COMN 2700 A
Research Essay
TA: Andrew Bieler
Tutorial: 1
By: Vanessa Del Carpio
Student #: 209255639
Submitted on: March 20, 2013

Del Carpio 2
“The Ideal Woman? (Mis)Representations of Women in Fashion Magazines”
Fashion magazines have long been studied in academia as containers of ideology, with research analyzing the theory and politics of these “gender scripts” and “social texts” (Currie
1997, p. 454). Their prominence and pervasiveness in women’s everyday lives makes them an important cultural object worthy of scholarly attention. Magazines contribute to the “collective level of society,” thereby creating and maintaining cultural scenarios that serve as guidelines for sexual interactions, gender roles and relationships (Joshi, Peter and Valkenberg, 2010, p. 3-4).
Indeed, as McCracken (1993) argues, magazines have the ability to shape consensual images and definitions of femininity, because they can exert “cultural leadership” in debates over what it means to “be a woman” (as cited in Currie, 1997, p. 455).
Numerous studies have veered into the territory of media effects by studying the influence and impact of fashion magazines on the self-esteem and eating habits of teenage girls and young women (see, for example, Krcmar, Giles and Helme, 2008; Park, 2005; Thomsen et al., 2002). Others have examined the pleasure and consumption patterns of readers, and others still have focused on analyzing magazine content through textual analysis, semiotic analysis and discourse analysis. These latter studies have suggested that fashion magazines are complicit in the (re)production of capitalism, consumerism, patriarchy, racism and sexism, while those that have focused on pleasure and consumption have suggested that readers can subvert these dominant discourses (Currie, 1997).
In this paper, I will critically engage with, and question the validity of, this previous research, as well as popular stereotypes, that propose the dominant image of women presented in fashion magazines is that of an extremely thin and beautiful Caucasian woman. I conducted a content analysis of two fashion magazines, one targeted at teenage girls, Teen Vogue , and one

Del Carpio 3 targeted at women, LouLou . Based on this research, in this paper I argue that there is evidence to suggest that contemporary fashion magazines perpetuate and reproduce this dominant representation of women, an image that perpetuates gender inequality and serves a hegemonic role to maintain the status quo of a patriarchal society (Del Carpio, 2013).
Literature Review
Feminist theory and research can provide a useful “lens” from which to view the issue of the representation of women in fashion magazines. Warren (1993) argues that the multiple strands of feminist theory and research make it almost beyond summary, but suggests there are enough unifying elements in the scholarship to justify conceiving feminist theory as the
“boundaries of a quilt or collage” that “delimit the territory of the piece without dictating what the interior, the design, the actual pattern of the piece looks like. Because the actual design of the quilt emerges from the multiplicity of voices of women in a cross-cultural context, the design will change over time. It is not something static” (as cited in Sarikakis et al., 2008, p. 505).
Reinharz (1992) identifies key characteristics of feminist research, which include: a multiplicity of research methods, an ongoing criticism of nonfeminist scholarship, an aim to create social change, a desire to represent human diversity and a transdisciplinary approach (as cited in
Sarikakis et al., 2008, p. 512). McRobbie (2006) says the strength of feminism and feminist theory lie in the “ability to create discourse, to dispute, to negotiate the boundaries and the barriers, and also to take issue with the various feminisms that have sprung into being” (p. 530).
When feminist theory is applied to communication studies, feminist media scholars study the “consequences of misrepresentation in popular culture and the media, processes of exclusion and the imposition of boundaries such as class, age, etc.” (Sarikakis et al., 2008, p. 510). In this

