Context for Vogue:
HOW MAGAZINES INFLUENCE WOMEN
Bernays, Photoshop, and Consumerism
Women's magazines were originally created to educated women in the 19th century who were isolated from culture due to their rural lifestyles. It created a consumer culture for women by defining modern feminity and associating products with it. Early magazines pushed male dominance as women were expected to dress for men and supplied a false sense of freedom that women could obtain by purchasing different un-necessities. ​
After WW2, Edward Bernays utilized the skills he gained when making wartime propaganda to sell products. He believed that he could sell people things they didn't need by stimulating their irrational fears. This allowed politicians to control the population by making them docile and focused on what they could buy. One of Bernay's first campaign's was to increase the sale of suitcases and his preliminary strategy was to write articles for magazines titled: "What the Well Dressed Woman Wears on a Weekend". He created a stereotype of the "Well Dressed Women", a high-class woman who relied on the important of luggage to carry her absurd amount of outfit changes she required each day. The new age classy woman was materialistic and as women in this era (the roaring 20's) strived for status, his campaign was very successful. Bernays role in magazines influences magazines even today, as they play off women's irrational fears in order to sell products.
Magazines today use the Beauty Myth to give women insecurities about their body through self-objectification. They create and reinforce strict beauty expectations that keep women feeling unworthy their whole lives because they cannot live up to the unrealistic expectations.
How do magazines create unrealistic Beauty Expectations?
What strategies to editors take to present an unreachable standard of beauty that keeps women self-objectifying?
The gap between what women actually look like vs. what women look like in the media is know as the Beauty Gap. As the population of women becomes more diverse each year, the women in magazines continue to be skinny, white and CIS gender and the Beauty Gap grows.
Want to learn more about the Beauty Gap and how magazines manipulate women? Watch this TED talk.