The commodification of women - as shown on magazine covers across the decades

[needaMNnamegenerator]

I just came across this article. Really interesting comparison of magazine covers over decades, but utterly depressing.

AIBU to think it's capitalism we're up against really these days, isn't it?

Depressing because it feels like a much harder fight than going up against 1950s stereotypes, which our foremothers did pretty successfully. But while we've gained freedom in so many areas, the commodification of women (and everything) is intensifying isn't it? (Or does it just seem harder as it's our fight, and we're living it.)

If radical feminism is about getting to the root, well, there's not much point in fighting the magazine industry - it's just demonstrating the influence of consumerism isn't it? And that's the real problem - isn't it?

[Kaiserin]

Capitalism is fundamentally amoral (profits are the only variable being optimised, at the expense of anything that cannot be monetised)

As a powerful engine, it is bound to amplify whatever selfish (and quite often, self-destructive) impulses already rule our societies. It encourages excesses.

It also centers individuals, not classes.

And the freedom it offers is proportional to your disposable capital.
On the surface it doesn't discriminate (capital is sexless...), but it entrenches whatever discrimination already exists.

And as objects of desire, women are bound to be monetised in a number of ways, but not necessarily for their own profit...

So, yes, capitalism is certainly relevant, from a feminist perspective.
(regardless of magazine covers, and what they may or may not tell us)

[Goosefoot]

@DaisiesandButtercups

Did the commodification of women and children begin with the agricultural revolution?

I am sure I read somewhere that in many gatherer/hunter cultures there was more equality between the sexes and between people in the same tribe generally.

That's a myth. Hunter-gatherer societies vary quite a bit in terms of sexual equality.

There is some correlation to how much food, and particularly high protein food, each sex provides.

Equality in those societies doesn't necessarily look much like we'd expect though, there are still usually significant differences in the lives of men and women.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Capitalism is fundamentally amoral (profits are the only variable being optimised, at the expense of anything that cannot be monetised)

That’s not capitalism. That is a type of business model. Capitalism is an economic system and it does not prescribe a single business model or type, ergo we have not for profit businesses and charities as well as for profit businesses within a capitalist economy.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Women did not however experience the same overt sexualisation in communist states,

True, women were de-sexed in communist states to be a comrade worker. But they were paid less than male comrades, could not hold leadership positions and involuntarily put in breeding programs/forced marriage where they had no reproductive freedom.

Interestingly, though in the experimental communes within larger societies, the women were highly sexualised and sexually abused as most of the communes had a spiritual or cult element to them.

[Goosefoot]

I think one element apart from the particular economic system is that we have managed, more than any other society, to sever sex from a lot of the consequences of sex. We can manage the problem of unwanted or unsupportable births to a significant degree. We can control a lot of sexual diseases. Both of these mean our bodies are often far less impacted over time than they were in the past - to some extent this holds true even for men. We don't regularly see infants being born with the effects of syphilis or chlamydia.

When you consider the perils, the social views about sex outside of marriage or multiple partners, even the value of virginity, make a lot more sense and don't look so much like sexual repression - what's stranger is really that so many have flouted them. Even though many women were of course exploited this impacted men who were sexually involved with them as well, and their families.

I think that speaks to the extremely strong, almost insatiable, biological drive that lies behind it. It's not easy to control and very prone to being out of control, or a cause of sexual exploitation.

While medical knowledge has allowed women to be free from some of this in the most direct sense, in another it significantly reduces arguments about the unconscionable effects of treating women mainly as sexual objects. In the past you could tell a young man that if he respected a woman at all, he needed to consider the very real consequences to her related to sex. And even if he didn't respect her, there were potential consequences to himself, and a future wife, to his children.

A lot of that no longer applies, and in fact society explicitly tells us, women and men both, that sex is really of very little consequence, it's something that can be a nice hobby and is even emotionally not that important. This has opened the door to widespread treatment of women as sexual objects, even on magazine covers in the grocery isle.

[Hothammock]

What I find interesting is that these are women's mags. Why do women buy and digest this material? Mags only put this stuff out because it sells to a certain group of people just as gardening mags sell to people interested in gardening. They do not define women unless you allow it to define you, and a step in that direction is buying these mags and copying the brands they are selling.
I can't help but wonder if women have done themselves a disservice by insisting they can dress as they like and wear what they want without any regard to the message they are putting out about themselves: here is the result of that and it is somehow distasteful and echos the narrative that you can identify as a woman by choice: by wearing provocative clothing and garish makeup.

[DonnaQuixote]

@AllieCat26

I personally feel that it is less about commodification, and more about how the view on women has changed in society. In the past women were meant to be seen as ‘proper’ in their behaviour, and a woman being sexually liberated was seen as sinful, as they were meant to be seen as ‘pure’. Hence, their pictures are completely over the top showing a ‘nice kind girl’ with a horse, or standing prim and proper like the seventeen magazine.