Del Carpio 4 paper, I apply a feminist theory framework to understand the findings of my content analysis, using it to analyze and interpret my data.
Previous content analyses on the topic of teen and women’s fashion magazines have produced interesting results. Stankiewicz and Rosselli (2008) found that “men’s women’s fashion, and female adolescent magazines were more likely to portray women as sex objects and victims than news and business, special interest, or women’s non-fashion magazines” (p. 579).
Joshi, Peter and Valkenberg (2010), performed a comparative content analysis of Seventeen magazine, comparing issues in 1997 and 2007. They noted ambivalent messages in several areas; specifically, they showed ambivalence occurred for “type of sex (casual vs. committed), the consequences of a romantic relationship (positive vs. negative), and type of clothing (sexy vs. non-sexy)” (p.1). Although they were quick to jump to ideas of the potential negative effects these findings can have on teen girls’ self-esteem and advocate media literacy programs, their findings of contradictory messages are valid and speak to the confusing representation of what it means to be a woman, and how a woman should behave and look.
Cross-cultural content analyses of fashion magazines have also provided insights into the representation of women in magazines. For example, Frith, Shaw and Cheng’s (2005) content analysis that compared fashion and beauty magazines in Singapore, Taiwan and the United
States found that American magazines featured more ads for clothing, whereas Asian magazines had a larger proportion of ads for cosmetics and facial beauty products. They argued these findings suggest that the sexual objectification of women occurs across cultures, the only difference being that Asian cultures focus on the face while Western cultures focus on the body
(p. 65). Morris and Nichols (2013) had similar findings of U.S. women’s magazines; their content analysis, which compared the advertisements in American magazines to those in French

Del Carpio 5 magazines, revealed that the American publications had more ads for hair care and makeup products. Of relevance to feminist theory, the American advertisements also presented more
“non-working women, and women as decoration than their French counterparts” (Morris and
Nichols, 2013, p. 49).
Other studies on fashion magazines that did not use content analysis as a methodology have served to highlight deeper level meanings and ideological processes in their production and consumption. Through textual analysis, Hasinoff (2009) found evidence of “gender determinism” spanning several decades of
Cosmopolitan magazine, as sociobiology was used to explain and justify brutish male behaviour and naturalize women as emotional, caregivers and primarily reproductive beings. Currie (1997), on the other hand, focused on the everyday practices of the teenage readers of fashion magazines, and conducted interviews with girls aged
13 to 17 years in order to understand their readings and meaning-making processes. She found that rather than negotiate or subvert the racist, sexist and hegemonic messages and images in magazines, young girls generally accepted them unquestioningly, a finding that can be described by Stuart Hall’s “dominant reading” of media texts. Currie (1997) argues, “by giving these stereotypes truth status, these readers valorize not only patriarchal meanings of womanhood but also naturalize associations between femininity and the commodities through which this femininity is expressed as the everyday doing of gender” (p. 453). In the following section, I discuss the details of the methodology I used for my analysis of teen and women’s fashion magazines. Later, I examine why my findings provide further evidence for the subordination of women described by these authors.

Del Carpio 6
Methodology
For this study I performed a content analysis of two popular fashion magazines, one aimed at women, LouLou, and one targeted at teenage girls, Teen Vogue . I chose the two most recent issues at the time of my research, Winter 2013 and February 2013, respectively, and coded
40 pages in total, 20 from each magazine.
1
The variables I coded for were ethnicity, social standing (meaning the social group or category the female most closely belonged to), weight, clothing style, age (my best estimation considering the female’s makeup, the context of the image and clothing worn), whether the female was sexualized in any way or not, amount of makeup worn, the posture or stance of the female, the activity the female was engaged, hair colour, the setting or background of the image and what section of the magazine the image of the female appeared in, or if it was in an advertisement (Del Carpio, 2013). In order to determine what went in each category, I used my best judgment and took cues from the context of the image and section of the magazine (Del Carpio, 2013). I selected pages where the image of the female was the focus of the page, it took up the majority of the page and the female appeared without other women (Del Carpio, 2013). In the cases where two women were on the page, I coded the dominant image, that is, the largest image. Both advertisements and magazine content were included in the sample. This is in line with Currie’s argument (1997), that “as the major source of glossy imagery,” advertisements make magazines “such a visually pleasurable read”
(p. 465). Additionally, she points to the importance of considering advertisements when studying magazines: they “feature prominently in academic discussion about the pleasures of magazine reading,” and pictures in ads may have more impact than words because they are easier for readers to understand (p. 465). I performed all the coding, so intercoder reliability was not an issue.

