The Competition of the Beauty Myth and Why You Should Burn Your Magazines

When I was thirteen I was allowed a subscription to Seventeen Magazine. I was nerdy and without a boyfriend, and the articles in Seveneteen were my guide on how to conceal acne, dress for my "body shape," be nice to other girls without coming off as conceited or stuck up, and talk to boys without sounding too desperate.

Then in high school, far too old for Seventeen, I requested a subscription to Cosmopolitan. My mother forbade it, claiming that the writing was shit and I should read higher caliber literature, but I would pay a fiver for the issue on stands every month and sneak it into the house. I didn't care about the writing quality; I needed to know which shoes to buy and how to make eyes at Sean in my English class so that maybe he would ask me to junior prom.

I stopped reading magazines once I had enough interactions with adult men that I realized no one gave a shit about what I wore and that the flirting tacts I had once thought clever were beyond banal, but reading Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth had me reminiscing. To start with a clarification, the beauty myth as defined by Wolf is the idea that as women's accomplishments in the public sphere have grown, so have the rigid standards for women's appearance and the punishments for women when they break these rules.

Wolf contends that the power of women's magazines is in their singularity to women: they are the only form of media that is for women. Thus they have the power to discuss domestic issues and international affairs from a women's point of view, while at the same time they act as mentors to women by providing them with rules on how to dress and act appropriately. This was clearly true in my own experiences. Even as women's magazines are friendly godmothers, they are harsh critics of those who step outside of what is deemed acceptable - appropriately feminine but not vain or too confident. Magazines are beholden to their advertisers and thus magazine articles act to make women more aware of their physicality so that they are vulnerable to advertisements. Wolf states:

Somehow, somewhere, someone must have figured out that [women] will by more things if they are kept in the self-hating, ever-failing, hungry, and sexually insecure state of being aspiring "beauties."

That's the point of women's magazines: to keep you unhappy so that you're a good little consumer. Think I'm being cynical? Check out this video

This is sweet and uplifting and cool and Queen Latifah runs her own business(!) and Sofia Vergara is speaking Spanish(!) Janelle Monae's music is about defying labels(!) and it's so great to see videos challenging stereotypes and empowering young women.

Except something here seems less than pure...

That's because this is a FUCKING ADVERTISEMENT.

A fucking advertisement for Covergirl makeup. Covergirl is the next company (after Dove) to commodify feminism as a marketing tool. This video doesn't say "Pink is so cool," it says "Pink is so cool and look how good she looks with our product!"

Because as women in this current cultural climate we can never forget that if we want to be successful, we first have to look perfect. Before we apply to a job or make a creative attempt or even go out in fucking public, we first have to buy $7.99 Covergirl Mascara Lash Blash Enhancer so that no one forgets we have eyelashes and we have to spend $14.99 on off-tone greasy drugstore foundation lest we not contour our cheeks correctly.

I read the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman when I was nine and I found it in my mother's room. It's the parenting guide book for mothers of young girls that was later adapted into the movie Mean Girls. In elementary school very few of the things that Wiseman predicted for my middle and high school years seemed likely, especially the scenarios with boys and alcohol. But the way Wiseman talked about beauty culture seemed very real.

Adolescence is a beauty pageant. Even if your daughter doesn't want to be a contestant, others will look at her as if she is... Girls are also constantly comparing themselves to each other and rarely do they feel they measure up... Although we have told that they're smart and as competent as boys, they still get conscious and unconscious messages that they need a man to validate their self-worth and that, to get the man in the first place, they have to present themselves in a nonthreatening (read feminine) manner.

We are in a beauty pageant that we can never win, pitted against our friends for the attention of men, held back from our true accomplishments. Back to Naomi Wolf:

No woman or group of women, whether housewives, prostitutes, astronauts, politicians or feminists, can survive unscathed the no-win scrutiny of the beauty myth... 

Women can tend to resent each other if they look too "good" and dismiss one another if they look too "bad." So women too rarely benefit from the experience that makes men's clubs and organizations hold together: the solidarity of belonging to a group whose members might not be personal friends outside, but who are united in an interest, agenda, or worldview.

We spend so much time analyzing our appearance that we don't have enough mental energy to focus on academic and work success without getting anxiety. We spend so much time talking about men that we don't pay attention to our own behavior. We spend so much time putting down other women that we don't love and uplift other women and we don't allow ourselves to be loved and uplifted.

And on some level we know this. We know we buy too many things and that we are a market and that the level of perfection asked of us is absurd and somehow we still play the game. How do we even begin to break out of this?

Burn your magazines. 

Compliment other women without putting down yourself.

Compliment other women on something other than their appearance.

Compliment yourself without putting down other women.

Compliment yourself on something other than your appearance.

Don't wear makeup. When someone says you look tired tell them to go fuck themselves. Wear makeup. Wear so much makeup you look like an alien. When someone says you look weird tell them to go fuck themselves. 

Wear every article of clothing you have. Wear no clothing. Wear all your jewelry and pretend you are Cleopatra. Throw all your jewelry out the window because it is heavy and you don't care.

Do whatever the fuck you want. Don't give a shit with what other people think. Terrify people with how little you need their approval.