Men Act and Women Appear

These words have echoed in my head for weeks. I read them in a compilation of essays called Ways of Seeing, by John Berger about a month ago. Since then, I have been engrossed with observing precisely what Berger was talking about.

According to him, women have had a long, tiresome history as objects in art. From fresco, to oil painting, to airbrush, to photography (still mostly airbrush), women have been things to looked at. They are constantly viewed through a male vantage point; even their own view of self is from a male vantage point.

Being a woman myself, I can say that it is a strange experience to actually realize that this is true. Questions arise everyday as to why it is true, and how can it be changed. Though as late, my most urgent question has been this: What really is a woman?

So as of late, I have been looking for material to help me answer that question. That is why I chose to analyze Self and Fit for this project. Both magazines are supposed to cater to the female mind and body, and represent a genre of "self-help" magazines which address issues that are of importance to women.

The variable I chose to investigate was the emphasis of the female body (idealistic appearance-wise). Because these magazines are supposed to offer a woman-empowering ideology, it is important to examine what exactly empowers the women within the magazines themselves. For instance, if they are empowered by an "Ultimate Butt Workout," or "Yoga for Hard, Tight Thighs," they are stuck in a perpetual male gaze (Self cover, Fit cover). Therefore, I looked at every single picture, from cover to cover, that had a female in it, and latently decided with a friend whether or not the image focused or relied on enviable or idealistic attributes the woman/en in it. Thus my one variable analysis has two levels: 1) emphasis on attractiveness of the female body, and, 2) no emphasis on attractiveness of the female body.

Although the images were coed latently, a casual set of guidelines were used. Basically, an image was definitely put in the "emphasis" category if 1) it was a partial shot, revealing only a body part(s) [because these shots are usually used to show us what our part(s) should look like],2 2) the woman/en in the image were in a man-pleasing role which included advertisements and articles where happiness is achieved though the snaring of men by the implied use of any device of appearance, and, 3)the woman/en in the image were portrayed as glamorous in appearance.

As already said, I coded the images with a latent coding scheme, or, according to what looked right, and was assisted by a female friend when stuck. By using a latent coding scheme, the content coding is probably only somewhat reliable, or repeatable, however, I strongly believe it is valid. A manifest coding attempt was made first, but abandoned after two miserable hours of not very valid pre-tests. Initially, I tried to code the frequency with which individual body parts were exploited, but ran into too much difficulty making categories exclusive. The categories into which images were finally coded are exclusive and exhaustive- an image either portrays an idealistically beautiful, glamorous woman, or part of a woman, or, it does not. Every picture observed, which was every picture with one or more females in it, fit into one of these categories. Pictures with several females were judged on their overall image.

The actual content coding went as follows.

Observations for Concentration of Images on Physical Appearance of Females Emphasis on Appearance 242
No Emphasis on Appearance 65
Total Observations 307

Research Hypothesis: There is a pattern [of emphasis in images].
Null Hypothesis: There is no pattern [of emphasis in images].

To analyze my statistics, I used a one sample chi-square test. Since the variable contained two levels, the theoretical value, T, is 307 observations/2 categories, or, 153.5 observations per category. If the two categories were equal, I would have observed about 153 images with an emphasis on appearance and about 153 without. It is obvious, however, that there is a difference between the two categories. Therefore, a one sample chi-square test must be done to see if the difference is due to chance (to accept the null hypothesis, or if it is due to something else- a pattern (to reject the null hypothesis).

Unsurprisingly, the chi-square value is very large: 102.04. Therefore, I can conclude with 99% certainty that there is a pattern to the appearance of women in self-help magazines. In fact, it can be said that there is an easily recognizable pattern. There were just over three times as many images of women with enviable or idealistic physical attributes that there were of women without them.

All in all, this is nothing new for women's, magazines in general. It is practically common knowledge that beauty, glamour, and sex sells. However, it seems contradictory that this would be true in magazines published by women, for women, with the intention to unify and elevate the female psyche. Of course, the body is important, but, is it three times as important as the other issues these magazines address pictorially? Or, is it simply that the body and its parts are more easily addressed visually?

I am willing to assert that these multitudes of images are a kind of chronicle of obsession with the female body, and they are not the cause of that obsession. The continual reproduction only helps to maintain long-standing, traditional views of women that they are things to be looked at. Therefore, the statistics here, although they themselves do not offer explanation, can be used in support of the theory from which this analysis sprung: men act and women appear. This analysis is a typical quantitative, deductive analysis; I began with a theory, formulated a question, decide what I would look at to answer the question, developed a coding scheme, tested it, coded the content of the material, used statistical analysis to determine whether results were due to chance, and am now (beyond the call of quantitative duty?) offering possible explanations for the results. In order for the statistics of this analysis not to support its research hypothesis, there would have to be a lot less pictures of butts, legs, an waistlines in magazines. In defense of women's self-help magazines, and to offer another explanation for the results of this analysis, it could be that it is the appearance of the female body that is what they intend to help. If this is true, then my analysis can be dismissed. However, "self-help" anythings are usually considered to be food for mind as well as body. Additionally, many of the tallies under "emphasis of physical attributes" came from advertisements. Thus one could arguably hold the position that there must be a focus on certain aspects of the body in order to sell products that take core of them. Yet, it is a focus on idealized, largely unattainable aspects of the body that make these images conspicuously out of control. Furthermore, magazines across all categories usually include advertisements that complement their ideology.

In sum, women's self-help magazines mainly help female consumers get to drugstores, hair salons, athletic equipment store, and cosmetic surgeons faster. The emphasis of visual on the female body, particularly isolated parts of it, maintain a decentralization of whole female self-image. The repetition of photographs revealing only legs, arms, eyes, lips, and the like, preserves a disunified view of women in which wholeness is something enigmatic and mystifying. When parts of a person is valued, and those parts are valued according to their desirableness, a fragmentation of that person's whole image results.

If I were to perform this content analysis again, I would definitely extend the scope and number of magazines analyzed. It would be very interesting to include other categories of magazines like men's, sports, occupational, hobby, teen, etc., to what aspects of womanhood are emphasized in them. Also, it would probably benefit my argument/theory to tally not only emphasis and non-emphasis of physical attributes, but to tally the specific physical attributes of women which are frequently shown. Then, more specific assertions about the treatment of women in magazines would make sense. And, it would be of great interest to analyze the same magazines every year or few years to compare trends in the portrayal of women over time- an advantage for which content analyses are well suited. Hopefully, then, the statistics would even out and come closer to proving the null hypothesis true- showing that women and men both have come closer to sharing an equitable view of one another. In other words, I hope the theory underlying this content analysis will grow obsolete.