Black And White: A Discourse Analysis Of Essence And Cosmo

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Reviere & Byerly- Sexual messages in Black and White: A discourse analysis of Essence and Cosmo

• Reviere and Byerly compared two magazines, Cosmopolitan and Essence. The analysis of this comparison was based on their representation of white and black women on their sexual freedom and how the sex columns are presented in these magazines over a course of three years.
• “The way that women think about and talk about sex in public spaces today have been shaped over the last four decades through what has been deemed “second-wave feminism.” (Reviere 677) “Second-wave feminism”, which as the name states is the second phase of feminism and it started in the 1960’s. This has changed the ways in which women publicly speak about their sex lives, more …show more content…

This implies that women want to hear from a man’s point of view because they want to know what they can improve on, rather than reading what women have to say because they are only guessing what men …show more content…

As shown in the table, the income levels of women in Essence are double the amount of those in Cosmo, which means that the targeted audience is a big age difference. In table 6, it can be seen that the sexuality of women is different in both magazines. Essence conveys an approach that is more of a feminist saying that women can be independent and they don’t need to have a man. It also advises women to not stay in a relationship where their partner is unfaithful. Meanwhile, in Cosmo women are advised to be the complete opposite. Essence does not accept infidelities and Cosmo advices women to weigh out their options and possibly give their partner a second

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