Decoding Femininity

Decoding Femininity: Advertisements and Their Teenage Readers Author(s): Dawn H. Currie Source: Gender and Society, Vol.
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DECODING FEMININITY Advertisementsand Their TeenageReaders

DAWN H. CURRIE University of British Columbia
The author explores how the discursivepractices of social texts relate to the subjectivitiesof readers. EmployingDorothy Smith'snotion offemininity as textuallymediateddiscourse, the author analyzes how teenage girls read the depictionsoffemininityin the glossy advertisements offashion magazines. Throughinterviews with 48 girls aged 13 to 17 years, she explores both why and how young girls negotiate "whatit meansto be a woman."Mostyoung girls in herstudydrawon stereotypicalmeanings of adultfemininity.By giving these stereotypestruthstatus, these readersvalorizenot onlypatriarchal meanings of womanhoodbut also naturalize associations betweenfemininity and the commodities throughwhich thisfemininity is expressedas the everydaydoing of gender The author concludes by discussing implicationsof this studyfor both a feminist theoryand a feminist politics of culture.
While sociology has been central in establishing feminist studies within universities in both North America and Britain, Barrett claims that the social sciences have "lost their purchase within feminism and the rising star lies with the arts, humanities and philosophy" (1992, 204). She locates the eclipse of the social sciences within a growing interest, across all disciplines, in symbolization and representation. Within feminist scholarship, interest in issues surrounding sexual identity, political agency, and cultural process has shifted feminist theorizing away from determinist models of "social structure" that foreclose questions about subjectivity, the social construction of the gendered "Self," and the importance of the psyche. Although Barrett suggests that the recent interest in literary theory and methods has the potential to initiate a "paradigm shift" in sociology, it is not yet clear how sociologists can draw on the humanities to better understand aspects of social life
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The researchfor this article was made possible by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I would like to thank my research assistants, especially JenniferFenton,Anne MacLean,Rebecca Raby,and Alissa Sacks.Timeto workon the preparationof this article was madepossible througha visitingprofessorshipat the Centre Studiesat the for Women's Queen'sUniversityof Belfast. Finally,I thankNancy Thebergeand Ann Clark, VisitingScholars at the Centrefor Research in Women's Studies and Genderat the Universityof British Columbia,for their commentson this article. REPRINTREQUESTS:Dawn H. Currie,Universityof BritishColumbia,Anthropology and Sociology, 6303 NWMarineDrive, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6TIZ1. GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol.11No.4, August 1997 453-477 ? 1997Sociologists forWomen in Society 453
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historicallyneglected by social scientific investigation.Given the enticementof a motivationsurrounds paradigmcenteringon women as social agents,considerable the reformulationof sociology throughthe incorporation of literarytheory and methods. In a considerationof how sociology might fruitfullydraw on developmentsin the humanities,Valverdepoints out that debates about literarymethods in social research: havethusfarfailed to highlight thespecificities of social(asopposed to literary) ways
of reading texts or, in general, analyzing systems of signifiers .... While literary
modesof reading seekto uncover theinternal of discourses, socialanalysis workings of socialsubjectivity. fortheformation andre-formation is characterized byaconcern (1991, 173) Her emphasis on social subjectivity is important,because it emphasizes the search for an account of the systemic, ratherthan individual reconstitutionof women's patriarchal subordination throughwhat Millett (1970) called women's consent"to domination.This searchdirectsattentionto everydaytexts "engineered through which commonsense understandingsof "the social" are formulatednewspapers,television programs,political speeches, and so on. Valverdecites the work of StuartHall as an example of theorizingthat directsattentionto the ways in which social subjectivity is formed, internalized,contested, and re-formed throughthe strugglesof competingaccountsof "thesocial."In these analyses Hall employs literarytechniquesthatenablehim to connectdiscursivepracticesandthe subjectivitiesof those who produceor consume social texts. Although "practical" informedby Marxistcritique,the legacy of Hall throughthe Centrefor ContempoStudies(CCCS)atBirmingham, England,moves criticalsocial theory raryCultural that plaguedearlierattemptsby sociwell beyond the deterministinterpretations relations ologists to theorizethe placeof ideasandculturein analysesof thematerial of dominationand subordination. to discourse Despite the advancethat the shift from sociological structuralism analysis represents,Valverdemaintainsthat much furtherwork is needed before we can adequatelydeterminethe usefulness of literarytheories of subjectivity. Poststructural theory,as one expression,is at this point in time "often vague and abstract,consisting more of caveats abouthow not to thinkof subjectivitythanof (Valverde1991, 182; also see Barrett1992). She positive guides to social research" maintainsthat the challenge is to theorize social subjectivityin ways that break versusagency throughexplicationof down the sociological dichotomyof structure the dynamicnatureof strugglesover meaning. This articletakesup herchallenge,exploringwomen'smagazinesas social texts what it means in our society "to be a woman."I engaged in strugglessurrounding both the theory and locate this explorationwithin ongoing debates surrounding as "gender shift from the of women's magazines analytic tracing magazines, politics the identifies This review thus texts." "social as treatment their current to scripts" shift"in the sociological study of subjectivity.I credit beginnings of a "paradigm
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this shift to the influence of cultural studies as an interdisciplinaryfield that includes, but extends, sociological inquiryinto culture.The purposeof this review is to raise empirical,ratherthansimply theoretical,questionsaboutthe natureof a of self and "the paradigmthat takes as its startingpoint women's understandings social." These questions are exploredthroughmy currentresearchon adolescent readingof fashion magazines.In conclusion,I reconsiderthe notionof subjectivity as an effect of social texts. With culturebecoming redefinedas the "new"site of this questionof how we become women's oppression/liberation, urgencysurrounds women throughsocial texts thatoperateas vehicles of power. BECOMING WOMEN: MAGAZINES AS SOCIAL TEXTS Subjectivityrefersto "theconscious andunconsciousthoughtsandemotions of her relationto the individual,her sense of herself and her ways of understanding the world"(Weedon1987, 32). The notionthatwomen's magazinesareimplicated in women's social subjectivityfollows, in large part,from Beauvoir's now comthat"oneis not born,butrather becomes,a woman"(1961, 9). monplaceobservation Because of their ability to shape consensualimages and definitionsof femininity, women's magazines exert "culturalleadership"in struggles surroundingwhat it means "tobe a woman"(McCracken1993). This attribution of leadershipis based on the seemingly self-evident claim thatthese magazines"shapeboth a woman's view of herself,and society's view of her"(Ferguson1983, 1). Fergusonpoints out that "thefact thatthey exist at all makes a statementaboutthe position of women in society as one which requiresspecial considerationand distinctive treatment." Against the misogynist neglect of women's magazines by malestreamscholars, feminist sociologists continueto documentthe extensive stereotypingof women in both North American and British mass media.1Taken at face value, the representationsin women's magazinesseem to imply thatwe become women naturally throughdomestic and sexual roles. the 1970s, feministsociologists drewattentionto the restrictiveand Throughout often demeaningrepresentations of women in theirmagazines(see Ballasteret al. and 1991; Courtney Whipple 1983;Ferguson1983;Kaiser1979;McCracken1993; Ruggiero and Weston 1985). Despite the fact that women's magazines are one of the very few media "for women, about women" and very often "by women," feminists identifiedideological constructionsthatwork to define women's underthereproduction of patriarchal standingsof theirexperiencesin ways thatguarantee definitions of the social world (Winship 1978, 135). Reflecting the Althusserian Marxism of the CCCS, Winship (1978) pointed out that what is representedin women's magazines is not an accurate portrayalof the gender relations that characterizereaders'everyday lives but an imaginaryrelation of women to the relations of patriarchal subordination. In a study of magazines for teenage girls, McRobbie (1978) advanceda similarobservation.She arguedthatadolescence, as
