Fieldwork Excursion #4
Activity #1: Gender & Sexuality: Pop and Pulp The magazines I chose to represent list one for this assignment are People and Cosmopolitan and representative of list two are Vibe and Relevant. People magazine is a weekly magazine that showcases celebrity and human-interest stories. Cosmopolitan is a monthly magazine for women that features articles on relationships, sex, beauty, health and more. Vibe is a strictly online magazine that highlights R&B and hip hop artists, actors, and other entertainers. Lastly, Relevant is a bi-monthly magazine that looks at faith, life, and culture.
According to Witt (2015), heteronormativity is defined as “a term that sociologists use to describe the cultural presupposition that heterosexuality is the appropriate standard for sexual identity and practice and that alternative sexualities are deviant, abnormal, or wrong” (p. 303). With this definition in mind, I feel that each magazine to some degree is heteronormative. For instance, they all follow the idea that a man should look like this and a woman should look like that, with a clear image of each. For example, in People the women and men both are socialized to be what is considered “attractive” by society, the women being all made up and the men being strong and masculine. The one magazine that I feel follows this the least is Relevant magazine for it features more alternative pieces that features people who are typically deviant to the norm. I think that all these magazines use photoshop to some extent, although I feel that Cosmopolitan uses photoshop the most. …show more content…
From the website Beauty Redefined I found in an article titled, “Photoshop Phoniness: The Hall of shame,” the following statistic; “The average women sees 600 photoshopped images per day. What are you comparing yourself to?” I feel that this quote is very eye opening because if you’re constantly seeing images that are retouched you are never truly seeing what “real” beauty is. This I feel leads to body dysmorphia because you’re constantly comparing yourself to an unattainable image of what is considered beautiful from standards set by society. Activity #2: Race & Ethnicity Color-blind racism is defined by Witt (2015) as, “the use of race-neutral principles to perpetuate a racially unequal status quo” (p. 324). I take this definition literally to mean to not see color and in that sense I think that ignoring racism is not helping to fix it. I think that out of the magazines listed above People held the most …show more content…
I think that having a magazine that is representative of a specific race is beneficial because it allows them to connect and relate to it more so than they would to a more mainstream magazine. In regards to the other magazines and past magazines I have read I feel that people of color are held to a white standard of beauty. In the past I have read a magazine in which they had whitewashed the darker skinned individuals to look whiter, this is a prime example of people of color being held to a white standard of beauty. This is extremely detrimental to people of color for it makes them believe that there is something wrong with the color of their skin. Another example of this is when people of color have weaves that drastically hides their natural curls making them to have straight hair. There are many more examples of this but I feel that these two examples are the ones that are most prominent in magazines and
Activity #1: Gender & Sexuality: Pop and Pulp The magazines I chose to represent list one for this assignment are People and Cosmopolitan and representative of list two are Vibe and Relevant. People magazine is a weekly magazine that showcases celebrity and human-interest stories. Cosmopolitan is a monthly magazine for women that features articles on relationships, sex, beauty, health and more. Vibe is a strictly online magazine that highlights R&B and hip hop artists, actors, and other entertainers. Lastly, Relevant is a bi-monthly magazine that looks at faith, life, and culture.
According to Witt (2015), heteronormativity is defined as “a term that sociologists use to describe the cultural presupposition that heterosexuality is the appropriate standard for sexual identity and practice and that alternative sexualities are deviant, abnormal, or wrong” (p. 303). With this definition in mind, I feel that each magazine to some degree is heteronormative. For instance, they all follow the idea that a man should look like this and a woman should look like that, with a clear image of each. For example, in People the women and men both are socialized to be what is considered “attractive” by society, the women being all made up and the men being strong and masculine. The one magazine that I feel follows this the least is Relevant magazine for it features more alternative pieces that features people who are typically deviant to the norm. I think that all these magazines use photoshop to some extent, although I feel that Cosmopolitan uses photoshop the most. …show more content…
From the website Beauty Redefined I found in an article titled, “Photoshop Phoniness: The Hall of shame,” the following statistic; “The average women sees 600 photoshopped images per day. What are you comparing yourself to?” I feel that this quote is very eye opening because if you’re constantly seeing images that are retouched you are never truly seeing what “real” beauty is. This I feel leads to body dysmorphia because you’re constantly comparing yourself to an unattainable image of what is considered beautiful from standards set by society. Activity #2: Race & Ethnicity Color-blind racism is defined by Witt (2015) as, “the use of race-neutral principles to perpetuate a racially unequal status quo” (p. 324). I take this definition literally to mean to not see color and in that sense I think that ignoring racism is not helping to fix it. I think that out of the magazines listed above People held the most …show more content…
I think that having a magazine that is representative of a specific race is beneficial because it allows them to connect and relate to it more so than they would to a more mainstream magazine. In regards to the other magazines and past magazines I have read I feel that people of color are held to a white standard of beauty. In the past I have read a magazine in which they had whitewashed the darker skinned individuals to look whiter, this is a prime example of people of color being held to a white standard of beauty. This is extremely detrimental to people of color for it makes them believe that there is something wrong with the color of their skin. Another example of this is when people of color have weaves that drastically hides their natural curls making them to have straight hair. There are many more examples of this but I feel that these two examples are the ones that are most prominent in magazines and