Cosmopolitan is one of the most popular international magazine to take over the world of women's magazines. Yet, I can't help but notice how much "women" is actually in these overly sexual magazines. These racy magazines oozing with sex tips, relationship advice, and much more are many girls' best friend. All types of girls read this magazine and it appeals to the general mass of the women population despite its racy covers. It doesn't matter if you are a punk rock chick, sorority girl, nerdy book worm, hipster chic, or just a plain jane; there was at least one point in your life you have picked up this magazine and read it. It's deeply rooted in our culture that if you associate with the gender as female, you read Cosmo, and if you associate as a male, your options are Maxim or Sports Illustrated.
Magazines like Cosmo, are only directed towards the audience of women. They are as "girly" as they can get. Look at the bring pink colors, the seductive and fab Rihanna on the cover, giant bold text with "SEX", and of course "juicy new lip colors" is a hook for many ladies. However, this magazine despite its popularity with the female gender, seems to assume all the readers are heterosexual women seeking men. As seen on the cover, you can see all the bold catch phrases include "him" or "his". For a female empowering magazine, Cosmo seems to focus a lot of attention on pleasing the guy and meeting HIS standards instead. Three out of the five bold statements on the cover all refer to pleasing and appealing the guy. These discursive practices embedded into our culture of women pleasing the man (and rarely much focus for men pleasing women), has been with us for centuries.
Although the culture our society has developed is dynamic, it's cultural perspective on relationships and the definition of them being between just for a man and woman, is relatively stable and unchanging. We can still see that the change is slow in mass production texts like magazines. Cosmo is notorious for being the top women's magazine, but mainly for the straight community. Cosmo also continues to fuel the cultural practice of a woman's success in relationship and men, determined strongly by how well they can "please the guy". Our gender roles are not as apparent as they used to be, however subliminal texts surrounding us continue to remind women that our job is to please the man (our typical, socially acceptable mate).
I agree completely with what you had to say about cosmopolitan. Cosmo is designed for heterosexual women; I don’t think that I have ever seen an article in their magazines that related to gay women. I always see the fashion for the season, how to please your man, what your man thinks about what you do, and make-up tips, etc. I guess I don’t really see this magazine being targeted for gays, it is targeted for “girly-girls” that make it their ultimate goal in life to please their man and not for your tom boys or gays that just want a nice read on a strong woman in society, an article, or simply fashion. I agree that there aren’t many magazines for men similar to cosmo but that is getting off topic. It needs to be said that the magazines that there are today are not targeted for gays, only straight people, and how it is about pleasing the guy not pleasing your significant other. I do feel that this needs to be changed in order to make everybody feel equal and accepted into today’s society.
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