Can you believe everything you read?

Women's magazines tend to focus on three things: health, home and, well, sex. Those aimed at twentysomething females seem to edge even more toward the last of these three, which makes me wonder if that's really the true preoccupation of women in their 20s.

Gender-focused linguistic studies report that men speak to "report" and women speak for "rapport." Part of this also means that women are relationship-centered speakers while men are information
centered speakers.

Somehow, in popular culture, relationship translates into sex -- no wonder the Washington Post reported that efforts to keep teens from having sex were not going so well. Magazines like YM and Seventeen tend to keep content pretty age appropriate, at lease when I read them in high school. But what's the next step? Cosmo, which features a "sex position of the week" on its Web site?

I'm not going to jump on the way the media portrays "the image of women," but I hate to be categorized as another sex-crazed twentysomething woman simply because my friends and I like to talk about our dating situations.

I think it's admirable that these magazines have, in recent years, made an effort to educate women about other issues like cervical cancer and date rape. But somehow I feel that those stories are read about as much as the science fiction stories in Playboy. Still, I can't completely knock magazine content because I was just as excited about "The Sex and the City" movie as the next cosmopolitan drinking woman.

Nonetheless, since speaking with an outraged friend about the content that reduces women to only their post-1970s liberated sex drives, I, like her, have made the commitment not to buy these magazines.

Do you think women's magazines like Cosmo are influencing young women, or do they just reflect the modern women's ability to embrace their personal freedom?

--- Kristen Rajczak

Comments

[LKS]

I agree with Alexandra. I switched up my subscription to Cosmo for Glamour a few years ago because I got so sick of all the sex articles. Glamour has monthly features on women's situations all over the world and how to help those in bad situations improve.

[Alexandra Grantham]

Try Glamour instead of Cosmo. Glamour is more gorwn-up. Yes, they talk about sex, but as a regular feature, not the center of the magazine (as Cosmo does, with every other article seemingly about sex).

[just a guy's view]

I'd like to see Jessica's approach catch on more. In addition to reducing hassles and costs for women, honestly the natural look is much better, much sexier (in my taste anyhow).

[Jessica]

Obesession with sex is one of the less problematic aspects of these magazines in my opinion. Why shouldn't adult women be interested in improving their sex lives? I am far more bothered by the message that there are hundreds of things wrong with you and your body, which can only be solved if you buy buy buy from their advertisers advertisers advertisers. Guess what -- I've never had a manicure, a pedicure, never dyed my hair, have a total of four products in my shower, never fake baked or spray tanned -- and somehow I look just fine and my man likes me anyway.

[Are there better sources of information and entertainment?]

There is plenty of research on this topic if you are truly interested. Reading such magazines has certainly been linked to an increase in body dissatisfaction. However, it appears that it has a bigger impact on girls/women who already had low self-esteem.

Keep in mind that companies advertising in those magazines often *want* you to be dissatisfied, hoping you will believe purchasing their products as a means of alleviating those feelings.

Bottom line: base your self-worth as much as possible on things you do, rather than how you look or what you own. Is reading those magazines a good way to do that?

[Don H]

I think they're influencing the modern woman's ability to be comfortable with her own sexuality and therfore infringing on her personal freedom.