Thank Goodess, I have survived my pre-teen years and teen years. Either I was a normal adolescent experiencing the pits and peaks of life or I was going bi-polar disorder.

When I was just beginning High School at the tender age of 13 (I started kindergarten a year before everyone else), I was "ready willing and able" to be the most coolest, most popular, most beautiful, and most sought-after girl...at least thats what Seventeen Magazine taught. Little did I know that when I would graduate at 17 that I would be most "uncool", least popular, and definately least beautiful. And it was about that time I stopped my subscription to Seventeen Magazine.

Seventeen magazine is marketed to 13-21 year olds, or so they say. However, it is more like 11-16 year old girls who are buying and reading this magazine. So what I am going to do is take you through the magazine, front-to-back, to show you exactly what Seventeen is telling possibly your daughter or the girls of this Country. It is always up to you to make an informed decision...ultimately you will have to ask "Is this the kind of influence I want my daughter to learn from?"

Front Cover: Every month Seventeen will have either a famous actress, singer, or model on the cover. They will be in air-brushed perfection, and the caption underneath them will go the effect of "I am a Normal Girl just like you"...unfortunately normal girls have something called pores, and silly me, I dont see any pores from the pictures on the cover. Also on the cover are in bold colored titles of articles in the magazine this month. Usually to the effect of "How to get a Date in 5 days" or "5 tips to beautiful lips that will make any guy yours".

So what about the most recent cover of Seventeen? Well I picked up a copy solely for writing a well-informed review of this magazine. Nothing worse then talking about a product you used to own, but currently do not possess. So on this month's cover, it is the pseudo-quasi actress/singer/dancer Jennifer Lopez. She has a very lovely beautiful air-brushed picture for girls to look at and say "She's so beautiful, I wish I could look just like her. Then I know I would get a boyfriend" or "If only I lose 5 more pounds, maybe I could be like Jen"...Insert any name of a celebrity in those quotes and you get my drift. Along with Jennifer's photo, we see a quote, from her, saying "You can't tell your heart what to feel"....Big Problem, Big big big problem.

Thousands of thousands of thousands of young girls idolize celebrities, Jennifer Lopez is no exception. When a magazine places a face, a name, and quote all in one sentence, then they need to realize the impact they are spreading to girls. Young teenage girls are now saying "Look, Jen is saying I cant help who I fall in love with. I cant tell my heart to stop loving my 35 year old boyfriend" Think that is preposterous? It is reality. Now all these girls have perfect reason to "fall in love" with indecent type of men because of this quote. It is like saying "I cant help it that I get high, I cant tell my brain how to decide"

Also on this month's cover, the titles say: Quiz: is he all talk or all action?, What's his email saying?, 25 Great-Buy Dresses, Horoscope 2001 your life, LOVE, and looks guide</b>, 5 Celebs 28 Hairstyles, Naughty or Nice? 8 stars play both roles and you can too!, Party in the Prettiest Fashions, Get Kissed by Midnight, and Change Your Do.

Ads:

The Good: 2 page layout with an athletic looking volleyball player, no words, only with the Nike Symbol (I will say thanks to Nike for using an actual athletic healthy body)...Cover Girl Make-up is actually a good advertisement because they are using an African-American model without a lot of make-up, just in her natural beauty. Props to Cover-Girl...Message from National Drug Control Board has an ad with a teen age girl, doing a ballet move, and the girl is not bone thin, she is healthy looking and the message is "Dance: My anti-drug"...Playtex Gentle Glide, I will hand it to this company, they show close up of 2 teenage girls playing touch football, which I feel is a responsible message for a company targeting girls...Toyota for not "dumbing" down their car advertisement for the female audience...

