Today’s articles were focused on the perception of women in society. Gloria Steinem’s article, ¨Sex, Lies and Advertising¨, addresses the difficulties of placing ads in feminist magazines. It never occur to me how hesitant advertisement companies are to buy spaces in these magazines because of their preconceived notion that women are not a potential market for those products. For instance, Este Lauder refused to advertise in these magazines because according to them, the audience was not feminine enough. The irony here is that Este Lauder was initially started by a woman. Sadly, feminist since the 1990s has been associated with many negative things.It is unfortunate that magazines made for women, with the hope of empowering them, are actually more harmful and full of distorted self distorted images. When Ms. magazine was sold to a man, topics were limited to teaching women how to please men and preaching them on subjects about who is a lady and what ladies do. In a way, Cosmo and Seventeen magazines are merely daughter projects of this phenomenon.
On another note, I found the evolution of how today's bras came to be like they are in the present extremely enlightening. The fact that women no longer had the need to sew their own clothes and undergarments, pave the path for standardized clothing items. Women eventually lost the privilege of fitting into something solely made by their measurements. Instead, they faced an increasing frustration of trying to fit their body parts into letters defined categories...this blows my mind.
In reference to the second part of Shanshan's post, I recently read a book about a Korean "picture bride" who was sent over to Hawaii to get married. THe book, Honolulu, takes place in the 1910's and shows a difference between Korean and American lifestyles. However, in one chapter, the main character -Jin, a seamstress, marvels over how in America she was constantly letting dresses out or taking them in. She was flabbergasted by the idea that instead of making clothes with drawstrings and stretchy waistbands (like she did in Korea), women had to fit their body into their clothes and not vice versa. This realization Jin had gave me a new view to look at clothing in. It does seem completely silly that, even though our bodies are changing due to weight or height, women still try to make their bodies fit into predesigned size determined clothing, instead of making their clothes fit to their specific bodies.
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