Del Carpio 7
Results
My findings show significantly more Caucasian women represented in both magazines
(Del Carpio, 2013, for a visual representation of all the results described, see Appendix A).
Correspondingly, the primary hair colours shown were blonde and brunette in both Teen Vogue and LouLou (Del Carpio, 2013). Not one image in either magazine was of an overweight woman; in the women’s magazines the majority were coded as underweight (Del Carpio, 2013). Both magazines had a higher proportion of young adult women than either teen- or middle-aged women (Del Carpio, 2013). Of all 40 images coded, only one featured a woman without makeup; the majority of females in the teen magazine had on light makeup, and the majority in the women’s magazine had on heavy makeup (Del Carpio, 2013). The women’s magazine featured females predominantly in formal or fancy clothing, with a few observations of women appearing nude (no clothing was visible, but neither was any actual nudity) (Del Carpio, 2013). Casual clothing was predominant in the teen magazine (Del Carpio, 2013). The majority of females in both magazines were celebrities, with models a close second and a few “average Janes” (Del
Carpio, 2013). In both magazines, the setting of the image was mostly a photo-shoot set, with red carpet a significant second in the women’s magazine (Del Carpio, 2013). The majority of images in both magazines were of women doing absolutely nothing, just standing, sitting or posing (Del
Carpio, 2013). Also of note was a clear sexualization of the females, with many observations of parted lips and suggestive looks. Lastly, the majority of images were observed in advertisements in both magazines, with the fashion second a close second in the teen magazine (Del Carpio,
2013).

Del Carpio 8
Analysis and Discussion
If McCracken’s (1993) arguments that magazines exert cultural leadership, and have the ability to shape consensual images and definitions of femininity and influence what it means to be a woman hold, then my findings are very troublesome. The “consensual image” that emerged, that is, the characteristics of a woman most frequently observed in the women’s magazine were
Caucasian, celebrity, underweight, formal/fancy clothing, youthful, heavy makeup, brunette, doing nothing, in a photo-shoot setting. This image is problematic because it suggests women must be preoccupied with their external appearance; these findings even suggest that external appearance and physical beauty are the most important and defining aspects of a woman.
Additionally, the findings suggest a woman must work hard and participate in consumer culture to achieve these characteristics by eating less, working out, buying nice clothing and makeup.
Also troubling is the continuing representation of a Caucasian female as the most frequent ethnicity; the number of women in other ethnic categories was less than five observations each.
This is particularly problematic because LouLou is a Canadian magazine, and so one would expect more diversity considering Canadian identity and policies centre on the principle of multiculturalism. In sum, the representation of women in this magazine is one that keeps women in a place of subordination and serves a hegemonic ideological role by showing a stereotypical image of women that conforms to dominant beauty ideals and portrays them as passive and inactive.
The teen magazine fared a little better in its representation of women. The most frequent characteristics were Caucasian, celebrity, average/healthy weight, casual clothing, youthful, light makeup, blonde and doing nothing in a photo-shoot set. The qualities of Caucasian, celebrity, youthful, blonde and doing nothing in a photo-shoot set suffer the same issues of

Del Carpio 9
(mis)representation discussed above, but the average/healthy weight, casual clothing and lighter makeup suggest more realistic and healthy images of the body and beauty are shown in the teen magazine. These findings are promising because they portray women as more active and less concerned with a dominant ideal of physical beauty.
However, the teen magazine had a more obvert sexualization of women, with parted lips, cleavage/side boob and a bare midriff being shown more frequently in Teen Vogue than LouLou .
This is in line with Joshi, Peter and Valkenberg’s (2010) findings of ambivalent messages in
Seventeen magazine, because this sexualization of women contradicts the healthier and more realistic representation of women I just described. It also provides further evidence for
Stankiewicz and Rosselli’s (2008) study that found women’s fashion and female adolescent magazines more likely to portray women as sex objects than other magazines.
Limitations
My research suffered from three main limitations. Firstly, the sample size of 40 was small, too small to make inferences and generalizations about all, or even the majority, of women’s fashion magazines. This size was necessary due to time constraints, but nevertheless it places limits on the sample’s representativeness and utility. Secondly, some of the variables, such as weight and amount of makeup, can be highly subjective, and susceptible to coder biases.
Lastly, each magazine originated in a different country; LouLou is Canadian while Teen Vogue is
American. This can mean that differences between the two issues analyzed can be attributed to cultural differences rather than real differences between teen and women’s magazines. These limitations are less problematic if the research is considered exploratory, with its purpose being to suggest at patterns and highlight areas of interest for future study (Del Carpio, 2013).

