The Pressure for Perfection in the US Cosmopolitan

This paper explores how the American Cosmopolitan Magazine contributes to the reinforcement of an over exaggeratedly perfect ideal for women due to profit orientation. In the first section, the issue’s background is analyzed. Works by Friedan (1974) and Lury (1996) are used in order to demonstrate how the shift from the housewife ideal to the career-oriented woman influenced the product demand of the market and simultaneously, the content of women’s magazines from the 1950’s. Next, relying on Nelson’s (2012) work, the signs of the profit-oriented agreement between the magazine and advertisers is further analyzed. Linking her argument to Fredrickson’s and Roberts’ (1997), this thesis attempts to highlight that magazines like Cosmo and their showcased ads purposefully represent overly thin, young and beautiful models and celebrities in an objectifying way, mostly in order to incite women to purchase (by creating low self-esteem and body image issues in readers). As the scholars argue, such representations could contribute to women’s self-objectification as well. In addition, as Wolf (2002) points out, the excessive emphasis on physical perfection in case of women is used in order to secure them to the male-dominated social hierarchy. The second part of the thesis is a case study; more precisely, pictures and advertisements from the 2016 US Cosmopolitan issues are taken and described in detail, on the basis of the previously mentioned scholars’ arguments.