Nowadays, it is widely accepted that women are allowed to be sexual beings, and are allowed to be proud of their bodies. I personally feel that whilst some covers are overly sexualised - lots of covers, are just women feeling empowered and sexy in their own skin. I personally don’t see anything wrong with that. Also these magazines are designed for women, and are sold to women - not for men. Meaning that this resonates with their female audiences.

Sorry, but I don't buy this empowerment narative. Why must woman get naked to be liberated and powerful but a man doesn't? It's not just magazine covers, look at music videos, females in hiphop look like stripers and males like their bosses, all in proper dresses or baggy clothes. Are all those men sexually repressed and powerless? BS.

Why are sexuallised women bodies used to sell products, regardles if they are marketed to men or women? Because men think that by buying the product they get to f*ck attractive women and women think they become one? This is not biology, it is learnt behavior, as John Berger described it perfectly:

“A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another....


One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object -- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”

[Broomfondle]

It's surely a bit chicken and egg.
There isn't a varied and neutral choice of women represented.
Women's mags celebrate skinny/sexy women so women equate that as something to be worth celebrating.
Women value skinny/sexy so look to media that does too and can 'sell' them that image.

Just say all media including women's magazines started celebrating talent, it wouldn't be long before that became what women aspired to have.

[Gronky]

Capitalism is fundamentally amoral

That's an interesting word (amoral). The word processor I use is amoral, it lets me type whatever I wish and, in doing so, I can put a moral component into my work.

[Goosefoot]

@Hothammock

What I find interesting is that these are women's mags. Why do women buy and digest this material? Mags only put this stuff out because it sells to a certain group of people just as gardening mags sell to people interested in gardening. They do not define women unless you allow it to define you, and a step in that direction is buying these mags and copying the brands they are selling.
I can't help but wonder if women have done themselves a disservice by insisting they can dress as they like and wear what they want without any regard to the message they are putting out about themselves: here is the result of that and it is somehow distasteful and echos the narrative that you can identify as a woman by choice: by wearing provocative clothing and garish makeup.

I think to some extent people simply mistook a sense of dignity or respect towards the body for sexual repression.

In a way what we have in the west is a sort of flip side to something like burka. Both sexualise women's bodies and fail to see the human body as natural and good, both in terms of being good in a non-sexual sense, and accepting that it is ok to be sexual beings.

[DaisiesandButtercups]

This a question I have found myself debating in real life recently and can’t find the answer to. How do we reconcile

A woman should be free to dress how she pleases without consequences of unwanted male attention or criticism from anyone

And

The way we choose to present ourselves is a form of non verbal communication and sends a message to others about our values and goals?

[DaisiesandButtercups]

Regarding magazines aimed at women and girls and why they are bought. I believe that we are still encouraged to value pleasing men and the male gaze from such a young age that the desire to conform to that becomes unconscious. So by their teens girls will say I am dressing this way for me, to please myself but they didn’t grow up in a vacuum and the fact remains that clothing which strategically reveals flesh and enhances curves is pleasing to the majority of men who are sexually attracted to women.

Just exactly as Donna quoted from John Berger

[Broomfondle]

A woman should be free to dress how she pleases without consequences of unwanted male attention or criticism from anyone

And

The way we choose to present ourselves is a form of non verbal communication and sends a message to others about our values and goals?

I suppose it's looking at what people are interpreting as a 'message'.

Men running round topless on a hot day - a response to the heat. Women doing the same - a sexual enticement.

The problem is short shorts/bare shoulders/midriffs is interpreted as a sexual message because the female body is inherently judged to be a sexual object. Covering it = modesty, revealing it = invitation.

But the body isn't the problem. It's the beliefs around it.

So women should be able to wear whatever they want and they're actual words/wants/desires should be worth more than whatever 'messaging' they are giving off.
It's what's behind 'she was asking for it' despite a woman most definitely not asking for it or even specifically not asking for it.

[JellySlice]

What the article had to say about the Jenner cover: And Vanity Fair’s most iconic cover this year is a woman who used to identify as a man. Rather sums up the attitude that public sexualisation is the epitome of femininity. A male who now identifies as a woman has the performance of femininity validated by being portrayed in a sexually female stereotype, in a similar way to women.

Most of the magazines in that article are aimed at women, and are promoting the stereotype that women must be hyper-sexualised. Time is not, and the covers are not sexualised. GQ is aimed at men, and they realised that men like looking at women's bodies. Is New Yorker aimed at either sex, particularly?

[Goosefoot]

@DaisiesandButtercups

This a question I have found myself debating in real life recently and can’t find the answer to. How do we reconcile

A woman should be free to dress how she pleases without consequences of unwanted male attention or criticism from anyone

And

The way we choose to present ourselves is a form of non verbal communication and sends a message to others about our values and goals?