Del Carpio 10
Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that my content analysis suggests that contemporary fashion magazines perpetuate and reproduce a dominant and stereotypical image of women as necessarily beautiful, thin, Caucasian and passive; an image that serves a hegemonic ideological role to maintain the subordination of women in a patriarchal society. While my research suffered from certain limitations (see above), it nevertheless provided preliminary evidence that fashion magazines help maintain the status quo and offer a problematic representation of women. Further research could overcome these limitations by having additional coders and conducting a wider reaching analysis of several teen and women’s fashion magazines from all over North America.
Also interesting would be a textual analysis of these same magazines, to see if the text and overall presentation of the content subverts or engages with the physical representation of women in the images.

Del Carpio 11
Endnote
1.
I will discuss the limitations of this sample size and my methodology in a later section, titled “Limitations.”

Del Carpio 12
References
Currie, D. (1997). Decoding femininity: Advertisements and their teenage readers. Gender &
Society , 11 (4), 453-477.
Del Carpio, Vanessa. (2013). Content Analysis of Women and Teen Fashion Magazines.
COMN
2700 Media, Culture and Society .
Frith, K., Ping, S., & Hong, C. (2005). The construction of beauty: A cross-cultural analysis of women's magazine advertising. Journal of Communication , 55 (1), 56-70.
Hasinoff, A. (2009). It's sociobiology, hon! Feminist Media Studies , 9 (3), 267-283.
Joshi, S. P., Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2010). Ambivalent messages in Seventeen
Magazine: A content analytic comparison of 1997 and 2007. Journal of Magazine & New
Media Research , 12 (1), 1-20.
Krcmar, M., Giles, S., & Helme, D. (2008). Understanding the process: How mediated and peer norms affect young women’s body esteem.
Communication Quarterly, 56 (2), 111-130.
Mc Robbie, A. (2006). Feminism, postmoderism and the “real me.” In Durham, M. G., &
Kellner, D. (Eds.), Media and cultural studies: Keyworks (pp. 520-532). Malden,
MA: Blackwell.
Morris, P. K., & Nichols, K. (2013). Conceptualizing beauty: A content analysis of U.S. and
French women's fashion magazine advertisements. Online Journal of Communication &
Media Technologies , 3 (1), 49-74.
Park, S. (2005). The influence of presumed media influence on women’s desire to be thin.
Communication Research, 32 (5), 594-614.
Sarikakis, K., Rush, R. R., Grubb-Swetnam, A., & Lane, C. (2009). “Feminist theory and research. In Stacks, D. W., & Salwen, M. B. (Eds.), An integrated approach to

Del Carpio 13 communication theory and research (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Stankiewicz, J., & Rosselli, F. (2008). Women as sex objects and victims in print advertisements.
Sex Roles , 58 (7/8), 579-589.
Thomsen, S. R., McCoy, J., Gustafson, R., & Williams, H. (2002). Motivations for reading beauty and fashion magazines and anorexic risk in college-age women. Media
Psychology, 4 (2), 113-135.

Appendix A
Visual Representation of Content Analysis
16
14
12
10
8
2
0
6
4
Womens
Teens
6
4
2
0
14
12
10
8
Celebrity
Model Average Jane
Womens
Teens
Del Carpio 14

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Underweight
Average/Healthy Weight
Womens Teens
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Formal/Fancy No visible clothes/Nude
Casual Business Sports
Womens
Teens
Del Carpio 15

12
10
8
6
4
2
0
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Teen
Young Adult Middle Age
Womens
Teens
Womens
Teens
Del Carpio 16

3
2
1
0
6
5
4
9
8
7
Light Average Heavy None
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Standing Posing
Sitting Indiscernible Other
Womens
Teens
Womens
Teens
Del Carpio 17

20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Nothing Exercising Working Other
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Brunette Blonde Black Red Bright
Colour
Womens
Teens
Womens
Teens
Del Carpio 18

6
5
4
8
7
3
2
1
0
Womens
Teens
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Ad Fashion Beauty Interview
Womens
Teens
Del Carpio 19