Fashion Mags, Continued

Beyond the evils of airbrushed pictures, these fashion magazines have little else wrong with them, right?

Wrong.

There are two major issues I see with these pieces of fine literature, the first being the "self-help" sections.  These sections can tell a girl how to go from grungy to gorgeous in five easy hairdos, or ten easy exercises, or three essential makeup staples or...  Well, you get the picture.  These sections are just as harmful as the models, their underlying message extremely hurtful and oh-so-subtle.  So much so that most don't even realize that it's saying, "If you ever want to look better than THAT, you've got to take our advice".  How does that help girls see the value of themselves as a person?  It doesn't.  It can't.  Nobody is ever perfect concerning appearance, and as a result the race to the perfection promised in the magazines is a neverending one.  It is so easy to get caught up in consulting the magazines to make you look better, and pretty soon, it begins to resemble an addiction.  If you can't buy the magazine, you go to a friend's house before the dance and get hit after hit of fashion mag-ness.  The performance treadmill doesn't work.  It never has and it never will.  If all these girls who claim to be independent, free-willed women depend on a fashion  magazine for self-esteem, then the women's movement has utterly failed.



Isn't your mother proud.



Is that a super short dress or a long shirt?  What about a camisole?



Would it have killed you to get a jacket?



 I thought modesty was a virtue.  The covers above show a varying degree of IMmodesty.  Girls see this every day, this repulsing advertisement of female bodies.  It's disgusting, really.  None of the women above are better people for having dressed that way.  They only have more appeal.  With information like this flooding into the minds of young girls in our culture, it's no wonder popular clothing today has taken such a nasty turn.  I go out shopping and have to avoid the junior's section because all the clothes in their are definitely off limits.  I'm not saying turtlenecks and long skirts, but a little decency would be much, much appreciated.  Then maybe I could walk into Barnes and Noble without feeling like the only important thing about being female is cutting an appealing image.