With the growth in popularity of magazines, both online and print, young people around the world are exposed to ideas of gender expression, identity and roles. However, given the influence of society, the spread of heteronormative, cisgender, and white ideals has been given as the highest priority. After reviewing the men's fashion magazine, Gentlemen Quarterly, I discovered that much of their magazine revolved around the typical rich, white, straight, able-bodied male. Despite their attempts to branch out to other minority groups, they fail to break out of their classic audience. The GQ website is built to automatically draw viewers into articles by instantly displaying large images and headlines in the audience's face. Most photos The combination of these particular elements creates an atmosphere that imposes male expectations and norms on the audience. GQ, while appearing as a harmless fashion magazine, sends a series of subconscious messages to its viewers about what it means to be a successful and respected male in today's world. Gentlemen Quarterly, like many other magazines, implements the gender binary in its readership through its advertisements and articles. They cater exclusively to male and female people, dividing themselves into “…suits and dresses” and “action films and chick flicks” (Wade, p. 5) and specifically dictating what is feminine and what is masculine. Men's fashion trends center around clothing and hair care, which all fall into the men's category. On the other hand, the women's section does not seem to dictate fashion but rather advice and celebrity news, which contrasts with its exclusive vocation as a clothing magazine. In this sense, GQ obeys “gender rules” about what it means to “look and act like a man or a woman” (Wade, p. 61), but there are few of them. Well, they fail, but in a different way. In all the articles I encountered in the section with the generic title "Women", they featured a scantily clad woman and tended to give advice to men. The photos in the women's section placed emphasis on both breasts and butt, further simplifying women down to just their bodies. Most of the headlines contained the word "sexy" and referred to women as "petite" or "our girl," not only dehumanizing them but also pushing a sense of ownership. One article in particular, written by another woman, was titled Victoria's Secret Model Makes First Presentation as a Really Sexy Girl, Dishing Out Everything a Feminist Would Despise. Clearly Corsillo, the author of the article, wrote the article with the intention of addressing it to a male audience, even if she herself does not think the same way. The few women who were actually interviewed included two WWE twins who were in relationships with famous wrestlers. Instead of interviewing them about their life stories, their questions focused on “tips for picking up women at the gym” or “what [their] stance [is] on working out with a significant other” (Rouse). Paired with this article is a photo of the twins looking at a male's butt while he works out, enhancing heteronormativity but with a new twist. One article even goes so far as to downplay the idea of consent for male readers, promising that they won't
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