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  • Essay / Inventing the Cosmo Girl: what are the gender roles?

    Many magazines like Cosmo encourage women to wear makeup, to change for men. In "Inventing the Cosmo Girl: Class Identity and Girl-Style American Dreams," Laurie Oullette describes this best when she explains how Cosmo encourages "readers to remake and even construct multiple selves, often to meet demands and to the opportunities of a prolonged courtship". » (Ouellette 120). The objective for girls is: ultimately, to marry at a higher level in the social hierarchy. Meanwhile, masculinity is defined by the stigmatization of femininity. They give masculinity a mainstream appeal by portraying women as gullible and vulnerable. As Breazeale puts it, “a simultaneous exploitation and denial of the feminine” (Breazeale 232) and thus “one-dimensional representations of women are the result of attempts to woo men as consumers” (Breazeale 232).