As I worked for Heat magazine and Pyscologies magazine, I emailed them to see if they answer a few questions for me.
Below is the email I sent to a girl called Lucie that I worked with at Heat.
Hi Lucie
Hope you are ok? Happy New year and hope you had a great Christmas! :)
I was wandering if you do me a massive favor! I am in the process of writing my dissertation and i need some questions answering as soon as possible, i was wandering if you could possibly take a few minutes and answer them for me and also forward the email around the office to get other peoples percpectives on the topic.
My dissertation is on the on the male gaze and is there such thing as a female gaze. The male gaze is where by in advertising, magazines, Tv adverts etc... women are objectified to men. I am looking at wether in todays society wether there is such thing as a female gaze, where women are the spectators looking at both men and women as objects.
If you could please answer the questions below i would really appreciate, and forward this email on around the office! :D My deadline is very soon!
1. How do you think the representation of men has changed over the last 20 years?
2. Do you think there is such a thing as a himbo (a male version of a bimbo)? express your opinion on this.
3. In todays magazines do you feel there is an equal amounts of male and female objectification? explain.
If you have any more thoughts/opinions on this topic please feel free to express.
Thank you, really hope you can help me out!
Thanks again
Oli Semp
Hope you are ok? Happy New year and hope you had a great Christmas! :)
I was wandering if you do me a massive favor! I am in the process of writing my dissertation and i need some questions answering as soon as possible, i was wandering if you could possibly take a few minutes and answer them for me and also forward the email around the office to get other peoples percpectives on the topic.
My dissertation is on the on the male gaze and is there such thing as a female gaze. The male gaze is where by in advertising, magazines, Tv adverts etc... women are objectified to men. I am looking at wether in todays society wether there is such thing as a female gaze, where women are the spectators looking at both men and women as objects.
If you could please answer the questions below i would really appreciate, and forward this email on around the office! :D My deadline is very soon!
1. How do you think the representation of men has changed over the last 20 years?
2. Do you think there is such a thing as a himbo (a male version of a bimbo)? express your opinion on this.
3. In todays magazines do you feel there is an equal amounts of male and female objectification? explain.
If you have any more thoughts/opinions on this topic please feel free to express.
Thank you, really hope you can help me out!
Thanks again
Oli Semp
As I could appreciate, it was jsut after christmas and New Year when I emailed them, also they are a weekly magazine, so unfortunately they were extremely busy and I received no feedback, but Lucie did try her best and replied saying the following...
Hi Olly
I’ve sent your email to helen to circulate – I’m a bit snowed under I’m afraid so it depends when your deadline is. But hopefully some people will get a chance. Chase helen if you havent heard back x
I’ve sent your email to helen to circulate – I’m a bit snowed under I’m afraid so it depends when your deadline is. But hopefully some people will get a chance. Chase helen if you havent heard back x
I also emailed the editor of a new magazine called Filament, which is a magazine similiar to Loaded but for women, where by they exploit men to please women, something that is very unusual.
She sent me this feedback from my email, which I found extremely useful.
HI Oli
I just wanted to let you know that I got your message, I'd love to answer your questions and will hopefully be able to send you something back in the next 48 hours.
All the best
Suraya
Hi Oliver
2. Do you think there is such a thing as a himbo (a male version of a bimbo)? express your opinion on this.
Your questions are very interesting, and I'm very happy to answer them - I'm also delighted to hear that you're writing on this topic.
There are, however, ideas implicit in what you're saying that I wanted to address first, and I've scattered the answers to your questions below among other information, so as to form a cohesive narrative.
The eroticised woman (whether clothed or unclothed) is used far more in advertising to sell products that are intended for a male audience, a female audience or both. The eroticised male is rarely used, except where the primary intended audience is gay men, with women as a secondary audience - Calvin Klein is a good example of this. However, I do think this is changing - I have noticed some recent examples where the eroticised male is used. Some recent advertising for Diesel Jeans and Scottish Beef pop into mind.
It's easy to test this idea by getting out of bed in the morning. Just count the numbers of images of eroticised women vs. men you see as you go about your daily life. I haven't found anyone yet who's got a ratio any more equal than about 70/30.
But is it 'objectification'?
I would caution against jumping to a first-wave feminist conclusion here and thinking that all eroticised portrayals are automatically pernicious in some way, or 'objectifying'. Laura Mulvey first described 'the male gaze', but it must be said that her theory isn't based on research - and certainly some of her observations (eg, that women in erotic presentations usually avert their gaze in order to demonstrate submissiveness) are not at all what I observe.
What is 'the female gaze'?
At Filament we don't use the term The Female Gaze to talk about some kind of opposite of male objectification of women, we are simply highlighting that the pictures we have in our magazine aren't designed for and by gay men - this may not seem like rocket science, but almost every women's erotic magazine before us - such as Playgirl and For Women - simply bought their images off the gay market.
So, is there a 'female gaze' in advertising?
To some extent, yes. Although I am only talking here about erotic portayals of men that clearly intend a female, rather than a gay male audience. As mentioned before, I have seen some recent examples of erotic male portrayals that are obviously intended for women, rather than gay men. However, this is still very rare.
