I read today what I think is my favorite article out of all the articles that I have blogged about so far. It was called Inventing the Cosmo Girl: Class Identity and Girl Style American Dreams by Laurie Ouellett. This article took a look at woman who reformated and revolutionized Cosmopolitan. First, Helen Gurley Brown started with a book called, Sex and the single Girl, and with the success of the book, she became an overnight celebrity. In her book , she goes in to great detail about controversial issues at that time such as premarital sex and dating tips. It also brought into light birth control, working and being independent from men (118). Now this helped her go the extra mile and produce more books about the topic until she bought Cosmopolitan and became editor-in-chief. The magazine then started to take on the topics that were brought up in Brown’s books.
After reading this article, I read another article, Sex, Lies, and Advertising by Gloria Stienem. I will be honest that I was not to happy about reading this article because being a college student, I have a test today in my advertising class and this article was a constant reminder :).
The article is about Ms.( which I am presuming is a magazine) and the ads it would decide on but by offering ads that might apply to both men and women. One of the examples that they mention is car advertisements. I decided to go the extra step and look at two different advertisements for alcoholic beverages. I should warn you that some of these are pretty graphic but I deem important to use as examples.
The first one I would like to point out is the pregnant woman holding a beer. The message that this image is trying to convey it is OK for one to drink this beverage if one is pregnant. What I find quite interesting is that they are still in skimpy clothing. I would then raise the question of does this mean taking pride in woman’s body caring a child? This really makes me question who is this ad is aimed for. I think this may have upset many people in the time Brown was in charge of Cosmo because not what she is wearing but that she is not married (no wedding ring is visible). There is a series of ads with the same sort of image. 
The next image is the one that I am mostly embarrassed to post but that is also apart of the point that I will be trying to make. This picture is of a man naked with a bottle of vodka. I would guess that this ad does contain the sexual innuendo with the bottle. I would like to point out though that this sort of ad is very rare in today’s advertisements because it is usually women that are partially dressed to sell the item. What is interesting is that in the Article Sex, Lies, and Advertisements, it is mentioned that liquor ads, not so much beer ads, are less stereotyping in their imagery (227). I am wondering is that I feel so immune to women in advertisements but when I see this ad, it shocks me. I am not a pervert in anyway as I write this but do you think that we are so conditioned to not be shocked as much, if at all, by women in ads anymore? I think so. Source: Inventing the Cosmo Girl: Class Identity and Girl Style American Dreams by Laurie Ouellett
Sex, Lies, and Advertising by Gloria Stienem
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