Like any teenage girl I read women’s magazines throughout my years at high school. They were brightly coloured and adorned with what the pages assured us were essential articles and very attractive females. At the time I had no idea what impact they were having upon my mental health. Now, a few years on, I’ve realised that magazines were the leading cause for my losses in body confidence and self-esteem.
Before I started reading the magazines I didn’t feel the need to wear makeup. I didn’t watch my weight, or even consider it. I didn’t judge other girls based on their appearance and I didn’t obsess over mine. But reading magazines like Cosmopolitan and Cleo, and being around plenty of other girls who did, changed all of that.
Suddenly all conversations began to revolve around the topics in the magazines. It was boys, sex, relationships, makeup, clothes and appearance, appearance, appearance. Magazines originated as a way to reflect and share the existing culture in society, but from my viewpoint, they’ve become so powerful that now society follows whatever culture the magazines want to create. And what they want is to please advertisers.
Advertisers pay top dollar to have their products featured in magazines like Cosmopolitan and Cleo. They pay more money, more often if sales of their product increase after the ad runs. So, to ensure that readers buy that foundation, those stockings or that fake tan, the magazines send us the message that we are not attractive enough as we are. As long as they continue to convince us that we are not enough and that we need something else, then the advertisers will continue to open their wallets.
The Brainwash Project is about raising awareness of this and trying to communicate to the major players in women’s magazines that as readers, we don’t want to be treated as simply cogs in a moneymaking scheme; we want to be treated with respect. We want quality content that isn’t re-hashed month after month and we want content that is unique and fresh.
As part of the project, I’ve started a petition to ask Cleo Magazine to print one digitally unaltered spread per month and to print a warning label on any image that has been altered. It doesn’t matter if the image has come from somewhere else and it was already digitally altered – a warning label is essential to protecting girls from longing to look like someone that doesn’t even exist. Without a label, it sets girls up for failure and so begins the attack on their body image confidence, whether they realise it, or not.
The Brainwash Project from Jessica Barlow on Vimeo.
This project is tremendously important. Eventually I want to deliver the petition signatures for the warning label alongside a prototype magazine that is currently in the making to the editors of Cosmopolitan and Cleo. The Brainwash Magazine will be an example of what we as readers want to see in an ideal women’s magazine.
I am inviting anyone to contact me at thebrainwashproject@gmail.com to let me know their opinion and share their ideas for content.
The whole project is self funded – meaning I, a twenty-year-old student from RMIT, am paying for everything. Putting a whole magazine together is not cheap, particularly when it comes to printing. I want to get enough copies printed to distribute to a wide range of girls and those people that have contributed. To help afford the minimum cost of printing I have started a Pozible Campaign. This is an online crowd funding attempt, meaning that anyone can donate via credit card.
Together I know that we have the power to make a difference in the way women’s magazines target young girls. I know that if we all chip in and spread the word then this can happen and it can become a reality. If edition one of Brainwash Magazine is popular then I would love to continue to produce it in the future. School-age girls have already approached me to express their excitement at reading something that doesn’t make them feel bad about themselves. I’m not doing this project for me, but for them.
Not all girls are only interested in boys, sex, makeup and clothes. Not many girls would obsess over their appearance and have low self-esteem if it wasn’t for such early exposure to women’s magazines and the culture they breed. Brainwash magazine is about providing an alternative. It’s not going to be preachy or boring and it’ll still have articles about clothes, makeup and relationships. The difference is that it won’t fall back on stereotypes; it won’t be controlled by advertisers, it will include girls of all shapes, sizes, religions, skin colours and sexual preferences, it will have varied content and it will be exactly what you have asked for.
To keep up to date with The Brainwash Project, visit their Facebook Page.
