Summary Of In Spite Of Women By Kenon Breazeale

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“In Spite of Women: Esquire Magazine and the Construction of the Male Consumer” Much of society’s perception of women today, according to Kenon Breazeale in the piece, “In Spite of Women: Esquire Magazine and the Construction of the Male Consumer”, is based upon the attempts to construct women as consumers. Breazeale claims that much of society’s one-dimensional view of women has everything to do with how consumerism has been viewed primarily as a feminine attribute. Using an in-depth analysis of the early years of Esquire Magazine, Breazeale uses an academic, stoic tone in an effort to remain impartial, although it is rather apparent that she feels strongly against the magazine and all it stood for during this time period. Breazeale effectively …show more content…

Breazeale describes the magazine’s way of appealing to men by degrading women and femininity, making them out to be nothing but shoppers - and poor shoppers, at that. Breazeale writes, “Esquire gave advice to counter the looming rhetorical prop of a woman who is doing things all wrong” (72). Women were described as the shoppers who were not buying the right food, clothes, home decoration, and even alcohol; Esquire did their best to portray women as lavish spenders who were not smart enough to purchase the right items. Women were accused of overvaluing appearance for their own comfort when it came to their home decoration, and women apparently just do not like good food and that is why they do not cook as well as men, according to Pine in 1939 (73). The most frequent insult of feminine incompetency were their drinking habits. Breazeale writes, “If left to their own devices, it is darkly hinted, women prefer ‘fluffy, multi-colored abominations”, or worse, do not like to drink at all” (73). Breazeale’s description of Esquire Magazine writing primarily of women in a degrading way in order to speak to their male audience positively correlates with the main argument of her piece and easily convinces readers that this inaccurate portrayal of women as poor shoppers still effects how society views women …show more content…

Breazeale explains, “It had to be unequivocally clear that women were the natural objects of its readership’s desire” (75). In the eyes of Esquire Magazine’s audience, it was just as bad to be a woman as it was to be a homosexual person, so Esquire’s founders had to ensure that their would be no doubt in their readers’ minds that this magazine was created for straight males only. Esquire’s use of erotic imagery of women promoted women as nothing but objects; while half of the magazine insulted women on their tastes, the other half portrayed them in inappropriate, sexual ways solely for men to look at. Esquire Magazine even used inappropriate cartoons and voyeurism as a way to assert the male dominance. Esquire would run articles of women naked in the restroom surprised by construction workers, burglars, or firefighters, or there was an accidental loss of clothes on the street; whatever the situation, all featured a woman in surprise and a male initiating a look that the female does not necessarily want (78). Esquire’s point, according to Breazeale, is that men can look at women however they want and whenever they want, and that they are simply an object of the male gaze. This idea contributes to Breazeale’s main argument because in modern times (when this article was written), women being fantasized

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