Which One of These is Not Like the Other? // Answer: Both
Posted by Clare , Tuesday, April 13, 2010 10:28 AM
Whilst choosing two articles to compare/contrast I found it extremely difficult to find a men's magazine article on the same topic as the women's magazine article I had chosen, What Everyone But You Sees About Your Body (Glamour). The article discusses how woman should love their bodies, even on "fat days" because really girls- no one notices but you. All in all it was a rather cliche women body empowerment article, one that we all may have read elsewhere.
Now came the more difficult chore of finding a complimentary article in a men's magazine (we were given the option of using a different women's magazine targeted to another age group, etc; however let's be honest women of all ages worrying about the same list of things), and I have to say I searched and searched. Had I known we would have had to compare/contrast the two- I could have read ahead on the syllabus, I guess- I would have cheated and picked a less pointedly female article. Men-as I understand from general observation- do not discuss body image or "loving/hating their bodies" while hanging out with their friends and certainly not in places like Men's Health and Gentleman's Quarterly, two magazine I view as the equivalent of the girl's Glamour or Cosmopolitan.
So there I was, no body image article chalked full of empowerment and vague acceptance for my abundant hip width, left to stretch comparisons between my Glamour article and What You Really Need to Know About American Whiskey or 20 Awesome Tips on How to Score Some Boss Biceps (okay I might have made that one up-but it is pretty accurate). Obviously, men and women magazines are marketed towards different groups with different interests; however, this brought to my attention the differences in men and women's approach to dissatisfaction with their bodies.
While women receive conflicting messages about how to deal with this- "run that butt off! but if that doesn't work, no worries, just embrace it!"- men are simply given straight forward advice on how to solve the perceived problem (skinny arms? I don't know what they worry about). The article with the closest theme I could find was, Suit Your Shape ( GQ). The article starts out ," So you're not the size of a male model- welcome to the club," becoming almost a way of saying " yea, so what you have a beer gut? get over it and don't be a sissy-but here are some awesome suits for work." They even call the different shapes "celebrated." I'm not sure about you, but never have I read about a celebrated pear, or apple shape, and if you are a women you certainly know which one you are.
The article in Glamour, What Everyone But You Sees About Your Body, clearly has the best intentions and offers some good points (match each negative thought about your body with a positive one); comparing these two articles makes clear men and women's very different attitudes towards their bodies. While the ladies push hard to over come their insecurities through positive thoughts and talking it out, men, at least publicly, quickly address the issue and give you bullet point instructions on how to fix the problem.
Women still have the history long handle on the emotional approach- using words like "love" and " body-confidence" and men have pretty much got the straight-forward approach down pat -" style" and "fit."
Whether or not what we see in these articles is really what goes on in a person head depending on their sex is questionable. This becomes more about what the writers think their readers want to hear depending on their sex- how each gender is reeled in and treated by the author, as a neurotic ball of insecurity or a man looking for some nice fitting pants. Well are you a woman or a man?
It's interesting to compare the bluntness of men's magazines to the "softer" articles in women's magazines telling us to love our bodies. To me, it makes it seem like women can't handle that bluntness or an article saying "you're out of shape and here's how you fix it; instead they need reassurance that they're "perfect" the way they are. Not all women feel this way obviously but it seems to be the main theme in most women's magazines.