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an ideological construction,is given meaning and made comprehensiblethrough and "jealousy." She found that "romance," magazine topics such as "problems," female readerswho are the subjects of this discourse derive meanings for their experiencesas "girls"throughthese categoriesof magazinediscourse. Through the 1980s, feminist sociologists characterizedthe advertisements, feature articles, and stories appearing in women's magazines as vehicles of roles. Following sex role theory,much of women's socializationinto subordinate of social texts,internalizemessages this worktakesthe view thatwomen,as readers of femininity.Althoughresearchon adolescentmagathat representthe "scripts" zines is sparse, these magazines are similarly characterizedas promoting the womanhoodthroughmessagesthatemphasize socializationof girls into traditional romance(Evanset al. 1991; Peirce 1990). andheterosexual physicalbeautification More important,content analysis has shown that the messages in both women's andteenagemagazineshave not keptpace with the societalchangesaccompanying Because these observationsconnectedwomen's magazines "women'sliberation." of women, "an to dominant societal interests in perpetuatingthe subordination notionof mass media"emergedamongfeministmediacritics almostconspiratorial (Walters1995, 35). Withinthe media researchand theorythatdominatedfeminist the power to unilatsociology into the 1980s, women's magazineswere attributed erally reproduceexisting social arrangements. As problematicas mediaresearchbasedon contentanalysishas provento be, I of restrictingand stereotypical agree with Walters(1995) that the documentation effort(also see Press 1994).Before the work roles for womenhas been an important of feminist researchersin the 1970s, little attentionwas paid to the reconstitution of gender roles in the mass media. This lack of interest reflects the pervasive of gender,which was not challengeduntilthe emergenceof feminist naturalization (see Sydie 1987). At the sametime, howeverusefultheoriesof ideology scholarship have been in identifyingsocial texts as vehicles of power,theirlegacy has proven problematic.Most of this work assumes that knowledge about the content of women's magazinespermitsinferencesaboutthe effects of thatcontent.As temptpointsout thatit is too simplisticto claim that ing as this inferencemay be, Walters the situationis "badimages producebad attitudesand behaviours;unfortunately, Marxist more complex than that" (1995, 3). Within sociology generally, the as treatmentof social texts ideological scripts broughtwith it the problems of For our purposes,threeproblemsthatarise fromtreatAlthusserianstructuralism. as gender scripts propel the current search for new ing women's magazines of treatingsubjectivityas the three All problemsreflectthe inadequacy approaches. of effect self-evident magazinereading. of women's magazinesas the interpretation As a theoryof social reproduction, that social thesis to the committed is dependson the integration ideological scripts "interalization" of common values. Giddens (1983, 65) argues that this thesis, widespread in sociology, obscures the knowledgeability of social actors: The cannotbe equatedwith the acceptedas legitimate.This equation taken-for-granted connection between motives, norms, and legitimationin the inherent an implies
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activities of everyday life. He points out that social life contains many practices thatare sustainedin andthroughthe knowledgeabilityof social actorsbut thatthey do not reproduce as a matter of normativecommitment. The second problem thananalyticdebatesthatplayedthemselvesoutin feminist concernspoliticalrather cultural studies. Specifically, a number of writers have drawn attention to an unacknowledged elitism that follows from the dichotomization of patriarchal ideology versus feminist knowledge. While feminist researchershave been acsubtexts of women's corded the ability to identify (hence reject) the patriarchal as similarlycapableof subversive magazines,female readerswere neverportrayed readerswere characterized as being "duped" ordinary reading.Unlike researchers, researchdisappointedtheorists by the text (see Ang 1988). Finally,ethnographic convinced of the ideological effects of reading.Actual readerswere discoveredto behave in ways that contradicttheories of ideology and the notion that women's magazinesact as social scripts. Given the interestamongfeminist sociologists in women's magazines,research on readers of women's media is virtually absent (see Frazer 1987; Gray 1987; McRobbie 1991a). While sketchy, existing research challenges the view that women passively internalizethe scripts of patriarchal oppression.For example, Radway (1984) found that the everyday practice of romance reading actually for women to give primacyto the needs of proscription challenges the patriarchal others.In her study,readingromancenovels was one way in which women made time in their domestic schedules for an activity that put their own needs aheadof those of others. Moreover,Radway claims that by selecting as well as rejecting specific texts, readersareactively takingemotionalbenefitsfor themselves:"They form of romancefor their own use" (1984, at least partlyreclaim the patriarchal 184). In the final analysis,becauseRadway(1984) identifiesbothpotentialbenefits as well as dangers of romancereading, she is reluctantto definitively condemn fiction. This call for more cautious speculationaboutthe effects (hetero)romance of mass media is echoed in the work of Frazer(1987). Exploringthe acquisitionof feminine gender and sexual identitythroughmagazinereading,Frazerfound that adolescentreadersof Jackiedid not coincidewith the theoretical readerconstructed throughtextual analysis. In real life, her readerswere much freerthan theories of ideology allow. More important,ideological messages were undercutby readers' reflexivity and reflectiveness. Following these types of challenges,feministsbeganto arguethat"itis one thing to describe the constructionof femininity in magazines, anotherto suggest that readers identify with or behave in the ways advocated"(Winship 1991, 136). Drawing on their own magazine reading, a numberof feminist cultural critics confessed thatthey personallyfoundmagazinereadinghighly pleasurable, despite their acknowledged "dangers."Within this context, pleasure became "the new of culturaltheorythatposits a liberatory catchword" potentialfor magazinereading see Wilson also Barrett this reframing (Walters1995, 89). (1985, 1981) interprets of debate on women's magazines as a healthy reaction against the moralism of second-wave feminism. For example, fashion and beautyculturewere denounced
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to patriarchal the 1970s as capitulation of femininity,and throughout proscriptions yet at the same time they were recognizedas one of the few legitimateavenues of women's creativeself-expression. thatwhile cultural critics,Winshipmaintains Among the "new"feministcultural of women can still be condemnedfor being reactionary, to experirepresentations ence pleasure from them is an entirely differentissue. For Ang, pleasure arises because fantasy and fiction do not "functionin the place of, but beside, other dimensionsof life" so thatour pleasure"neednot imply thatwe are also boundto take up these positionsand solutionsin ourrelationsto ourloved ones and friends, ourwork,ourpoliticalideals, andso on"(1988, 135). Fromthis perspectivewriters supportas commonsenseWinship'sclaim that feminist criticismoften overlooks the factthatwomen'smagazines"arefirstandforemostfantasiesfor pleasurerather thanpractical action,andthatthey arerecognizedas suchby the viewer"(1987, 55). Commentingon the glossy ads for fashion, beauty,cookery, and home, Winship maintains: in theadvertising luxuriate evera thought of theproduct.... without [W]efrequently from[ads,eventhough] I havenointention enormous of buying I'vegained pleasure itis theimage what is advertising. I amhard theproduct. Indeed, puteventoremember in whichads deal;we become of dreams andrelishthe vocabulary We recognize butwe knowfull well thatthosecommodities involvedin the fictionstheycreate; fictions. will notelicitthepromised (1987,55-56) In contrast to much of the writing by sociologists, within cultural studies