The Bad: Upon opening the front page, the reader sees a 2 page layout for Clairol's Herbal Essence Shampoo and Conditioner sponsored by Britney Spears....2 Page lay out for L'oreal Mascara...L'oreal Feria Hair Color is bad because I do not like the close assonance between "Inferior" and "Feria", this ad is clearly denouncing women in a subtle way, shame on them, not to mention this ad has 2 "blondes" and then to add spice has an Asian model with red hair (hiding her natural heritage)...SoftSoap has a little bit of a disturbing ad for a 14 year old to read. They are advertising their new line of bodywash and their phrase is "Juicy from Head to Toe", in my opinion that is just too much of a sexual innuendo that the kids do not need from a magazine...Swell.com has a full-page close up of a very thin blonde girl in a bikini top, which is not the image that young girls need to have in their "ideal" for their body image...Focus Daily Contact Lens is a bad ad because it has 5 girls and they are in a completely black room with candles lit all over the place in a mock ritual stance...Mock Cigarette Ad is actually making smoking look attractive to young girls by having 6 gorgeous supermodel-esque type women with cigarettes in their hand, and the caption says "Forget All The Health Risks. If The Beautiful People Do It, It Must Be Okay!" and way down on the bottom in miniature type letters is a disclaimer saying this is a mock advertisement intended to deter kids from smoking, could have fooled me...Again, Clairol Herbal Essence is a bad advertisement, this time its for their body wash. A 2 page layout, each side with a nude model. On the left side, has a nude model, it is a side view of her washing off her chest and neck in a shower, and she is having a smile on her face like she has just struck gold, and on the other side is a different nude model, this time we see the backside of her, and yes even a little of her breast. Both models are as slim as they can get, allowing for girls to look with envy and wish they could have a perfect body just like "the models", and the slogan says "Is Your Body ready for some serious pleasure", excuse me but I didnt know Seventeen was into Hedonism...Alldays Thong Pantiliner has an ad with a thin semi-nude model, she is sitting away from the camera, so we see her nude back and her behind. She is wearing a Thong, and the reader of the magazine gets an eyeful. The actual product she is "modeling" is a new form of pantiliners for Thongs...Now who is this really being marketed to. Girls? Or their boyfriends? Another sexual ad campaign...About.Com has a 2 page layout for their new "Teen Board" and the premise of the ad is to tell girls to go ahead and dream over their celebrity crush, the ad has a picture of Freddie Prinze and under that in a typical teenage girl writing is "Tru Love". Come On, girls have better things then to imagine themselves getting into a domestic relationship, remind me to stop visiting About.Com...

Actual Content: I am going to take you through every actual article that is in this month's magazine of Seventeen, that way you will literally know what you might get yourself into it by allowing your children to but this magazine

-Trauma-Rama used to be one of my most favorite sections of Seventeen. The editors are very savvy, they know this is what teens love about the magazine, so they put this as the first article content in the magazine. This way it has your mind thinking "Wow, that was so funny...oh my gosh I can identify with these traumas, I bet I can identify with all the other parts of the magazine" So the teenage girls are more open, accepting, and receptive to the rest of the magazine once they get a good laugh. This section is usually 2 pages, it is dependent upon reader contribution.

-Style Q&A is a relatively newer content piece that Seventeen has implemented. Each month the magazine will choose a fashion designer or hair stylist or some various celebrity to do a little style profile. This month it is 80s gal pal Molly Ringwald. Unfortunately, this is only reinforcing the stereotype that girls are preoccupied with modeling, fashion, and other mindless trends. The questions are truely silly airhead questions such as "favorite movie", "favorite class", "favorite outfit"...Who cares! Then to top it all of, in bold next to a picture of Molly is "Molly says the more she had to obey rules, the more she wanted to rebel." So the girls are getting another stereotype fed into them: teenagers are naturally rebellious, therefore it is ok to rebel against your parents and authorities. I was not a rebellious teen, I was inquisitive yes, rebellious no. Big Difference

-Scoop is a section that consists of various Trendy Fashions. This month, one of the focus is on Cropped Tops...yes girls, it it way trendy to wear crop tops in the winter season, especially when they are crop tube tops. Give me a break! 14 year old girls have no reason to dress like sexpots...grown women either. This magazine is setting an example that "sexy" means dressing in skimpy clothes. Sexy is not an outside appartus, it is an inner feature. Whatever happened to kindess, compassion, intelligence as being sexy qualities? It is time girls learn this. I will give credit to a part of Scoop, they do have a section for clothing Under $20, we all can't afford Bloomingdale prices.

