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A Womans Touch: How Women Portray Other Women in Media

Intro and scope:
The portrayal of women in media is often criticized as being a misrepresentation of the
real women throughout society. The images of women shown on screen, in print etc. are
chastised for being over-sexualized, submissive and one-dimensional just to name a few. This
portrayal is often blamed on the lack of diversity among professionals in the field, especially the
gender gap that leaves a gross overrepresentation of men running media. However, in a field
ruled by men, one still must question: What role do women play in the misrepresentation of
themselves in media? As the fight for equality and respect pushes forward, are there areas where
women are holding themselves back? This paper aims to answer the question: How do female
professionals in media portray other women?
It is important to study how women are portraying other women in media in order to
understand how to gain more respect and equality for women overall. This topic will be explored
by analyzing one of the top womens interest magazines, Cosmopolitan. The magazine reported
itself as being the biggest magazine in the world, (Cosmopolitan, 2014) in its 2014 media kit
and as being the number one womens magazine on its webpage, Cosmopolitan.com. The
magazine is also listed as Barnes and Nobles best selling womens interest magazine and
Amazons second best on the stores respective sites.
Cosmopolitan has a circulation of over 2 million, well beyond many of the other top
womens interest magazines such as Glamour and Vogue; and it reports to have surpassed all of
its competitors in newsstand and digital circulation (Cosmopolitan, 2014). Most importantly, a
majority female staff controls the magazine with all but one of the top editorial staffers being
women (Cosmopolitan.com). Cosmopolitan is a prime example of a media outlet published for
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women, by women. This makes the magazine an excellent source and example of how female
professionals portray other women in media.
This paper will analyze all of the magazines covers over the past four years, from
January 2010 to December 2013, to see how women are portrayed through visual framing and
will analyze the content frames used over the past two years.
Findings:
Cover Girls: After reviewing the 48 cover girls featured in the sample, there were three
common themes used by the magazine regarding race, Photoshopped physiques and dress.
The racial demographic breakdown of the women over the past four years was: 42 White,
one Black, four Hispanics and one woman classified as other. The race of each woman was
pulled from the website NNDB.com which is an intelligence aggregator that tracks the activities
of people determined to be noteworthy, (NNDB.com) that also lists the race and nationality
of each person. Information was pulled from this website in an effort to remove any bias
regarding the determination of race that may have become an issue if left up to personal
discretion.
This breakdown shows a lack of diversity in the women that are highlighted by the
magazine there is a noted overrepresentation of White women and a gross underrepresentation
of women of color and minorities. It should also be noted that there are no Asian or Middle
Eastern women shown on any of the magazine covers in the sample.
As for the womens physiques, there were only two cover girls in the sample that veered
from the general thin frames featured, Adele and Khloe Kardashian; yet, even these women were
shown Photoshopped smaller than their actual sizes. Overall, many of the women in the sample
seem to be around the same size and have similar, thin physiques. However, while the sizes of all
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of the women are unknown, there are signs on several of the covers that many of them have been
Photoshopped, signs such as unnatural discoloration around their waists and thighs. Cameron
Diaz, featured on the June 2011 cover, is a perfect example of Cosmopolitan editing the
appearance of its cover girls. In the image below, a darkened area is shown were her waist seems
to have been carved and reshaped.

Editing a persons appearance has been a topic of interest over the past few years
throughout the media and is generally viewed negatively. In fact, the Huffington Post reported
that the American Medical Association found that Photoshop can contribute to unrealistic body
image expectations, eating disorders and other emotional problems, (Diller, 2011). In this article
entitled Is Photoshop Destroying America's Body Image? author Dr. Vivian Diller also
emphasized the importance of recognizing how images in the media affect upcoming
generations. Dr. Diller wrote, We need to question the unrealistic goals set not only by the
distorted images in magazines but by those promoted through celebrity makeovers, reality shows
and parents who undergo radical transformations through plastic surgery. I see nothing negative
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in having medical and psychological experts join with the beauty and advertising industries in an
effort to more positively influence young boys and girls, (Diller, 2011). This article supports
that Photoshopping is a common occurrence, so common the AMA is becoming involved, and
also supports that it is considered a harmful phenomenon.
