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75 pages into The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf it hits me: in women's magazines, the fnords are not in the articles, they are in the advertisements.

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the whole habit of women and women's mags have of saying all the right positive body image stuff but clearly showing their values and ideas lie elsewhere by their acts...

articles say "go out and celebrate your unique beautiful self", and along side they ads they say "as long as you look something within this range, use these "health" and beauty products and have the latest clothes..."

or were you getting to something grittier than that?

Yes, a pendulum swing between two forces in our culture.

One gives us what we want to hear, especially when feeling vulnerable, and the other exploits it.

The danger lies not in the fact these magazines exist, but the fact we raise our kids to read them.

Nothing 'grittier,' but that's pretty gritty itself, really.

Which edition are you reading? If it's the first, keep an eye out for some serious factual errors.

It's an early edition. I always read critically, but even if there are some errors (I've found a few things that seem out of date) I think the basic premise is unassailable. And it is still relevant, especially in light of current phenomena like "the cult of Ana".

It's even more visible in the teen magazines.

"You're you, and that's wonderful, so use these tips to disguise your face, reshape your body, and hide your personality so that boys will like you. Here are some interviews with celebrities who've already done it so you have someone to model yourself on."

I always hated the magazines when I was a teenager. "The articles are sueless fluff!" I would tell my frineds.
"Oh, you don't understand", they would tell me. "We buy them for the advertisements!"
I heard this many, many times.

I recall reading a couple of years ago that women are instinctively reassured by the company of other women, and so seeing images of women's faces is reassuring -- so in the isolation of domestic life the faces in women's magazines provide some small measure of that, while simultaneously exploiting it.

These were teenagers though...
I think for teenage girls the issue is - you're trying not to be a child anymore, and these magazines are seen as directions of a sort on how to be a woman. The ads tell you how you are supposed to look. These women are beautiful, the ads tell you. If you look like this men will love you, other women will envy you, and this product will make you look this way. You'll be worshipped like a goddess if you just wear Loreal mascara and use this kind of shaving gel so your legs are oh-so-smooth. Men will be captivated by the sultry looks you give from under the pretty blue eyeshadow, they'll treat you nicely and fall in love with you, they'll open car doors for you and never want to hurt you because you're so pretty and delicate and too precious to be harmed. It isn't true, of course, but teenage girls want to believe that. It's so much nicer than reality.

In many ways and in a majority of print ads, images of women haven't really progressed past the 1950s. Makes me happy about my magazine choices - most of 'em don't have very much image-based advertising. I intend to keep things like that when the sprogling is able to read.

people tag FNORD all over my city of Portland. Street signs, "No Parking" signs are popular. They become "Fnord Parking"

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