Sex and the Cosmo Girl (2011)

Undergraduate: Leah Josephson

Faculty Advisor: Barbara Friedman
Department: Journalism & Mass Communication

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This textual analysis of eight issues of Cosmopolitan magazine (one from each season in 1969 and 2010) examined the publication’s messages about women’s sexual and romantic relationships from a feminist theory perspective. While femininity ideals have changed in some ways, my research shows that many media messages have stayed the same or are very similar. Several of Cosmopolitan’s themes related to expectations for women in intimate relationships stood out in particular. First, relationships were expected to be the most important part of women’s lives. Women were also expected to compete with and be jealous of other women as competition for male partners. Men were stereotyped as unwilling to enter into committed relationships, although these relationships were defined as marriage in 1969 but simply monogamous commitment, with or without marriage, in 2010. Finally, women were assumed to be responsible for improving relationship problems and their own sexual techniques. Magazines in 1969 revealed a casual attitude toward sexual violence and sex work. Issues of the magazine in 2010 were not overtly casual toward violence against women, but they were accepting of the use of pornography, which typically features violent, degrading depictions of sexual relationships. Cosmopolitan readers should be critical of the problematic messages of women’s magazines, and magazine editors should identify ways to promote healthy relationships that do not reinforce traditional gender roles.