Ronna/1
Gabrielle Ronna
4A
27 March 2013
Word Count: 1,238
Attitude Over Aptitude: A Response to Gloria Steinem
Beautiful women, bolded statements, and luminous colors flash from cover to cover. Art
and style mix, creating magazines. Women’s magazines are outlets into the world of scandal and
the ideal. But in today’s terminology, they can hardly be called magazines. There is a dominance
of pictures and advertisement over actual stories. Those beautiful women and luminous colors
take most of the space away from short columns. Few, if any, remember the stories over the
styles and products in these catalogs.
Gloria Steinem is the editor of the women’s magazine Ms., and is an active feminist. In
her essay “Sex, Lies, and Advertising,” published in Ms. Magazine, Steinem ridicules women’s
magazines for their blatant disregard to stories over advertisements. She has a low opinion of
women’s magazines which are “far below the journalistic and ethical standards of news” (19).
She theorizes of possible solutions to this problem, such as removing the “complementary
copies”(19) from magazines (recipes, perfume samples, etc.), and putting ads for cars, insurance,
or credit cards into women’s magazines. Steinem is a strong advocate for feminist magazines,
but she recognizes the need for advertisements. She states that ads provide advertisers and
readers a way by which to communicate. Steinem ideally imagines the intelligent and caring
readers magazines will have if women’s magazines are taken seriously. Although Steinem is
biased because of her feminist activism, she presents valid evidence of the overuse of
advertisements and the controversies of appeal and sexism published in magazines.
I am not an avid reader of magazines, so I did not notice the overuse of ads in magazines
until Steinem pointed it out. Once I was introduced to this idea, it could not be ignored. I came to
Ronna/2
realize the truth of Steinem’s protests. With fervor, she testifies that women’s magazines are
never taken seriously and that they pass off as catalogs. I agree with this, considering I never
thought that magazines specifically for women existed, other than catalogs. Now with open eyes,
I can see how devoted magazines are to promoting advertisements. Steinem explains that a big
draw for readers is the complementary copies they receive, such as perfume samples or recipes.
Having used various recipes cut out from magazines myself, I know readers are drawn in by the
free copies of products.
Steinem proposes removing the complementary copies from magazines to lessen the
reader’s focus on the appeal of ads. Because customers enjoy having a free copy, would
removing samples harm or prove Steinem’s point? She proudly writes,”Ms…as the only
women’s magazine that didn’t support what the ad world…describes as ‘complementary copy’”
(19). I do not agree with her boastfulness over a statement which is probably untrue. Steinem
heightens her own magazine as being the only one of using the minimal amount of ads. Her
magazine is not as devoted to advertising as others, and she recognizes using ads as necessary. I
agree that ads provide communication between advertisers and readers, and that readers enjoy
looking over the colorful products, but overusing ads takes away from stories. I hold stories to a
higher standard, and pretty pictures offering me products, so that I too can be beautiful is not the
message magazines were meant to portray.
Steinem is the voice for the feminist viewpoints, and she addresses their ideals when
referring to the new appeals of audience if magazine advertisements are limited. She focuses on
the ideal consequences, such as a smarter and more caring audience. What she does not take into
account is that some people enjoy the many ads and samples. I made a remark to my sister, an
avid reader of magazines, about the dominance of advertisements. She simple stated that she
Ronna/3
liked looking at the ads. Steinem neglects in adding the loss of profit magazines will receive as a
consequence. She instead describes the rewards of advertisers and editors: “both would have
access to a laboratory of smart and caring readers whose response would help create effective
ads for other media” (20). She seems to think too much of readers of women’s magazines. She
assumes them to all be naïve and not realize how much better the world would be if ads were
limited.
Turning from her feminist perspective, Steinem describes the controversies of deciding
how to portray an ad. This is one of the few times when Steinem is purely factual in her essay.
There is much more sexism involved in deciding who to put in an ad than readers realize. Would
little boys buy this product if there is a girl on the box? This question is one which advertisers
frequently face. I know that boys would probably not be as likely to buy a product if there is a
girl on the ad, because of one famous example. J.K. Rowling, a famous author, had to use a pen
name so boys would not refrain from buying her book, just because she is a female author. I
agree that advertisers are being sexist in their decisions, but they are reflecting the ideas of
society and what draws the mass.
Steinem describes something I did notice in magazines: the sexual segregation existing
between male and female ads. I agree that only women seem to be used in ads about cooking,
cleaning, and draped over the hoods of cars for motor ads. Products which both genders buy,
such as cars, are generally used in men’s magazines. Steinem theorizes that putting these ads into
women’s magazines would broaden audiences and not get readers so focused on the ads.
Whether or not this would actually work, I do not know. Steinem seems to think that it would,
but she is very one-sided and ideal in her perception of consequences.
Steinem is obviously one-sided in her essay. She is the co-creator and editor of a
Ronna/4
feminist magazine and she is an active feminist. She purposefully persuades readers of women’s
magazines to take action against the overuse of advertisements, and to do so by writing to editors
or advertisers in protest. She is so passionate in ending the failing standards of journalism that
she breaks from her formal outlining, and creates a bulleted list of actions readers can take; these
are the ideas which she wants emphasized. Some of these actions include writing to editors and
advertisers, and supporting women’s magazines that take readers seriously. Steinem’s essay
points out the faults of magazines, and ridicules the editors for allowing these failing standards to
ensue.
The accuracy of Steinem’s research of the controversies behind sexism and product
overuse in magazines is helpful towards drawing a reader’s attention. The problems she
describes are true and draw attention to the failing standards of journalism. She focuses on the
feminist side of the argument when referring to women’s magazines. Ads need to be limited and
stories should prosper, as is her view. Steinem obviously wants change, but she ignores how the
readers of magazines would react to a shift of ad campaigning. She only looks at the ideal
consequences of removing free samples from ads, and ultimately fails to recognize the impact of
possible loss of income for editors and advertisers. Though Steinem’s ideas about sexism and the
overuse of ads in magazines is a valid problem, change will probably come slowly, if it comes at
all.
Works Cited
Steinem, Gloria. “Sex, Lies, and Advertising.” Ms. Magazine (1990).