postmoderncriticsrefuse to simply dismiss popularculture"asmerely servingthe peddling 'false consciouscomplementarysystems of capitalismand patriarchy, ness' to the dupedmasses"(GammanandMarshment1988, 1). The condemnation of women's magazinesreenactsmisogynistdevaluationof the feminine, a devaluation that then extends to women readers.Insteadof dismissingmagazinereading as preventingwomen from achieving theirpotential,a numberof writersattempt to not only explain (in orderto redeem)the widespreadappealof activities (such for womenbutadvancethese activities as magazinereading)thataredeemed"bad" Writers such as Kaplan(1987) maintainthat for social as potentialavenues change. of consumer in the fantasies readerindulgence lifestyles, an activitythatfeminists is as much an the expressionof the failureof the market deploredthroughout 1970s, of opennessin which our into it. Indulgencethusoffersa narrative as incorporation "sentence us to a social do not cultural forms with pleasurable relationships anxieties about and refusals continual indicate our but can of, imprisonment, dissociationsfrom those relations"(Pleasance1991, 83). celebrationof culturalconsumptionreceives For the largepart,this postmodern "mixed" reviews among social scientists; in some cases it has been met with outrighthostility(see Seaman1992). Muchof the hostilitywithinsociology toward agency throughculturalconsumptionstems from the postmodernchallenge to the humanism that makes social science possible. While humanism implies a con-
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scious, unified, and rationalsubject who stands apartfrom the text, postmodern posits agency in the linguistic and other signifying systems poststructuralism throughwhich "the subject"is formed. Because identity is experienced as fragmented and conflictual, subjectivity is likewise an unstable site of continual contestation. Reading culturaltexts (whetherby critics or ordinaryreaders)has been redescribedas "production," ratherthan consumptionbecause it generates multiple meanings and subjectivities. Drawing on psychoanalysis rather than socializationtheory,magazinereadingis positedas an activityinvitingthe constant rather thanthe stabilizationof identity.From undoingof meaningand subjectivity, this perspective, postmoderncritics uncover provocative,often subversive, subtexts in women's magazines that challenge earlierinterpretations (see, e.g., Fuss 1992; Griggers 1990). While I agree thatthe tendencyto distinguishbetweenfeminist readingand the everyday consumptionof mass culturesets up an unfeministpolitics of "us"and I also shareMcRobbie's(1991b) worrythatthe celebration of consumption "them," can transform political movementsinto "life styles."She observesthatthe issue of pleasure,connectedto consumerism,was intoa political drawn asfeminists andgaymenattempted totheorize those vocabulary which they enjoyed,even thoughorthodox left opinionseemedto experiences In bothcasesconsumer that disapprove. goodshada roleto playin the insistence couldbe usedas part of a process of self-andcollective "guilty pleasure" empowerment.(1991b,7) McRobbie concludes that the celebration of the pleasures of creative self-expression throughconsumptionextrapolatesobjects "out of the context of their materiality"(1991b, 3), positing them instead in a vacuum of aesthetic pleasureand personalstyle. To conclude.AlthoughI am sympathetic towardthe everydaypracticeswhereby people "make do" in consumer culture (Fiske 1989), I reject the celebrationof culturalconsumptionas productiveactivity by "ordinary people."While reasons for this rejectionaremorecomplicatedthancan be conveyed here,they includemy observationthatthe claims advancinga subversiverole for women's magazinesare based, for the largepart,on the practicesof academiccritics as researcher-readers. One problem is that the status of the academic-typically a White, middle-class feminist reader-is given ontological privilege (see Bobo and Seiter 1991; hooks 1992). While the shift from ideological scriptsto textualsubjectivityis, overall, an of "real" analytic advance,this shift has been accompaniedby the disappearance women as historicallyembodiedreaders.As a consequence,althoughpoststructuralist theories of subjectivity have more appeal than sociological structuralism because they posit agency for readers,they cannothelp us theorizethat agency as an everydayactivity(Valverde1991). Below I exploresocial subjectivityto agency as the everyday activity of women mediatedby social texts that influence, but do not determine,our experiencesof "beingwomen."
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SUBJECTIVITY AS A TEXTUALLY MEDIATED PROCESS Walters(1995, 145-47) identifiesthreeproblemswith currentculturalanalysis based on texts: These problemsconcern the absence of "real"women, of social relationships,and of politics (thereforehistory).She claims thatwe have reached an impasse in culturalstudies.While sociological structuralism women patronized as unthinkingconsumers of capitalist culture, the notion that media cannot be criticized if audiences enjoy them simply replaceselitism with populism. Along Walterscalls for researchwith with a small but growing numberof commentators, focus as one possible way of movingbeyondthe current an intersubjective impasse. Also critical of many of the currenttrendsin textualanalysis, Smith (1990, 4) locates the impasse in the seldom questioned tendency to treat the text as a "specimen"of analysis. By specimen, she refersto the "strategyof workingfrom within the textual"to readpeople's lives off the text. Such an approach necessarily treatsboth women and social texts as objects.Livingstonenotes of this mannerof workingthat andof theanalyst's tendtodenytheroleof theanalyst reader) (oranyother [a]nalysts "the" of the text.Theytendto sociohistorical meaning positionwhenidentifying than toreifytheir ownanalytic rather of thetextasstatic conceive dynamic, categories theroleof contexts bothof production and of thetext,to underestimate as features in meaning. instead context-free universals (1990,33) seeking reading, theseproblemsarenot an inevitableconsequenceof treating Howeveralarming, culturaltextsas a phenomenon worthyof seriousscholarlyinvestigation. Analyzing women's magazinesas social texts thatmediatewomen's sense of themselves and their social world, Smith (1987, 1988, 1990) develops a frameworkthatdoes not displace human agency in favor of a determiningrole for the text and does not reducepolitical struggleto the signifying practicesassociatedwith consumption. Smith (1988, 1990) notes that gender,as it is typically viewed, appearsas an alreadyaccomplishedmode of being. Againstthis view, she problematizesgender thatrequires Phenomenologically, explanation. by treatingit as an accomplishment for women, gender is an accomplishmentthat is sustained through ongoing, definitionsof what everydaypracticesthatresonatewith (orreactagainst)dominant it means "to be a woman."In our culture,the meaningsaffixed to "beingwomen" are increasinglymediated by social texts, specifically women's magazines as a women'sactivitiesin relationto theirbodies. commercialmediumthatorchestrates For example, these magazinessuggest what we should wear as women, show us andbehaviorsacceptable ourmakeupandhair,informus of attitudes how to prepare In so on. women's and "in the women for "modern" short, know," magazinesoffer beliefs of women activities and the is tied to that a meaningof femininity everyday these it While sustain and into this thatbring (1990, 163). thereby being meaning women's practices,as a social discourse2they mediate texts do not "determine" practices of femininity among both magazine readersand nonreaders.In other
