An excerpt from Packaging Girlhood

Are You a Hilary or an Avril?: Cosmo-Girls Categorized

Teen magazines are everywhere a high schooler or middle schooler goes – in the orthodontist’s waiting room, at the check-out lines, and even in her school library. From age 11 and for the rest of her life, she will be confronted with the covers of these magazines on a weekly basis, covers that tell her what she should be interested in and what she should be anxious about. It’s obvious to even the youngest girl in these groups that all the models are thin and pretty.

They provide no diversity that’s real, in terms of race, ethnicity, or beauty. The only kind of diversity these magazines pretend to offer are “diverse” categories of girls. Fashion shoots, faux stories, Q & A columns, and special inserts all provide girls with a variety of categories under which they can label themselves. Their message about girls being individuals is really about fitting into a set number of boxes. Those ever-present questionnaires will tell girls after they count up their scores whether they are a “chilled-out chick,” “fair weather fan,” or “sunshine sistah.” Fashion features will have them label themselves as either a “busty babe”, “hippie gal,” “curvy chick”, or “skinny sistah” or just label their bodies as “star” “pear” “apple” or “tube” shaped. These articles answer that all-important teen question, “who am I” over and over via predictions and advice. They take advantage of girls’ genuine self-analysis at this age and make a mockery of the heartfelt questions she has.