Turning off the Cosmo Guy. Next
…continued..
Interview after interview on Georgetown’s campus proved that men were actually more shocked and disturbed by the revealing pictures and articles in the magazine than women. Strange? Not really. In fact, one 19-year old female confidently responded that women want to be liked by men. … Cosmo is not demeaning [to women] because it is how most women want to be portrayed.” To my surprise, the majority of women I interviewed did not find the magazine demeaning.
The men did not have the same opinion. Although many of the young men at the beginning of the interview laughed at the Cosmo articles, by the end most had disgusted looks on their faces. One male said, “Now that I think of it, this magazine is really bad. … Everything is based on appearance and sex. … That’s awful.” To some it was offensive that many of the Cosmo articles encouraged women to control and dominate men via sexual techniques.
These Georgetown freshmen are not the only ones who find Cosmo suggestive and demeaning. Three months ago, Giant Food Inc., an international global food provider centralized in Landover, MD, decided to place an opaque plastic cover over the Cosmos in their checkout aisles. According to Giant Food’s Vice-President of Public Affairs Barry Scher, customers complained for many years about the descriptive pictures and headlines on Cosmo’s covers. Giant decided that they, “had to do something about it.” He added that Giant is a “family-oriented business and we had to keep this in mind.” So, how have people reacted to the new plastic that covers the almost naked women who used to grace the checkout aisle? According to Scher, “We’ve had nothing but compliments.”
While it is comforting to know that most college women do not take magazines like Cosmo seriously, it does not negate the effect the magazine’s pictures and articles have on young, impressionable college men. They too see the barely dressed women on the covers of Cosmo and read the lewd headlines, such as “Tantalize Him,” “Try This With Him Tonight” and “You on Top.” Magazines like Cosmo do not make daily life easier for women living side-by-side with men in college dorms. If the authors of Cosmo sincerely want to help women improve their relationships with men perhaps they should try to write more substantive, realistic, and pertinent articles rather than lazily exploit the curiosities and, for that matter, hormones of young women.