Editorials

Stop It, Cosmo

1 August 2016

By Lois

There is quite a long list of problems I have with the women’s magazine Cosmopolitan. The patronising tone; the culture of misogyny it perpetuates. But one thing in particular came to my attention a while ago when I accidentally came across the magazine’s Snapchat feature. I couldn’t initially put my finger on what was bothering me (outside of the usual), but then it struck me.

Anyone who’s ever come across Cosmo in any context may have noticed that it has a habit of referring to women as girls. ‘Ten things you should know before dating a girl who likes food’, ’15 things every girl who grew up in a house will know’, ‘Ten things you should know before passing a girl in the street’, etc, etc. On the surface it’s all cuddly and Boots advert-esque, but underneath, there lies quite a deep-rooted issue.

My main problem with this is that it never once calls men boys. Or at least rarely; I certainly couldn’t find any examples when researching the matter, and it can be universally agreed that if they did it would seem somewhat… perverse. Which in my opinion all comes back to the idea women should strive to be as young and non-threatening as possible in order to be easily swallowed by their male counterparts, who should on their part strive to be masculine and domineering.

It seems like a small thing, but it serves as a small slice of the big picture of ‘everyday sexism’ (a superb phrase coined by the excellent Laura Bates, if you weren’t already aware). It’s the patronising tone again that is adopted all too often; they might as well say ‘love’ or ‘darling’ or ‘smile, it might never happen’ – all of which are generally accepted by all but those who use them as condescending. Why not ‘women’? It calls itself a ‘women’s magazine’, so why persist with calling its readership girls? It might as well attempt to disguise the blatant misogyny behind its articles, otherwise there’s no need for it to exist – bare-faced misogyny can be found all over the place. I like my oppression shoved down my throat discreetly – am I right, girls?

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