An Alternative to the Way Things Are

Women in today's culture are inadequate everywhere because the level of perfection is beyond reach. All that insecurity is the goal of media industries in order to propel that cycle of consumption that feeds their power. It has reached a point where even celebrities like Britney Spears become so frustrated with the way their body is manipulated by photoshop, that they reveal an unedited version, uncovering the insidious ways photoshop cheat us from reality.

Spears decided to release both pictures frame-to-frame.
She wanted to raise the awareness for women’s beauty
and call out companies for overusing photoshop.

I think the best forms of alternative media are the ones that remind women of the potential they have. In this shallow and superficial media landscape we live in, it is difficult to set aside awareness of the male gaze. But it is important to try. In Bell Hooks' Cultural Criticism & Transformation, she points out that her students at the urban, predominantly non-white campus in Harlem are equally as brilliant as the students at the fancy, predominantly white campus at Yale. The only difference is that they are not aware of the potential they have to create change and become great people. They do not have the same sense of entitlement as the students at Yale do. In the same way, women do not feel the same sense of entitlement as men. We are taught at an early age that being quiet and submissive is feminine.

advertising campaign for UN Women by Ogilvy & Mather.

In "Understanding Patriarchy," Bell Hooks talks about her early childhood and what it was like being raise by parents who firmly believed in patriarchy. "As their daughter, I was taught that it was my role to serve, to be weak, to be free of the burden of thinking, to caretake and nurture others" (18). This feminine stereotype is further instilled into our minds by images all over the media, and many women accept it as a fact rather than be critical of it, which is what Bell Hooks promotes because being critical is what sets the motion for change and encourages us to build our own identity and future because we are as humans all entitled to the pursuit of happiness. This is what the patriarchy system is afraid of and manipulates our minds against, but many forms of alternative media have sprouted encouraging to think towards it.

Lady Gaga "Born This Way" album photo (2011)

Magazines such as Bust (which I discovered in our Women and Media class as it was passed around) strive to show you the power of real women in our society today and encourage that critical thinking that is vital to our independence and encouraging to our sense of entitlement in the world. With over 500,000 readers, Bust is "the magazine for women with something to get off their chests." It's a positive and outspoken magazine for the women of our generation. It was founded in 1993. In a NYT article, Debbie Stoller, one of the three founders of Bust, said, "Our intention was to start a magazine that would be a real alternative to Vogue, Cosmo, Mademoiselle, and Glamour, something that was as fierce and as funny and as pro-female as the women we knew."

Lizzy Caplan on the cover of the October/November 2014
issue of Bust Magazine.

 The bi-monthly magazine accomplishes in being a real alternative because while other magazines like Vogue and Seventeen strive to make women and teens keep feeling more and more inadequate with every monthly issue, Bust promotes self-confidence and most importantly, critical thinking when it comes to your identity as a women. It shatters stereotypes and in daring, quirky, and funny ways, inspires women to think about what they want, not what society wants from them. Whatever your passions may be, there is nothing women can't do. It shows stories of everyday women who have a story to tell and their message is almost always to go after what you believe in, love yourself, or accept yourself. It's a constant reminder to women that they are just as entitled to kick ass just as much as any man out there.

Works Cited

• Jhally, Sut, bell hooks, Mary Patierno, Harriet Hirshorn, and Peter Gabriel. Bell Hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation, 2002.
• Hooks, Bell. Understanding Patriarchy.The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square        Press. 2004.
• Kuczynski, Alex. "The New Feminist Mystique; Variety of Brash Magazines Upset the Old Stereotypes." The New  York Times. The New York Times, 10 Sept. 2001