-Beauty is a section that...well discusses Beauty of course. "How many times do I have to tell you...teenage girls are ugly," said the Seventeen Magazine copy editor, "We need to put lots of articles on make-up so we can show girls that beauty is from artifical products"...thats how I envision the Board Meetings for this Magazine. ..Every month a new "Beauty" section is put in the magazine. Every month pre-teen and teen girls learn that their beautiful inner beauty is not "real" beauty. I mean everyone knows that real beauty comes from mascara tubes and lipstick bottles. Again, another stereotype that young girls need to be preoccupied with their looks. Hey, I am not opposed to wearing make-up. I am opposed to the constant habitual presentation of the same thing in every magazine.

-Guys is another section that I, as a woman and a Feminist (2 words, both mean the same thing). Every month, Seventeen has a "Guy of the Month", where they supposedly have some actor or musician (usually up and coming) to give a picture and answer "favorite color", "favorite memory" questions so the girls can fawn all over him. I am sick of this. What is wrong with a society that prepares girls that their world is all about Clothes, Make-up, and Guys. Not to mention it does objectify the guys by having a "Guy of the Month"...Also there is a "Can You Believe This Guy" in every month's issue. They will post 2 stories, one from a guy who is an angel and the other from a guy who is a devil....to perpetuate the myth that girls will either fall for the "Boy Next Door" or the "Rebel Without a Cause"...Sorry guys are humans too, they do not fall into 2 compartments perfectly folded over with no wrinkles.
Next is an article from the front-cover, "Can You Read This Guy"...they have written mock emails from supposed "crushes" of yours and they have psychotherapists and psychologists Patricia Wallace PhD, Naomi Baron PhD, and Michael Civin PhD given their analysis of what each message says and what it actually means. I like the fact that they show strong intelligent women giving advice...however, I believe they need to focus more on becoming strong, intelligent women and less on becoming boy-crazed.

-Sex...yes Seventeen has Sex in its Magazine...I mean articles about Sex of course. I was never surprised or shocked when reading this section, I was taught by my parents about Sex...however I was shocked when it came to actually realizing that not all parents talk to their children about sex. In this section, we see many parts. The first is usually a colum where girls will write into an actual doctor about their questions...typical questions are "Can you really get pregnant the first time you have sex"...."Does it hurt to have Sex"...."If my boyfriend pulls out, I dont have to worry about pregnancy right"...."Having sex in the water is ok, because water kills sperm, right?"...basic basic basic question that young girls have. I am mad, not at the magazine, but at the parents of these girls for not educating them properly. I do say Good for Seventeen for having a forum for this topic...however, I do feel they do not push abstitence, but rather they have a mentality that teens will experiment so its natural for them to lose their virginity while in high school. Well I was a teen and I didnt experiment, and I resent the fact that they lump all teens in this category. With all the rise of teen pregnancy, STDs, and teen sex, magazines need to stress abstaining from sex during the teen years. Most girls will have sex for 2 reasons 1) they are pressured into it or 2) they are having sex to fill up an emptiness that was a result of their family life. Sex is an "adult" activity, teens are barely able to drive, why do we think they are capable of handling the after-effects of Sex.
In this month's magazine, they do a report on some scary statistics, their last sex survey showed: Only 33% of teens realize that if a condom breaks, there is emergency contraceptive available through one's doctor or Planned Parenthood. 20% of teens believed that condoms were not at all effective at preventing pregnancy. More then 30% said Condoms didnt do much to prevent STDs/HIV...As a result teens think that since condoms do not "work", having sex the natural way "feels better" and has the same amount of risk...Woe behold to them. 25% of teens believed the pill did not prevent pregnancy at all, therefore they dont worry about using it when they have sex. 24% thought that condoms could only be bought with parental permission, therefore they have sex without condoms. One in 5 believe that the pill protects against HIV and other STDs...56% of girls believed that if you gave a guy a choice, he would not use a condom...56% found it embarassing to buy condoms...38% of teen girls thought the pill was bad for their health...66% of teens said they would feel suspicious if their boyfriend or girlfriend wanted them to use a condom when they had sex...and the scariest number, 47% of teens 15-17 said they had sex without a condom at least once a week