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is an individualaccomplishment-expressing compliance words, while "gender" or resistance-it is not carriedout in a context of women's making. Investigationof social subjectivitydoes not limit itself to either a study of the text or to its reading:The ways in which individualwomen read and talk about fashion magazines, for example, cannot be understood in isolation from the productionof commercialtexts as the context of the everyday practicesof being women. It takes us to the text's point of origin beyond its reading,an origin that marksmagazines and women's talk about them, even though women themselves may not consciously drawconnectionsbetweentheireverydaypracticesand those of social institutions,like the mass media and fashion industries,which attemptto narrowand finalize the range of meaningsthat social actorscan attributeto their can be studied as actual actions. As a mode of social consciousness, "femininity" practicesof embodiedwomen, practicesthatphenomenologicallydisplay an array of individual choices and personal preferences(see Beausoleil 1992). However sharedassumptionsaboutthe meandiverse these individualpracticesmay appear, ing of being a woman3belie the coordinationof culturalknowledge surrounding femininity. In our society this coordinationoccurs throughdiscoursesthat join to multinational interestsin the consumptionof fashion women'sindividual practices and beauty products.Throughthe discourse of femininitycontainedwithin commercial media such as women's magazines,the fashion and publishingindustries actively seek to coordinatethe multiplicity of local sites within which desire is translatedinto demandfor the commoditiesthey produce(Smith 1990, 173; also Smith 1988). As social texts, fashionmagazinesthusaffix meaningsto oureveryday experiences as women that support patriarchaland capitalist interests in the subordinationof women. As such, social texts are thus constituentof the ruling apparatus.The special capacity of commercial media is "the organization of modes vested particular places, persons,andevents into generalizedandabstracted in categoricalsystems, rules, laws, and conceptualpractices.The formerthereby become subject to an abstracted and universalizingsystem of ruling mediatedby texts"(Smith 1987, 108). In short,Smithreconnectswomen'smagazinesas cultural artifactsto their materialproduction,a connection that links the subjectivity of individual women to those institutions that have an interest in restricting and affixing specific meaningsto theirexperiencesas "women." Framedin this way, a feminist investigationof social texts and the individual subjectivitiesthat these texts mediate offers the potentialto integratemethods of culturalstudies into the sociological analysisof the arrangements throughwhich a is reconstituted, social "order" the and bridging sociological dichotomyof structure While this not does lived agency. deny position diversityamong(or within)women, it does acknowledgethat the activities of powerful institutionsare centrallyorganized around the accomplishmentof specific goals. In the final analysis, any meaningful politics of culturecannot ignore the powerful interestthat women's magazines,however pleasurable,represent. However suggestive, to date Smith'snotionof femininityas textuallymediated discourse remainsa theoretical,ratherthan empirical,considerationof women as
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of this articleexploresempiricalissues surroundembodiedreaders.The remainder of women's as a discoursethatmediatesthe subjectivthe treatment magazines ing While the raised of readers. arefartoo numerous by Smith'sapproach questions ity to be addressed in the currentformat, this approachdisplaces academic with readingof social texts. One problemis thatat this point we know very "everyday" little about how embodiedreaders,ratherthan middle-agedfeminist researchers, readwomen'smagazines.Towhatextentdo insightsgleanedfromourown readings readers?4 of women's magazinesapplyto "ordinary" FROM HYPOTHETICAL TO EMBODIED READERS Given the importanceof adolescence as a periodduringwhich young women are pressuredto conformto dominantideals of femininity,the paucityof feminist researchon adolescentmagazinesis curious.Challengingthis neglect, the "real" readersfor this studyare48 girls betweenthe ages of 13 and 17 years,most but not all regular teenzine readers.A referralsample of girls living around the lower mainlandof Vancouverwas developed by asking volunteersto suggest the names initiatedthe process of of two or three friends.While five differentindividuals5 of referral,to avoid sampling a social network,no more than two "generations" referralswere used from each initial contact. Criteriafor participationincluded about"beinga girl"andwrittenconsent simply an interestin talkingto researchers from parents.Of the 48 girls whose readingsare discussed in this article, 33 are 2 AfricanCanadian, and4 "other" ethnic/racial 9 Asian Canadian, EuroCanadian, origins. In this group, 12 girls came from families with (at least) one professional parent with university education, 10 from families with one parentin a skilled education,10 fromfamilies with one parentin postsecondary occupationrequiring a managerialor entrepreneurial occupation, 15 from families with one parent working in trades,and 1 respondentwith unemployedparents.In termsof family contexts, most of the girls came from two-parentfamilies (often with parentsin were in householdswith one parent second marriages), althoughaboutone-quarter and 1 respondentwas a "foster"child. Overall,these characteristics suggest that the sample is more or less "typical"of the populationfrom which it was drawn. we have no reasonto believe that While a referralsample is never representative, the girls in this study are not "ordinary" teenagers who can tell us something meaningfulabouttheirlives. An interview schedule was developed following group discussion with five girls.6The focus grouphelpedidentifymagazinereadinginterestandhabits,as well as the most appropriate style of discussion. Four trainedresearchassistantsconseemed to enjoy the opporinterviews.Overall,participants ductedtape-recorded covered Interview about to talk "getting ready for topics "girl things": tunity leisureactivities, school"in the contextof peerrelationsandconflicts with parents; as well as and the and habits; enjoyable preferences including magazinereading in follow-up interdifficult aspects of being a teenager.Thirty girls participated
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themes and exploredspecific issues in greater views that elaboratedon important detail. During the focus group girls discussed advertising images taken from manner.The fruitfulpopularteenzines7presentedto the groupin an unprompted ness of this innovation led me to include this exercise in individual interviews. During first-stageinterviews,girls were asked to discuss a series of images taken from Seventeen,the teenzine with both the longest historyof publicationin North America and the largest circulation.During second-stage interviews, girls discussed things thatthey had read in a recentissue of theirfavoritemagazine. In the final analysis, the currentstudy develops an wherethe modeof research is moreimpersonal, wherethe investigative approach less respondents, wherethe procedure more or remain involvesstructured subjects withoftenshortperiods of observation interviews [with]the whole supplemented character. on a moredocumentary 1991a,xi) (McRobbie tak[ing] process Given the paucity of researchon magazinereadingby adolescents,this study necessarily has an exploratorycharacter:The insights discussed below require follow-up andreplication.As Ballasteret al. (1991) note,one problemwith the type or "mediated" of researchdiscussed here is that the setting produces"displaced" I not claim that this While do natural of texts. study produced readings readings, the girls were askedsimply to "saythe firstthingthatcomes to mind"when looking at the picturesor to talk aboutwhat "theysaw."Readingsof images thatappeared to be structured by the respondent's perceptionof the exercise as a "test"(i.e., that we were looking for correctanswers)were excluded from the analysisbelow. The most interestingcommentsaboutwhether,andhow, magazinediscourseresonates with the respondent'slived experience come from unprompted disclosures, sugresearchcan best answerthe kinds of questionsraisedby gesting thatethnographic this study. Below I treatthe girls' readingsof ads, ratherthan my analysis of the texts as data to be thematicallyanalyzed.In other words, emphasis is given to discovery over confirmation.The themes discussed below emerged from interview transcripts; I deliberatelyavoided partitioningthe interviews for analysis by age or ethnicity,for example. One unanticipated finding is thatalthoughracismemerged as one of the most frequently mentioned "problems"in discussions of school culture, I could detect no substantivedifferences in the readings of dominant femininity (i.e., a femininity favoring whiteness) by majority versus minority readers.8 Similarto many culturalcommentators, girls claimedthatthey readmagazines did not preclude However,readingfor entertainment primarilyfor entertainment. that readingto learnaboutthe social world;in fact, the girls repeatedlymaintained theirmagazinesare useful sourcesof knowledge.Anne, a 13-year-oldEuroCanadian explained,
I like readingotherpeople's thingsand seeing whathappenswith theirlives and then I'11try and make sure it doesn't happen with mine [laughs] .... I like that [shows
