Shape vs. Men's Health: Gendered Worlds in Fitness Magazines

Introduction: Comparing Parallel Fitness Magazines

In answering the question of what worlds magazines create for their readership, one must first ask: who is that readership? In an increasingly niche-specific and targeted marketplace — shaped by direct mail, the Internet, and an improved ability to reach desirable population segments — it may seem anachronistic to speak simply of a "women's magazine" or a "men's magazine." The fairest way to compare male and female magazines is therefore not to complain speculatively that a magazine like Good Housekeeping, targeted at stay-at-home mothers, offers less career advice than Esquire. Rather, it is to take two genuinely parallel magazines — Shape and Men's Health — that target women and men with similar interests, from similar lifestyles and age groups, and to examine how each publication conceptualizes its readership and deploys advertising to influence its audience, despite their shared orientation toward a fit lifestyle.

Both magazines address fitness, nutrition, going out, and what to wear when working out or socializing — in both their female and male incarnations, on a monthly basis.

Body Image and the Evolving Female Ideal

One of the most persistent stereotypes attached to women's magazines — as noted by Mary Kay Blakely in her essay "Help or Hindrance? Women's Magazines Offer Readers Little Fear, Failure" — is that publications like Shape hinder women's pursuit of independence. Yet Shape and other female fitness magazines of its kind frequently show women lifting weights, riding mountain bikes outdoors and in gyms, and pushing themselves beyond their previous limits on playing courts as well as in terms of weight loss. Although features about women who have lost weight appear regularly and carry a transformational slant, these women are often not extremely slender, and they accomplish their goals through exercise rather than dieting alone. Rather than conforming their physiques to shapes envisioned by men as romantic partners, or by male fashion designers, the models and real women in Shape are shown sculpting their bodies according to a relatively new and muscular female ideal.

"New" — unless one looks at statues from ancient Greece and Rome and the muscular forms of Venus and her counterparts. "New" — unless one considers, as Susan Dudash might argue, that such images still encourage female preoccupation with achieving a perfect body as a path to a perfect life. Yet it is worth remembering that, feminist considerations aside, one cannot simply ignore the body in pursuit of emotional wholeness.

Men's Health and the Expanding Male Lifestyle Magazine

Magazines like Men's Health also provide a valuable reminder that concerns about the body are not exclusively female. Men's Health offers information on bodybuilding and nutrition for men — and not only for those who spend their days in the gym. Like Shape, the magazine presents itself as a lifestyle publication for the modern man, offering advice on dating, culture, health, fitness, and style. And lest the contrast between beauty and health in the two magazines appear too stark, it is worth noting that Men's Health devotes entire sections to weight loss, nutrition, and fitness — territory that mirrors Shape's editorial priorities closely.

Works Cited

Blakely, Mary Kay. "Help or Hindrance? Women's Magazines Offer Readers Little Fear, Failure." Texts and Contexts: A Contemporary Approach to College Writing. Thompson Learning, 5th ed., 2002, pp. 109–3.

Dudash, Susan. "We've Come a Long Way, but Magazines Stayed Behind." Texts and Contexts: A Contemporary Approach to College Writing. Thompson Learning, 5th ed., 2002, pp. 112–4.

Fowles, Jib. "Advertising's Fifteen Basic Appeals." Texts and Contexts: A Contemporary Approach to College Writing. Thompson Learning, 5th ed., 2002, p. 128.