I think the answer is that one or both of those statements is either untrue, or partially true only.

But I'd add the statement:

1. the fashion industry and pop culture deliberately sexualise women and girls through clothing and beauty industry.
   

As I see it, the problem is your first premise is asking something impossible. You are free to go around wearing a bird dress, like that one Bjork had years ago, but to say there should be no consequences like people staring, giggling, or your boss saying it's probably not appropriate in the office? Not reasonable. That doesn't mean anyone can justify pushing you down the stairs, or putting a dead pigeon in your desk drawer. But people are going to come to conclusions about why you are wearing something like that and it's perfectly reasonable for them to do so.

[TeiTetua]

The title here is "The commodification of women" but it could also be "How women like to be portrayed".

I mean, the magazines that exist are the ones that women buy, and the ones not bought have disappeared (which plenty have). So once again we're left with the problem of women cooperating in the way women are presented. It really is difficult to talk about, as DaisiesandButtercups indicated.

[DaisiesandButtercups]

I do agree with Goosefoot that sexualisation is a bit the flip side of the extreme modesty of, for example, the burka. It reminds me of something I read on another thread about women as public property under some political conditions (left wing, liberal and/or progressive perhaps) and private property under others (conservative, right wing and/or religious perhaps). Still property, still controlled whichever way.

In the private property scenario some women will tell you that their modesty liberates them, empowers them and is their free choice just as much as women in the public property situation will tell you the same about their highly sexualised presentation. We grow up breathing in the values around us, be modest or be sexually alluring and available and because acceptance and belonging is so important we conform and believe it is what we have freely chosen for ourselves. Maybe it is in a way but maybe we could just as easily have chosen the opposite thing if the opposite culture was dominant around us.

Like Broomfondle says women are still not celebrated for their talents but for how they advertise their sexual assets or keep them private.

[DaisiesandButtercups]

Inspired by Donnaquixote’s quote

“A man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others.
By contrast, a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her...
To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this is at the cost of a woman’s self being split in two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself.”

From Ways of Seeing by John Berger

See the pp by Donnaquixote for more of that quote.

Regarding the question of freedom to dress as we please versus the messages sent by our choices I totally agree with Goosefoot’s 3rd statement that fashion and pop culture deliberately sexualise women and girls.

I do agree with what Broomfondle says in principle about the body not being the problem in principle but how the message is perceived. However, when a man working in the heat removes his shirt it could be argued that it is for his comfort alone that he does that whereas when women wear clothing which reveals their flesh their comfort is rarely the priority instead fashion and pop culture dictate that advertising their sexual assets and availability is imperative to women.

Having said all that I do resent that men can go topless when they get too hot and we can’t. Also I believe that in more conservative cultures it would be unacceptable for a man to be topless.

[DaisiesandButtercups]

And of course our actual words and wants are more important than any messages given off through dress and presentation!

[DidoLamenting]

Like Broomfondle says women are still not celebrated for their talents but for how they advertise their sexual assets or keep them private

No.

Women who are actually talented are celebrated for their talent; those without talent rely on advertising sex.

[midgebabe]

@DidoLamenting

Like Broomfondle says women are still not celebrated for their talents but for how they advertise their sexual assets or keep them private

No.

Women who are actually talented are celebrated for their talent; those without talent rely on advertising sex.

No, women who are actually talented are despised for their audacity

[TeiTetua]

Having said all that I do resent that men can go topless when they get too hot and we can’t.

There is that, but what about an ordinary everyday office where the women are in light summer dresses and sandals, while the men need long trousers and solid shoes? There really aren't many places where it's socially acceptable for men to take their shirts off, whereas women can dress for warm weather basically anywhere.

[DaisiesandButtercups]

@DidoLamenting

Like Broomfondle says women are still not celebrated for their talents but for how they advertise their sexual assets or keep them private

No.

Women who are actually talented are celebrated for their talent; those without talent rely on advertising sex.

We are thinking of magazines aimed at women which seem to tend heavily towards appearance, sexualisation and commodification rather than celebrate what women do and achieve.

Talented women have been too often analysed in the media on the basis of what they are wearing and what they look like.

It can be hard to escape that.

[BitOfFun]

@PlanDeRaccordement

Capitalism relies on inequality as does patriarchy.

No capitalism doesn’t rely on inequality, quite the opposite. In capitalism the producers (or workers) own the means of production instead of the State (or government) owning the means of production. It’s a society based on voluntary cooperative enterprises rather than a society based on involuntary work units where you, as a worker, do not even own your own labour or what you produce through your labour.

Patriarchy is completely separate from the economic system in use.

I was going to go off on one about how wrong you've got this, but then I realised see that you've just written 'capitalism' instead of 'communism' by mistake in your second sentence. Oh, for an edit button!

[Goosefoot]

Yeah, I was a bit confused about the workers owning the means of production in capitalism business...