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interviewer]-"Problems at Home, How to Cope." Like, if you're having family problems, you could probablyfind out what the problemswere and see how they solved theirproblems. Fourteen-year old Jasmine, an Asian Canadian, also claimed that magazines teach her a lot of things: They [magazines]teachyou a lot of things,like whatyou shoulddo, whatyou should think.Sometimesthey'rereallyhelpful-like yourMomdies, right?They mighthave advice on how to strugglethroughthis.Likeproblemsandthingslike that.And maybe I meanyou canjustlook atthosefor Likeyou know,"howto do a makeover." makeover. suggestions. Learning is facilitated when readers like this 15-year-old felt that magazine content addressed their particular age group: It's about people like our age and funny things that happen to them, and has like questionsyou can ask-like aboutyour body. There'squestions,uhm like everyday questions.Youcan also ask questionsto this model thatanswersthem.Theyjust seem to relatemore to me, agewise and everything. In this study, fantasy themes are not prominent in girls' readings, although a few did emerge. For the large part, the girls' readings are motivated by a desire to know about themselves, their everyday problems, and their social world. This motivation did not lead the girls to uncritically accept all texts as presented. While participants gave differing titles as preferred reading, the overriding characteristic of a favorite magazine was that it is "realistic": "Teen, I don't know, it's just more to my liking. It just seems more realistic. I think it deals more with the problems that people actually have" (16-year-old Euro Canadian). Fifteen-year-old Faye (Euro Canadian) relates teenzine content to the realism of her life: And in Seventeen,the articlesarebetterthanYM ... The ones in Seventeenareabout like real life, or sometimes they're stories that people have wrote [sic], and I like readingthat.[showing an example to interviewer]Well, we have had a family friend thathadbreastcancer,andsometimesI like thingslike this-that have, say, happened to my friendsor something. For Yvonne, a 13-year-old African Canadian, using "real" people and their stories improves a magazine's appeal: Sassy is a little betterthan YM.I mean it's in the same category,but it's a little better because they put real people on the cover and real people inside the magazine.... Sassy seems to prideitself on being more realisticthanthe othermagazines. From these excerpts we can see that reading preferences are not based on simply content: In fact, content analysis of the magazines9 reveals very few differences in the topics and issues covered. In choosing from magazine similarity, participants stated preferences for titles that treat their content in what is deemed to be a "realistic" manner. Given both the ubiquity of teenzine reading'0 and participants' willingness to assign "truth" status to these social texts, I set as my task an understanding of how "reality" is negotiated during the everyday reading of
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adolescent magazines. Given that all magazine texts are constructions,why are some texts, but not others,deemed by readersto representreal life? texts-such as storiesandadvicecolumns-mediate The ways in which editorial girls' negotiation of "the social" is the subject of discussion elsewhere; below I focus on advertisements.Ads are an obvious beginning point for an analysis of fashion and beauty magazines:They comprise about half of total magazine page space and arethe majorsourceof glossy imagerythatmakesthese magazinessuch a visually pleasurableread. Dyer (1982, 86) claims that pictures such as those have more impactthanwords becausethey areeasier prominentin advertisements More important, advertisements featureprominentlyin for readersto understand. academicdiscussion aboutthe pleasuresof magazinereading;includingthem in a study of girls' readingsallows us to comparemeaningmakingby adolescentgirls to that by middle-agedresearchers. as possible when asked As indicatedabove, girls were given as few "prompts" to "talk"about pictures.One point of discussion that emerged with most readers was whetheror not they enjoyed the ad-hence would spend time scrutinizingit as opposed to "flipping"past. As we shall see, taking pleasure from the text is implicatedin girls'decision makingaboutthe realismof the text. Drawingon these discussions, I attend to the processes that govern girls' meaning making from advertising texts. While these processes include the linguistic conventions or semantic constructionsunself-consciously deployed by readers, in this article I explore the agency of reading as conscious negotiation. Below I draw on the for beautyproducts,fashion, and readingsof a series of 25 typical advertisements engagementrings (plus one car ad) takenfrom Seventeen.Because all of these ads featurewomen, they invite negotiationover what it means "tobe a woman." READING AS EVERYDAYPRACTICE Like researchers,adolescent readersdid not passively accept the images presented;the girls actively selected ads thatthey enjoyed, while rejectingothers.To begin, girls outrightrejected some ads on the basis that they are not internally consistent. Reading an ad for Liz ClaiborneFragrance,16-year-oldMelinda, like most of the readers,employed logic in the creationof meaning: "I would think, why is he paintingher toenails-How would he know how to do it?"Advertising a car by placing it in the middle of the desert,for example, was deemed illogical by a numberof readers:"Idon't understand why she would be wearingsomething like that when it's all cloudy and stuff. And I wonderhow they got the car in the middle of nowhere"(16-year-old Asian Canadianreading Saturnad). Similarly, 15-year-oldAngela (Asian Canadian)could not make sense of this ad: "This is strange,weird, like just a girl, a drink,and a car.If I looked at it, I wouldn'tknow whatthey're tryingto do-it's confusing."The sense thatsome advertisingimages are confusing also appearsin AfricanCanadian,14-year-oldNoga's claim thatshe an ad thatassociatesthe comfortof jeans, ratherthanthe simply did not understand
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discomfortof high-heeledshoes andfalse nails,with women.As a result,she would it. It says 'createdfor men' andthen it has all ignore it: "[pause]I don't understand these women things,andthenit says 'createdfor women'-never mind,I wouldn't read that part."As in the case of 16-year-oldHeather,rejection of images was by an expressionof displeasurewith the ad. She notes, "and typically accompanied I thinkher shoes areugly [laughs]and it doesn't look like a very realisticsituation. Why?Well, you can't really tell where they are. It's almost as if they're lying on some turf,but it looks kindof bumpy"(EuroCanadian readingad for Guess shoes). Lived experience was also a basis for making sense of advertisingtexts, as For 15-year-old party." expressedby girls looking at an ad thatsimulatesa "pajama Angela, this imagerecalledpastexperiences,whichshe assignedto "all"girls:"Oh, this is neat! Like being with friendsand having fun-a typical girls' night, this is a good one becauseI guess, like all girls have been there"(AsianCanadian reading ad for Caboodlesmakeupkit). Fifteen-year-old Cindy (EuroCanadian)described this image as depictingthe life of an "average" teenage girl:
This appealsto me because I can like relateto this, in the pictureI can like relateto sittingaroundwith yourfriendsandeverything,andit looks sortof like an averagejust getting readyto go out and I'd probablyreadthis and see more aboutwhat's on here [text] because I can relateto the picture.(also readingthe Caboodlesad)
Similarly,because 13-year-oldYvonnecan relatethis image to past activities, she claimed thatit shows "realistic" things: people doing "real"
It kind of shows people doing realthings.I would do that,sit at my friend'sandhave Sara pluck my eyebrows ... the models are on the realisticside-at least she's got curlersin her hairand they're not all perfect-they're in theirunderwear!
Conversely,other readersrejectedthe same image because it does not reflect their experiences of being a teenage girl. Fifteen-year-oldFaye called the image "fake":
This one seems a bitfake to me. Like I'd readit over to see what it says, you know, but it's so like-talking on the phone, curlersin your hair,like doing your makeup and laughing in your pajamas,like it's so, like TV-that's what they do on TV. It's like a slumberparty,it's a good one for a girls' magazine,but it's kind of fake to me.
activity sharedby many teenage girls, the specifics of the event did not tally with her experiencesof teenage life:
Froma teenage point of view, frommy teenagepointof view, from where I am-this kind of thing doesn't happenin this kind of sense. We will do this, teenage girls will do this, but we don't all look like this. Like some of us would be shaving our legs, we wouldn't all be laughing, and we won't be this clean-cut, and looking this pretty-we'd be like no makeup,lying on the bed discussingthings thatwe'd never discuss anywhereelse.
