Dear Magazines, Stop Sexualizing and Objectifying Our Kids!

Girls magazines are pretty much all fluff, and nothing is really substantial.

It’s not something I noticed as a teen myself, but as an adult I often find myself wandering over to the magazine rack and seeing all the “boys” and “girls” magazines and noticing how different they are. I understand the appeal of girls magazines I like crushing on celebrities too, but where are all the real issues?

Why can’t I open a magazine that is pink and bright orange and has a fun, fashionable outfit on the cover, but also contains articles about politics or cars or building things?

Why are all of the boys’ magazines about electronics, or cars or building things? Why can’t girls be into those things?

I think the perfect girl magazine would include fashion, and a few celebrity gossip items, but also have more than two articles about politics, and something about a new car that was just manufactured, or have an old car featured with a list of specs and different facts about it. I would like to see a girls magazine that didn’t just pander to the very lowest rung of the ladder.

It’s like eating candy, of course, we all love candy, but that doesn’t mean you should only sell us candy, we sustain ourselves on the regular food more often.

I do not deny that a lot of girls like fashion and gossip and funny sex stories. But I am saying that those items should not be the primary focus of girls magazines. They should be the fun side of fluff pieces that give your mind a break in between the hard-hitting stuff, like “If there was a presidential election now who would you vote for?” And then have a list of popular politicians that are making a name in the mainstream news. There could be a section where there is a write-up about a new up and coming politician and their political promises, or what Congress is working on and how to get involved.

These simple magazines have the chance to really shape the country. They can easily get young adults of any gender invested in our country or anything they want really.

This is less of an issue with young boys magazines, most of them contain some substance, but the civic learning is still not there.

For those who don’t like politics and aren’t at all interested in that aspect, there could be other topics from cooking to how to repair your phone; there is a tremendous opportunity to teach children tons of useful skills and more!

This could be made into a standard. In the future girls would be able to pick up a fun looking magazine and learn what it takes to run a successful campaign for mayor or how to defrag a hard drive.

The hole left by the current magazines for actual substance is really watering down our societies potential. We could be instilling values and determination and political understanding and social interest at a young age. We could be showing girls that they don’t have to be a boy in order to fix a computer or car. This is a powerful lesson.

With the simple restructuring on a few magazine, we can show everyone that they are capable of anything and educate all genders from a young age on topics that really matter and will affect them as adults.

How wonderful would our country be if we really knew about our government? This could really affect how the government runs. Learning about the importance of our countries issues will disintegrate that mentality leaving the future generations who will be sitting in congress or the house of representatives with a better grasp on how important everything is. This will lead to more women majoring in math or computer science. It’s a matter of exposing them to this kind of topics in the first place.

The most important concept is giving every child the chance to learn real things, things that will make them better at life.

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