1. How do you think the representation of men has changed over the last 20 years?
20 years ago was the year 1990. I was a teenager in the 90s, and certainly on the alternative scene, you saw some representations of heterosexual masculinity that were really challenging. But this is not really new - the heart-throbs of the 1970s and 80s like David Cassidy, Robert Plant and David Bowie were equally challenging and perhaps even more mainstream than their 90s counterparts. In the mainstream, we still have an enormous problem with the idea that women might find anything other than meathead beefcakes sexually attractive.
20 years ago was the year 1990. I was a teenager in the 90s, and certainly on the alternative scene, you saw some representations of heterosexual masculinity that were really challenging. But this is not really new - the heart-throbs of the 1970s and 80s like David Cassidy, Robert Plant and David Bowie were equally challenging and perhaps even more mainstream than their 90s counterparts. In the mainstream, we still have an enormous problem with the idea that women might find anything other than meathead beefcakes sexually attractive.
Part of the reason I started Filament was there was so much research out there that confirmed that this taste in 'more feminine' men was more the rule than the exception - this research started to emerge in the 1990s and yet why did we only see beefy, square-jawed men, chippendale-type men held up as totty for women? Filament has mainly been ridiculed by the mainstream for doing this. It's an interesting question as to why our very simple premise has inspired so much vitriol. Why is the idea that women (a) are visual and want to look at men and (b) this might include men who aren't 'traditionally masculine' so threatening that the Daily Mail decided to devote two whole pages to how much they hated the idea, without coming up with one piece of evidence to support their view?
2. Do you think there is such a thing as a himbo (a male version of a bimbo)? express your opinion on this.
Yes, there is a 'himbo' archetype, and like the 'bimbo', it is ultimately reinforcing of sexism. For example, Himbos are often male models, such as in the film Zoolander, thus reinforcing the idea that male modelling is something done by 'dim' men.
Of course, the same stereotype about female models exists, but because women modelling is such a we can all think of countless examples where the intelligence of particular models has become a focus for the media (eg, Lily Cole, Cindy Crawford), so the female stereotype is not so powerful.
Social commentator Sarah Haskins talks here about how men are often portayed as 'doofy' in television advertising, thus reinforcing the burden on women to clean up after men etc, because according to these ads, men are too stupid to take care of themselves.
For obvious reasons, the himbo archetype is pernicious to both men and women, although it is sold to women as something that makes them superior, as the Sarah Haskins minidoco shows, the ultimate aim of this stereotype is to make us buy products, which will often mean women end up simply doing more work.
What I'd like to see is both men and women portrayed as both intelligent human beings and erotic subjects. I think we're in the grips of a sexist society where we frequently see men being portrayed as stupid, and never see them portrayed as erotic subjects (for the female gaze, as opposed to the gay male gaze).
3. In todays magazines do you feel there is an equal amounts of male and female objectification? explain.
It depends on what you mean by objectification here. If you're talking about physical representation, definitely not.
Let's do a pop study, using the magazines I have to hand:
Scarlet magazine, Jul 07 (A 'sexy' women's magazine)
Total pages: 148
Number of pages containing eroticised pictures of women: 58 (39%)
Number of pages containing eroticised pictures of men: 24 (16%)
(tellingly, most of the erotic images of women were in the advertising, which is primarily for lingerie)
Playboy magazine, Sep 09 (A 'sexy' men's magazine)
Total pages: 134
Number of pages containing eroticised pictures of women: 58 (43%)
Number of pages containing eroticised pictures of men: 4 (3%)
Company magazine, Aug 09 (A 'general' women's magazine)
Total pages: 174
Number of pages containing eroticised pictures of women: 79 (45%)
Number of pages containing eroticised pictures of men: 14 (8%)
[Unfortunately I don't have a general men's title to add, but I'm sure you get where this is going]
This is generally explained by commentators with the view that women are more turned on or motivated by images of other women than they are by images of men, whereas men are more motivated or turned on by images of women than by images of other men. However, I highly suspect this is a myth (and a self-reinforcing one, given it's all we're ever offered!) as I have never seen any academic research which confirms it. There is some research which may be relevant:
Which found that women were equally aroused by material featuring male and female subjects (which would suggest that the women's magazine stats above should be nearer to 50/50).
So it seems likely that this overabundance of eroticised women has much more to do with presenting an image of women and their desires that appeals to men, rather than catering to women as an audience.
In case you're wondering, Filament's pattern is about the same as Playboy, but with genders reversed obviously!
Would it be better if there was equal amounts of male and female 'objectification'?
No, I don't think so, if we're talking about objectification as degrading portrayals, or sexual or sexualised portrayals of people in non-sexual contexts (for example, in advertising fashion, cars or hi fi equipment). However, the huge disbalance of erotic portrayals of women over men, may be sending a message to young women that being a subject of erotic sexual gaze is a gender role (ie, it is what women do, it makes you feminine etc) as opposed to a personal choice (ie, it is what some people choose to do), which perhaps leads to more 'objectification' overall, because women are pushing to provide it and men are pushing to consume it. I've certainly heard of cases where Filament has compelled men to re-consider how they feel about erotic images of women, which I think is ultimately a good thing.
I hope this is useful! Please get back to me if you have any additional questions.
Atb
Suraya Sidhu Singh
Editor
Filament magazine
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