Seventeen-year-old Margie also claimed that while the image portrayed an
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in this study the negotiationof realismis not dependent Clearly,for participants on simply the content of the image. From the vantage point of different life experiences, girls could draw differing conclusions about identical ads. It is important,therefore,to see what happenswhen young readersreach the limits of their lived experiencesof womanhood.Ads were includedthatportraythreeicons a diamondring, a bride,and an infantchild. adult(hetero)femininity: of traditional While responses to other ads across the group were mixed, there was surprising uniformity in responses to these latter signifiers. Looking at an ad for diamond engagementrings, 17-year-oldMaelynncommented, he seemsreally likehe'sreally in love withherand I likethisone... it seemsreally, theonesthatarekind it kindof shows,I guess,thatguyscareabout girlsandthey're whichis good-plus it's also careof themandbuyingthemstuff[laughs] of taking justkindof cute.(AsianCanadian) Images of a White bride in an ad for BeautifulPerfumedrew similarapproval from the majorityof girls. For example, 16-year-oldHeathercommented,"I like that-it says what it means.They're advertisingfor Beautiful[perfume]and she's in a wedding dress and you always think of a bride as beautifuland stuff... it's nice."Withonly one exception,anEternityPerfumeadfeaturinga womanplayfully Anne (Euro holdinga toddlerwas readas a motherwith herchild.Thirteen-year-old as "That's the love": described like Canadian) image "showing reallynice, showing As in the case love there-she really looks like a mom... it's a reallynice picture." of seventeen-year-oldMargie, this sentimentalreading of motherhoodwas also life: "Youknow she's a model butshe could be a mum describedas depicting"real" still. And the little kid is really cute. And that is how mommies and little kids interact-it's real." or overly ambiguousmeanWhile previousreadingssuggest thatcontradictory readers to that are invite rejectmessages ings may subsequentlydeemed implausidrew on in above ads readers the ble, uncritically ideologicalknowledgeof romance to arriveat unambiguous andmotherhood meanings.This type of readingis perhaps the ad for diamond engagementrings. most apparentin discussion surrounding in this ad are simply shadows cast Here it is interestingto note that the "actors" And a brick wall. Roxanne readaffective (AsianCanadian) yet, 17-year-old against details into this image: Because "two months Itlooksgood.Why? lastsforever" like salary [reading slogan], twomonths "lasts forever" so lasts,like,less thanthat,anda diamond salary maybe thatmoney. I likethat, it's worth theideaof that-showinghowhappy she spending is, youknow.Hegavehera ringandeverything. In many cases readersdid not feel it necessary to discuss the ads in length, because the ads were claimedto simply "saywhat they mean."In these readingsit appearsthat the girls did not negotiateat all. As Hall (1977, 325) notes, ideology
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as common sense does not requirethoughtbecause it is spontaneouslyavailable, thoroughlyrecognizable,widely shared:It feels as if it has always been there.This descriptionof how ideology works is capturedin 16-year-oldJoan'sdiscussion of the Eternityad: "Ilike that.I don't know,it'sjust neat.If therewasn't any nameon it, when I look at something like that I'd know it was 'eternity.'" Like Joan, 14-year-old Jasmine (Asian Canadian)found this ad pleasurable:"I think it's appropriateto the title and everything. I like that one. 'Eternity'-life's like Unlike the ad thatportraysa pajama that-one generationgoes on afteranother." for readersto comparethe representation party and thus providedan opportunity to their own life, images of adultfemininitycannot be negotiatedon the basis of "direct" experience.Only two girls rejectedthe image of the bride,one because it "remindedher of her mother."Overall, the ideological appeals of romanticlove and motherhoodwere so strong that they overrode the criterionof logic. As we becauseit was see above, the shadowysilhouetteof a womanwas readas "happy" associated with a diamondengagementring, while a woman playfully embracing a toddlerwas readas a "lovingmother" by the vast majorityof girls. Clearly,these on the level of denotationbut ratherthrough made types of decisions are not connotation. Because ideological stereotypes associate women with babies through the for example,readersdrawingon this knowlinstitutionof motherhood, patriarchal in theirreading.It is therefore that association make interesting edge of motherhood readers to the image of a womanin a party of these reactions to considerthe young dress dispassionatelybreast-feedingan unclothedbaby. While readerswere emphatic that the woman playing with a toddler is a mother, there was general Forexample,one 16-year-old skepticismthatthe latterimagedepictedmotherhood. ad Bisou Bisou the EuroCanadianreading notes, I don'treallythinkshe lookslikethe me thattheyputthatthere. It kindof bothers to make kindof-I don'tknow, there, trying motherly type,she'sjustkindof sitting look. that's thewaymostnewmothers it'snot... I don'tthink it looklikesomething Yvonne (AfricanCanadian)was similarlyemphatic:"She's Thirteen-year-old In short, much too makeupandshe's too young to look like a mother." wearingway a woman breast-feedingis, logically, more certainlythe motherof the infantthan is a woman simply playing with a toddler.In fact, the latterimage does not depict a relationshipat all. Clearly,readersconcludedthat this woman is a "mother" by constructo this In contrast sense. for associations making employing ideological tion of a "loving"mother,readersoverallrejectedthe notionthatthe womanin the In contrastto the Eternityad, this image was Bisou Bisou ad was possibly a mother. Euro Canadian A denounced. says, "Idon't thinkthey should 13-year-old roundly likethatin a magazine, havea picture Ijustdon'tthinkit'slike,kindof appropriate-but her dress is really nice though."Theirreasonsfor rejectionvaried.While thirteenyear-oldAnne emphaticallydislikedthe image, she could only justify herresponse Melinda(Asian Canadian) on the groundsthatthe ad is "weird." Sixteen-year-old
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claimed that such imagery does not belong in a magazine, even though she also noted thatonly women would be likely to view it: I don'tthinkit suits,like a magazine, I don'tlike it [immediate I think response]. be offended be, butit'sjust-you don't by this ... Butyoushouldn't peoplemight likeit'ssomething whichis "reality," notlikesomething wantto see it in a magazine, you wantto see in a magazine. Unlike the EternityPerfumead, many readersclaimed thatthey could not find any "point"to includinga baby in a fashion ad. One 17-year-oldAsian Canadian triedto figure out its aim: I think-like herbreast-feeding I don'tsee the point,it's kindof stupid a babyhas on it, or something to do withlike-unless there'san article but,maybe anything Ijustthink to showherfamily it'skindof weird. side,butI don'tknow. they're trying a goodpointto it. I don'tthink there's What these readingsshow is thatwhile the image of the "lovingmother"in the Eternity ad was almost universally appealing to the girls in this study, their definitionsof a loving motherdid not include the act of breast-feeding. Suggested by these rejectionsis the possibility thatthe ad is "toorealistic,"in thatit portrays the stark physicality of mothering,ratherthan the emotionality of ideological motherhood. In summary,readersdid not typically have problems accepting the affective portrayalof motherhoodin the ad for Eternityperfume-in fact, affective motherhood and the commodity seemed to "naturally" belong together.One reader,for thatshe liked theEternityad becauseunlikethe otherpictures, example,maintained "it was not tryingto sell anything." As seen above, manyreaderscould not see any anda woman in a partydress, a potentiallymore reasonto associatebreast-feeding liberatingview of motherhood.Seventeen-year-old Stephaniemaintainedthatthe image "wasn'tsaying anything": I wearBazoobazoo, I'd probably look at thisbecause I wearthatbrand, butuhmI thead,reallyI don'tlikeit-like what's don'treallythink thepointof thebaby, you to sayanything know,it doesn'treallyseemlikeit'strying excepta pretty girlwith a baby[laughs]. of this"deviant" harsh.Sixteen-year-old Overall, judgments imagewereextremely Melindadescribedthe image as "cheap," a termthatusuallyassociateswomen with "Idon't see the point for themputtingthatthereat all. Womenarethe prostitution: majoritythatreadthatmagazine,so what would be the point. I don't really like it. It looks cheap." In effect, the reality constructedby these readers associates ideological femininitywith the worldof commoditiesin a way thatthis association or makes sense: This association does not hold when atypical appears"natural" a marked imageryis used. In conclusion, the readingsdiscussed here demonstrate tendencyfor the youngreadersin this studyto assignideology anontologicalstatus. By ontological status I mean that ideological images are given the status of truth