Each of the cover girls dress was also critiqued and analyzed. The covers were reviewed
and checked to see if each womans cleavage, mid-drift or legs were shown. It was also noted if
there was a combination of either, or if all three were shown on the cover. Of the 48 women
featured only one of them was fully covered, and only one woman was shown without cleavage.
Twelve of the women revealed their cleavage only and one woman revealed only her legs.
However, of the 48 women, 29 of them had a combination of the three and five revealed all three
areas in their cover photo.
Other than these three common themes, the poses of the women were also analyzed and
reviewed to determine whether they were provocative. Provocative poses were defined as any
pose where the womans legs were gaped open or where she is seen tugging off an article of
clothing. Out of the 48 cover girls, 15 of their poses were found to be provocative. This is over
30 percent of the sample and does not include any poses that would generally be considered
provocative yet did not fit this definition.
Content: When analyzing Cosmopolitans content, each of the covers headlines over the
past two years were divided into categories. The headlines naturally fell into six main categories:
beauty and style, career advice, entertainment, health, dating and sex which are similar to the
categories that separate content on the magazines webpage. There were only 18 of the 187
headlines studied that did not fit into one of these six categories and were placed into a
miscellaneous category.
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The largest category was sex with 48 headlines, followed by dating with 31. Within these
two categories a common theme was found amongst their headlines the discussion of mens
wants and needs. Under sex, 23 of its total headlines referred to one partners wants alone,
however, about 70 percent of these references regarded men. Under the dating category,
approximately 39 percent of content was dedicated to guys thoughts and feelings and about 13
percent toward how women can fix issues that their men bring to relationships.
These figures added up to over half of the sexual and dating material over the past two
years being about men. Despite this, the content distribution is balanced out by the other four
categories, leaving only 18 percent dedicated solely to the topic of mens wants and needs.
Though this is not a substantial percentage, it was still more than expected in a womens interest
magazine.
Another theme discovered was within the health category, a theme that focuses on
physical appearance. In this category the majority of the content, 59 percent, discussed calorie
control and weight loss. The other 41 percent was split between womens health issues, 26
percent, and general health advice, 15 percent. These figures do not include the beauty and style
category, which is the magazines fifth largest out of the six main categories.
Another interesting thing found about Cosmopolitans content was that only 11 of the
187 headlines over the past two years concerned how women can further their careers and earn
more money making career advice the smallest category. This represents less than 10 percent
of the total content sampled. However, average Cosmopolitan readers are women between 18-34
years old who are employed, so this would be a beneficial topic for the magazine to discuss.
Analysis and Solutions:
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As stated earlier, it is a constant battle for women to receive equal respect and
representation in media and this is why it is crucial to be mindful of how female professionals in
the field are contributing to the overall portrayal of women. Studying the visual and content
framing used on Cosmopolitans covers reveals that women of media do tend to portray their
gender group in ways that are counterproductive to the fight for equality and respect.
This study found the cover girls featured on the front of Cosmopolitans issues often
dressed in a revealing manner and 25 percent of them were posed provocatively. By limiting the
diversity seen within the magazine, Cosmopolitans staff is in turn limiting the image of what is
accepted in society. This limitation hinders the struggle for respect and equality when other
women portray women in this one-dimensional light. By showing women half-dressed and posed
provocatively womens interest magazines are contributing to the common portrayal of women
as objects.
Women in media objectifying other women add to the issue, while at the same time
delaying progress. These professionals should be the first and crucial step toward change
especially working in a field where they are themselves often underrepresented and underpaid.
Photoshop was also an issue of concern and tell tale signs were seen throughout the
chosen sample of cover girls. Cosmopolitans use of Photoshop to edit its cover girls
appearances is an issue of high concern that is reflected throughout media. As mentioned earlier,
Photoshopping cover models leads to unrealistic expectations and emotional issues among
women (Diller, 2011). With its extreme popularity, the magazine has the power to push these
issues toward the right direction. Cosmopolitan, and female-controlled mediums across the field,
should take a stand to broaden the narrow view of beauty and limit their alteration of reality.
