Madeline Whetten English 1010 pd.

2A March 26, 2014 A Deceivingly Menacing Manicure

Whetten 1

As most women and girls know, enamel can take a painfully long time to dry and the nail salon is the haven for womens magazines. The catalogues are so mesmerizing, with beauty and fashion interlaced with scandal and lies. Carefully turning the pages with my manicured nails, I become immersed into the stories and advertisements specifically directed toward suburban women with less than thrilling lives. It never occurred to me how idealized women had become until I reached a certain age of maturity. Suddenly I was hit with expectations about my views and appearances that scared me. I was expected to act, think, and look a certain way, a way that was deceptively expressed to me with the magazines in the nail salon. Gloria Steinem is a radical feminist who has taken place in many rallies for womens rights and equal treatment. Her essay, Sex, Lies and Advertising, was first published for the Ms. Magazine in 1990. This article is the story of Steinems struggle to publish a womens magazine that could be taken seriously. Steinem takes the reader through advertising issues and how heavily the advertisements in a magazine can affect content. She worked to fight for people advertisements rather than having gender distinguish a product and consumer. Everybody knows theyre just catalogues-but who cares? They have nothing to do with journalism.(19) Steinem is faced with people who objectify women and seek to only advertise beauty and cleaning products while showing them what they should look and act like. While Steinems values are very radical and can occasionally be quite far- fetched, she provides good ideas

Whetten 2 and examples about the worlds incorrect representation of women in advertisements and the growing need for women to be educated in the issues of the world and be taken seriously. After researching Gloria Steinem and discovering her radical/hippie past, the intensity she conveyed for this subject in the essay is understandable. She is very consumed with the idea that all men are out to suppress women, which is not a completely logical idea. Steinem had bad experiences with particularly thick-headed men who had very old-fashioned views, so now her bitterness has become directed toward males in general. Specific examples from conversations experienced by Steinem include, But women dont understand technology, (23) and advertisers do this to womens magazines especially, because of the general disrespect they have for women.(35) There is a barrier of misunderstanding and lack of communication between men and women. This barrier has been there since the beginning of time and needs to be treated, but not necessarily in such a hateful, negative way. So although she has had some unfortunate experiences with unresponsive men, her dislike for men in general may obstruct her ability to logically see and understand a males point of view when dealing with business and advertisements. Flawless models and celebrities in advertisements are the epitome of what society believes a woman should be, as clearly shown in pretty much every advertisement. Steinem heavily addresses this issue of objectifying women and stereotyping the gender roles. She states how in medical journals there were tranquilizer ads that showed depressed housewives standing beside piles of dirty dishes and promised to get them back to work.(21) This stereotype is an issue that Steinem correctly addressed and argued about. The way she provided examples made

Whetten 3 it clear that it is a real problem that needed to be fixed. Her audience for this paper consisted of all women or supporters of womens rights who believe in change and equal treatment so her argument was persuasive and valid. The women in magazines set such an impossibly high standard and suggest the notion that no happiness or fulfillment can be achieved unless these standards are met. I can clearly see where her fire for this issue stems from. As a teenage girl nearing adulthood I am faced with choices for my future. Magazines and media suggest that I need to marry rich while obtaining a rockin hot bod and stay out of the masculine parts of the world. If I do not follow this method of supposed happiness, I will be breaking the objectification and stereotypes by doing something that is not meant to be done. Perhaps the most important point Steinem had to offer was the growing importance of educating women and taking issues seriously. Throughout her article she continually addresses how the real issues are not being dealt with. Issues like lack of information about products and companies and problems that other parts of the world are facing. These are not being talked about in magazines read by women. Magazines are more focused on bringing in the income rather than creating a society of well-educated and informed women, what could magazines be like if they were as free as books? as realistic as newspapers? as diverse as womens lives?(36) The lies about perfect lives are more important than seemingly depressing and difficult real world problems. As much as Id like to think feminism issues dont affect me, I cannot help but agree with some of the points Gloria Steinem presented in her essay. Although I do not completely agree with the extremity of some of Steinems views about male influence, her take on the incorrect

Whetten 4 representation of women in advertisements and the need for women to be educated and taken seriously are important and logical. Next time I am having my nails shaped and painted, I will be drawn to a different part of Womens Magazines. The stereotypes and meaningless gossip is no longer what I am interested in. I want to be advertised things that will make me independent and educated just as Gloria Steinem intended.