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& SOCIETY / August1997 GENDER
claims. Accepted as "realistic" images of femininity,readersexpressedconsiderof "whatit meansto be able pleasurereadingideologicallychargedrepresentations us do these tell about the discursive constructionof a woman." What findings womanhoodand the notion thatpleasuresignals resistance? BEYOND THE IMPASSE IN CULTURALSTUDIES this article.First, what do girls I want to consider two questionsthatstructure of women's readers as actual,embodied magazinestell us aboutthe role of cultural of in the everyday experiences "becominga woman"?Second, can we imagery claim readingpleasureas resistance? of how commercial Answeringthe first questionengages us in a consideration texts are implicatedin the social subjectivityof women. However, to begin, we must acknowledgethat achieving womanhoodis a complex and ongoing process that engages girls in a numberof discoursesabout what it means to be a woman. Not discussedhere arethe social texts of school curriculum, television, andstudent the However culture(to name a few). complex resultingnegotiationof femininity These magazinesareamongthe are thus appears,in this studyteenzines important: as but also as "women." few social texts that addressyoung readers, "teenagers" and school outside of These textscreatea space, beyondparental supervision,where Forthis reason are serious consideration. women to given topics of relevance young deserve texts alone, these scholarlyinvestigation. This study brings to light considerabledifferences between researcherand everydayreading.While middle-agedcritics treatwomen's magazinesas vehicles of fantasy and vicarious membershipin the glamorized world of commodity consumption,in this studyyoungreadersfavortextsthataddresstheirconcernsand manner.This searchfor the interestsas teenagersin what they deem a "realistic" of teenagerhoodencouragesreadersto look for consistency-rather than "truth" play or subversive irony-in meaning; elsewhere, I argue that this consistency the status of being "a arises from the culturalambiguitythat currentlysurrounds one reason why magais for search this consistency teenage girl."Paradoxically, and their limited zines, despite repetitive messages, can appeal to a repertoire we have seen thatexperienceis capable of calling of readers. Although diversity culturalconstructionsof realityinto question,it is interestingthatracialdifference (as one obvious sourceof diversity)did not lead thesereadersto rejecta venue with racistsubtext.While this appealof dominantimageryrequiresfurther research,in this studyit testifies to the abilityof teenzinediscourseto constructa universalizing discourseaboutteenage femininity.Elaborated elsewhere,this constructionarises throughemphasis on the biological, hence natural,processes accompanyingadolescence. Because these texts grounddescriptionsof White, middle-classfemininity in the realm of "the natural,"one corollary of magazine discourse is the This naturalization of both a sexual andracialof White supremacy. naturalization however:It reflects marketsegmentationas a ized hierarchyis not a "conspiracy"
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nondiscursive practice that necessarily reconstitutesrelations of ruling. In this articlewe have seen thattexts are able to sustainuniversalizingmeans of address because readersfrom variousbackgroundsassign stereotypical,dominantdefinitions of femininityontological status:Thatis, the ideological definitionsof what it means "to be a woman" are assigned truth status. As in the discourse about is an important discursivecategoryin magazinesproducedby academics,"reality" "teentalk"abouttheirmagazines.However,unlike postmodern critics, adolescent readersdrawdistinctionsbetweenrealityandthe fantasticwithinthe text, not prior the text for the real to its reading.This is not to say that these readers"mistake" world; rather,it means that they actively negotiate which individual texts are "realistic."In doing so they blur the boundariesof the discursive and the lived world. This blurringof boundariesis an importantfinding; nevertheless,it does not meanthatreadingpatriarchal images of womanhoodis a momentof destabilization andnegotiationof feminineidentity.Forthelargepart,the conversewas morelikely to be true.Thatis to say, althoughparticipants freely acknowledgedthatmagazines are "only"texts, motivatedby economic interests,girls in this study engaged in a manner of reading that broughttheir constructionof self, ratherthan magazine discourse,into question.One unanticipated findingis the way in whichmanyyoung readers compared themselves to constructedtexts. In the cases of 16-year-old Heatherand 15-year-oldCindy: I've seenthis[ad]a few times.It'skindof intimidating to me 'causethere's likefive andit's making modelsrightacross it looklikeif youwearthis,thenit'll look there, as goodas it lookson thesepeopleandso I don'tlikeit toomuch. (Heather, reading anadforRevlonmakeup) Thisis one of theonesthatyoujustkindof flip pastbecause youknowyou'renot andI guessit intimidates theperson whoreads it. Likemyself.It would everything me because she'smorepretty intimidate thanme. (Cindy, an ad for Conair reading Wavemaker) As evidenced in these excerpts, the boundariesbetween the discursive and materialworld of adolescence are not as distinctas commentators often claim. In this study, while experiences of teenagerhood could bring representationsof of teenage life into question, not all girls were so quick to reject representations feminine beauty when they were at variance with the reader's sense of self. Althoughthe girls freely acknowledgedthattheirmagazinesset unrealisticbeauty the realityof a dominantculturethatemphasizesgood looks for women standards, thepowerthatmagazine reinforced messagescouldholdforreaders. Sixteen-year-old EuroCanadian Joan,for example,arguedthatfashionmagazinesareusefulbecause even thoughthey canmakereaders feel badaboutthemselves,theycanhelpreaders: Sometimes when youlookatthemodelsandyoufeel worse.ButI guesssometimes fromsomething thatyou theyhavelike different-likewhatyou cando to detract don'tlike [about Likewaysto coverit up,I guessthatkindof makes yourself]. you
like her- Whenyou say "likeher,"what do you mean?Well, she's really prettyand
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feel better'causeyou thinkthat-say, if you reallythinkyou havebig hips, sometimes they'll give you kinds of clothes that you can wear that will make them look, like makeyou look slimmer. In the final analysis, although readers often criticized their magazine's use of beautiful models with "perfect" bodies, they seldom challenged the cultural mandate for women to look good. Seventeen-year-old Roxanne (Asian Canadian) directed her displeasure toward the magazines: The one thing that's actually always botheredme about all magazines is that they always have these perfect models, and that's something that I would say is really annoying sometimes because every page you open to there's like a girl who's she's thinand absolutelyperfect.Youknow,she's got gorgeoushair,gorgeousfeatures, tall, andeverything.I thinkthatthat'sone thingthataffectsall girls,you know,because the averagegirl that'slooking or buying this magazineis not going to look like that. I think even for myself sometimes, sometimes you tend to compareyourself to it withouteven noticingit. Like you'll see these girls andlike the way they look so good and everythingand you try to look really good, and you want to be really thin and stuff. I just wish for any magazinethatwould have girls thatare, like average. However, 14-year-old Paula directed displeasure toward herself: I hate how they always have prettygirls in advertisements[laughs]. [I would] just like to see, like just more averagegirls, like more not so skinny and perfect type of thing. It makes you feel reallyugly readingit [laughs] ... Like at one pointbecause of magazines I got a like bit anorexic and stuff. That's gone now, but I used to get really upset and throwthe magazineacross the room [laughs]and thattype of thing. (EuroCanadian) However discouraging it may be to feminist cultural critics, girls in this study linked feeling good about themselves to "looking good." Most participants did not have any hesitation in listing "things that they would like to change about themselves." The girls were remarkably detailed when describing their physical flaws, many of which they were either actively working to improve: I look exactly like my dad. My mom has really nice-yeah, my cheekbones,I don't reallyhave any,butI look exactly like my dadandmy mom is reallyprettyandI don't have any of her features.Like she has like nice cheekbonesand the kind of lips that, you know-I think that I have a really ugly mouth,it kind of goes up here and it's like, kind of puffy. (17-year-oldEuroCanadian) I'd like to have lighter eyes-I have green contacts. Why?It actuallyattractsmore people, I've noticed. Does it? Yeah, 'cause it's not very common for an East Indian or a brown personto have light-coloredeyes. (17-year-oldAsian Canadian) I would lose a bit of weight. Yeah,I'd probablylose a bit of weight andI wantlonger eyelashes, and less zits, and straightteeth. (15-year-oldEuroCanadian) one. And my nose-it's [I like to] get like skinny,forone thing[laughs].That'snumber big [laughs],and then I'd get a-I don't know,it soundsreallydumb,but my lips are too thin [laughs].And I hate freckles! (14-year-oldEuroCanadian)
