Natalie Lue writes...
“Drive him wild! Seduction masterclass – Have ANY man at your mercy” and “Lose 7lbs in 7 days” were the two headlines that jumped out at me from this month’s issue of Cosmopolitan and I cringed. Are these the type of topics that women are interested in? These topics are limiting, deluding, and a classic example of the careless attitude towards our self-esteem.
In my early twenties as well as having bad taste in men, I was a prolific women’s magazine buyer. A hangover from my teens where I’d gone quite rapidly from Smash Hits, to Just Seventeen, to More where we’d be goggled eyed over position of the fortnight, to Cosmo’s saucy content, every month I was targeted with yet another article about fifty ways to please your man, that diet that will definitely get you to lose the excess weight, and the latest projection of airbrushed beauty was put on the cover to give us all something to admire, aspire to, or even envy. But I stopped reading these magazine several years ago because many women’s magazines just don’t represent me or my mentality and I like to feel good about myself.
Headlines like the one regarding the “seduction masterclass” send a dubious message that is at the heart of some of the issues that women are struggling with in modern dating and their self-esteem. Is seduction and sex the key driver in finding and keeping a man? Why are Cosmopolitan selling the notion that we can have ANY man and that we must focus our efforts on pleasing our men and driving them wild?
The fact of the matter is that you can do your seduction master class all you like, but you may be investing yourself (and your sexual energy) in a man that doesn’t deserve it and isn’t even relationship material. When are they going to start teaching better relationship skills? When are they going to start tackling the real issues that women face that are counter-productive to their self-esteem instead of paying lip service to the subjects but ploughing on ahead with these annoying topics?
There are always articles that are variations of this subject matter and whilst on some levels there is nothing wrong with giving sex tips, I think it’s safe to say that women want more than regurgitated sex tips to get a man that’s been pissing them off and taking advantage of them. And if they're going to give sex tips, why can't they give them without making the correlation of getting good at sexing your man equals keeping him equals happy ever after?
Judging by the number of women that suffer with low self-esteem which gets eroded further by problems with dating and relationships and poor body image, Cosmopolitan et al would do well to adjust the tone of their content. When we are young and impressionable, we all read magazines above our age bracket and the consistent message about pleasing your men and losing weight in ridiculously short periods of time are irresponsible because by the time readers get tired of reading this crap, they’re already full fledged women with these messages eating into their subconscious.
Some may argue that women are clearly buying these magazines (although not anywhere near what they were before) but we have to remember that marketing to women with these poor social messages is something that has been going on for a very long time. Men’s magazines appeal to their ever burgeoning ego’s whereas women’s magazines tap into our faltering self-esteem. They don’t actually empower us, they just feed into our cycle of self-doubt.
They create the images of so-called beauty. They set the tone of women believing that irrespective of whatever they achieve, seduction and catching and keeping your man are the key to happiness. They set the tone of what women think are important to other women. Much like the way supermarkets in the UK have got into selling generic looking, bland, fruit and vegetables that are roughly the same size, colour, and consistency and claiming that it’s what people want, these magazines churn out the content that they want to and tell us it’s what we want. But they haven’t exactly tried to given us the opportunity to read more balanced content that fosters healthier self-esteem, have they?
The trouble with magazines that peddle this content is that they're quite distanced from reality and it's a shame that they don't think we're adult or equipped enough to deal with a few more hard truths. I've had to fight tooth and nail for higher self-esteem so I'll pass on this months issue of Cosmo...but unfortunately others won't, so the cycle continues...
Natalie Lue is currently coming to the end of her maternity leave (booooo...hiss....) and is too lazy to read 50 sex tips, never mind try them...