now? Don’t blame the beauty magazines for trying to set up impossible standards. They’re just looking for the beauty in this world. And beauty is so clearly in the ribcage of an exploited teenage model and in the sad eyes of a girl who doesn’t think she’s good enough. Beauty magazines know this, and they’re simply sharing their knowledge with the world.

So, next time you go to judge Cosmo for being degrading, or setting impossible standards for young women, just hold your horses and consider the preceding arguments- how rational they were!

*PS, Jonathan Swift, no offence. You rule.