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[I'd like to] change my face, how it like [laughs]like get ridof all the pimplesI have, like madethemgo moreinwardsandnice like models' uhm,get my teethstraightened, Sometimesthey have auditionsfor being [teeth]because I want to be a model. Yeah? a model in there and I want to be a model so I-Teen magazinefor the last year has a model thing in it, so I'm going to send away for it. (13-year-oldEuro Canadian) While not all the girls aspired like Anne to become models, many more expressed the desire to be like what a magazine model was seen to stand for: In all honesty,I'd like to be whatthe magazinesadvertise,not necessarilyjust in body andlooks buttheconfidencethey advertise.Someonewho canwakeup in themorning and not care what she looks like and still look good when she goes out somewhere. That's the kind of person I want to be like. There's a part of me that wants to be absolutely beautifulin the fact that I don't have to care, and there's anotherpartof me that want's not to care whether I am or not. These two things are constantly fighting, and constantlydoing it, andjust, I'd like to be happyand secure, and above all, I don't want that to dependon my looks or on what I'm wearing,or anythinglike that, most of all. (17-year-oldEuroCanadian) Given these types of responses, it is not surprising that when asked "whom they would like to be like," several girls mentioned celebrities, including three who had been (coincidentally) featured in Seventeen's "Who's Hot, Who's Not" during the period when interviews were conducted. For example, 14-year-old Paula, a Euro Canadian, wanted to be like Kate Moss: butshe doesn't I'd like to be like probablyKateMoss, she's skinny.She's reallypretty, care what people think, like she just goes natural. Like she doesn't wear lots of makeuplike the othermodels, andshe wearsjeans andstuffall the time. In interviews and stuff she sounds prettyfriendly. Reflecting the association between dominant femininity and whiteness, minority readers often mentioned Caucasian role models. Seventeen-year-old Maelynn, a Chinese Canadian participant, responded: So like attitude-wiseI reallylike her [Madonna],andlookwise I would say thatI kind of would like to be like JanetJackson,because I thinkshe's kindof got a really-you know, like innocent look, kind of sexy look to her. Thirteen-year-old Yvonne, an African Canadian, also mentioned Madonna, although in this case she was included along with a racially similar role model: all rolledtogetherbecausethey'reall-they all have Cher,Madonna,andTinaTurner attitudeandthey know whatthey want.Well,Cher'skindof plastic,but she does what she wants andshe doesn't reallycarewhatotherpeople think.Madonna'sreallymade something out of herself and even though it's kind of strange and I don't really like any of her videos, she's got that listen-watch any of her movies, or particularly "get out of my way" personality. What does all this tell us about the role of commercial magazines in the process of becoming women?
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Valverde (1991, 173) notes that debates about signification in social research so far fail to identify the specificities of social, as opposed to literary, ways of reading texts or, more generally, of analyzing systems of signification sociologically. While I do not claim to have provided all the answers here, I believe that answers will only come through research on everyday reading. As shown here, this research may find the notion of femininity as a textually mediated discourse more fruitful than the treatment of magazines as either scripts or social texts analyzed outside their everyday reading. Furthermore, such research cannot ignore the need for a theory of ideology. In this study, pleasure does not rule out the operation of ideology; in fact, ideological definitions enhance reading pleasure because they encourage girls to focus on affective, romanticized expressions of heterosexual womanhood. As McCracken (1993, 136) points out, simply because magazines are connected to women's subordination, it does not mean that they cannot also provide pleasure: Few women would buy magazines if they were overtly negative. Finally, we have also seen that ideology does not rule out agency: This study is stark illustration of how ideology works through the text as knowledge. Ideology becomes everyday practice because of its ability to dominate the discursive space through which we make sense of the world and our place in it. As we have seen here, it is not simply that ideology provides a mistaken or distorted representation of reality but is constitutive of everyday reality. As noted above, the ideological dimension of women's magazines implicates them in the everyday reconstitution of the ruling apparatus. While I do not view the girls in this study as simply "cultural dupes," I disagree that these readers have the "power" to subvert patriarchy or capitalism simply through alternative readings of fashion magazines. I merely point out that while the readings and discussions in this article illustrate fairly well Beauvoir's claim that we make ourselves as women-including through the ways we describe ourselves-they also illustrate that the conditions in which we do so are not of our making.
NOTES
1. Earnshaw(1984, 411) points out thatalthoughmore than26 percentof adultwomen in Britain texts read Women's Own, this publicationhas never been subjectedto the investigationthat surrounds such as the Times,readby a mere 1.9 percentof the Britishpopulation.Otherwriterslink this neglect to the misogynist and racist reference to women's magazines as "journalismfor squaws" (cited in Winship 1987; also see Randall1991). 2. The referenceto discourse,ratherthan to texts, brings togetherwomen's magazines as texts, public discussion of these texts (includingfeminist discussion), and the activities that these texts and theirdiscussion generate. 3. This is not to imply thatexperienceis monolithic. 4. Elsewhere, I extend this problematicby exploringthe implicationsof this researchas readings of participants' readings(Currieforthcoming). were myself andthe fourresearch assistants,mentioned 5. The five beginningpointsforrecruitment above.
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6. While it was initiallyexpectedthatgroupdiscussionswouldbe the most suitableway to proceed, in partbecause they might put young girls at ease, in practicethis did not turnout to be true.Follow-up in the group discussion revealed a self-acknowledgedtendency for girls to interviews of participants in the not want to disagreewith others.The groupdiscussionswere subsequently dropped.Participants group discussion are not includedin the 48 girls who comprisethe sample discussed here. 7. Four teenzines are readily available in Vancouverand are used for the textual analysis: Teen, Seventeen, Youngand Modem, and Sassy. Ads were chosen that were one full page in size and that over time and across differenttitles. reappeared 8. This finding may reflect the self-selected natureof the sample. The constructionof racialized hierarchiesand of racial differencethroughmagazinesand their readingrequiresfollow-up, focused study.I have identifiedthe racializedidentityof girls to allow the readerto assess my claim of similarity among girls' mannerof reading. 9. Contentanalysis of Teen,Seventeen, Youngand Modem, and Sassy is included in the overall project. 10. Only two girls in this study had never read,or were not at all familiarwith, this culturalgenre.
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Dawn H. Currie completedher M.A. at the Universityof Saskatchewanand her Ph.D. at the London School of Economics. Her areas of interestincludefeminist researchmethodologies, cultural studies, and international feminism. She has coedited a numberof anthologies in the she is completinga book-lengthmanuscript areas of genderstudiesand socialjustice. Currently, on adolescentgirls readingfashionmagazines.With she is also conductAnojaWickramasinghe ing researchon womenworkersin thegarmentfactoriesof SriLanka.She is AssociateProfessor of Sociology at the Universityof British Columbiaand is currentlyserving as the Chair of Studies. Women's

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Decoding Femininity: Advertisements and Their Teenage Readers Author(s): Dawn H. Currie Source: Gender and Society, Vol.

DECODING FEMININITY Advertisementsand Their TeenageReaders

GENDER & SOCIETY / August 1997

Currie / DECODING FEMININITY

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Seventeen-year-old Margie also claimed that while the image portrayed an

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