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More importantly, there was a lack of diversity overall found among the women
highlighted in the magazine. In the past four years, only six minorities have graced the
magazines covers out of the 48 sampled four Hispanic women, one Black woman and one
woman classified as other. This further limits societies view of what is accepted as beautiful,
while also doing a great disservice to the many equally successful minority women often
overlooked. The lack of Asian and Middle Eastern women featured on the magazines covers in
the past four years is unacceptable for a magazine for women by women that aims to open
readers minds, broaden their perspectives, and help them to live the full life they deserve,
(Cosmopolitan, 2014). Professional women in the media should take note of this gross
underrepresentation of minorities and work to push diversity as a priority, especially the
influential women of Cosmopolitan. There should definitely be an increase in the diversity of the
women the magazine features. It would not only have a positive effect on Cosmopolitan, and
womens magazines overall, but would positively impact the self-image of its readers.
Being that Cosmopolitan is one the top womens interest magazine in the United States
and the biggest in the world according to its media kit (Cosmopolitan, 2014), the magazine is a
good representation of how other womens magazines function. These magazines targeted
toward women have a responsibility to show a realistic image of women especially those that
are controlled by female media professionals who understand the lack of equal and diverse
images. In reality, women come in all shapes, colors and sizes, and overall real women are
seeking images that reflect reality and variety.
In addition to the consequences of visual frames used by womens interest magazines, the
content framing can also be harmful to progression. Cosmopolitan states its mission is to drive
conversations that matter most to young women and make their interests and voices heard,
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(Cosmopolitan, 2014), however, by publishing an overage of shallow content the magazine is
ignoring serious womens issues. For example, there has continued to be a gender gap in media
professions reported as far back as 1999 especially within newsrooms and magazines
(Womens Media Center, 2014). This is an issue that affects women in all professions and one
Cosmopolitan can highlight. As stated earlier, the majority of the magazines readers are
working women between 18 to 34 years old. Advice and tips on enhancing or even beginning
their careers is an important issue for Cosmopolitan readers that would benefit the magazine as
well as its followers. While Cosmopolitan does publish some positive content on how women
can further their careers, this content makes up less than six percent of the total content.
Womens health issues are also generally overlooked as an important topic of discussion.
Though Cosmopolitan did discuss womens health in the sample studied, they only represented
one-fourth of the health category and less than four percent of the total content in the sample.
Assuming that Cosmopolitan is a representation of womens interest magazines overall
and of female-controlled mediums, this means that the content available for women through
these mediums is being grossly limited to superficial material. The success of Cosmopolitan
allows it the opportunity to change the trend from focusing on physical appearance and
relationships, to issues of more substance such as equal rights policies and womens health
more positive content that will help women more than just externally. Granted, the topics
covered by Cosmopolitan and other womens interest magazines are still entertaining, however,
there should be more of a balance introduced.
Overall, Cosmopolitan, a womens magazine controlled by women was found to have
portrayed women in a similar manner as the rest of media are accused of superficial and one-
dimensional. The magazine must be applauded for its focus on women and inclusion of some
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womens issues not covered by other mediums, however, more diversity in the content and
images of women shown in womens magazines are needed. Being that Cosmopolitan represents
a medium by women for women, these results show that female professionals in media are guilty
of upholding negative and oppressive stereotypes of what women look like and value.
Cosmopolitan itself has great potential to actually become the bible for young women wanting
to live fun and fearless lives, (Cosmopolitan, 2014) that it strives to be. However, more
diversity and consideration must be included in order to reach this goal. The women in media
have the power and insight to make major changes in the overall portrayal of women, and they
are the key to change. But first, they must change their own methods of portrayal.









Works Cited

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2014.
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<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/exclusive/cosmo-cover- gallery#slide-2>.
Diller, Ph.D. Vivian. "Is Photoshop Destroying America's Body Image?" The Huffington Post.
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phd/photoshop-body image_b_891095.html>.
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<http://nndb.com/>.
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