-BodyLine features exercise tips. What is funny, they always show a naturally thin, no athletic build, no tone to muscles at all, model doing the exercises. When I was a young teen, I was Heavy as you may know from my other epinions. I remember looking at this section and getting mad and jealous at the same time because here I was borderline obese looking at a thin young woman who had no need to "tone your flab" as the article suggested. The caption on the page states, "Be a lean-mean-fat-burning machine"...So again, we are implementing the other stereotype that girls need to be naturally preoccupied with their weight, thus the less fat they have, the better

-Quiz...ahh yes, what girl can't forget the monthly quizzes. This month it is "What Is His Love Style? Does he Bare His Soul or Zip His Lip?"...One thing I hate about magazine quizzes is that they are never reflective of reality. They try too hard to put people into unreasonable situations and then once you get your answer, it is only compartmentalize. So your "guy" is either going to be a "Mr Pledge-Maker", a "Mr Show and Tell" or a "Mr Actions Speak Louder Then Words"....this is just as bad as saying "Dumb Blonde" or "Women are Weak" or "Asians are always super intelligent"...stereotypes are never meant to build people up, they always tear them down. I am a Blonde and I have always resented the Dumb Blonde Bimbo Image that society has always identified with me. I can not even walk through a grocery store without some male wagging his tongue or pointing to his other regions with the premise that I am "easy", "dumb", a "sex toy" or some other remark. I have to work ten times as hard just to prove that I am intelligent. It has been and always will be a struggle for me to prove I am not a stereotype. So what gets me is this magazine teaching young girls that it is perfectly natural to stereotype human beings.

-Day In The Life is a new addition to Seventeen and I believe it needs to be expanded. Every month it features a woman in her career. This month it is a Bike Messenger, and the reader sees this lovely real woman in her natural environment...being a bike messenger in a predominantly male-dominated field. However, the writers of this section focus more on the girls fashion and clothes then her job....Again, Seventeen turns a great idea into fluff

-HelpLine is another Q&A feature. Questions range from interracial dating to abortion to molestation, etc. It is considered a Crisis Center and they offer great advice.

-College is a section that is geared to the older crowd, those in their last year of high school to those in their first year of college. This month the article is how to be safe while on campus. It is actually a great article with practical advice.

-Backstage Pass features a "hot new" singer. Every month the same basic questions are asked "favorite color", "favorite on-stage memory", "most embarrasing moment"..etc...Again it never fails my mind to think that so many girls view celebrities as gods, when they are just human beings. If every girl viewed the members of Backstreet Boys or N'Sync as one of their brothers, I guarantee you the "Honeymoon" would be over.
Also inside this section is this month's cover-story on Jennifer Lopez...the reader gets an indepth view of her soul. Wow, Im real excited. Im sorry but I can not see the merits in tooting the horn on a singer who wears next to nothing in her music vidoes and allows herself to be seen as nothing but an object for a man to occupy. That is unforgivable. She know better. Seventeen Knows better, yet she is their Cover Story.
Next in this section is an article called "Transformation Success" where they show celebrities in various stages of their career and they have fashion "experts' Judge them. What gets me is that they are saying that Alyssa Milano "had too much make-up" in this one picture....she was barely wearing any...and then in the last picture she was gobbed in eyeliner and they praised her as beautiful.

-Sneak Previews is section that reviews Movies, TV shows, and Music Albums that are soon to be released. They also have concert reviews...all of them have the traditional "teeny bopper appeal" that always praises the work of Britney Spears or Mandy Moore...please

-BeautyScope 2001 really beguiles me. They have divided each astrological sign up and paired it with a body part and gave each sign tips on how to make it sexier and more appealing for boys. For Aries, they have to wear red lipstick...Taurus needs to clean their skin...Gemini needs to use sparkly mascara...Cancer needs to use tweezers...Leo needs to use Shine-Enchancers for their hair...Virgo needs to use nail polish...Libra needs to use lip balm...Scorpio needs to use perfume and glitter for their ears...Sagitarrius needs to use body lotion...Capricorn needs a styling gel and Aquarius needs a razor...Pisces needs to show off her toes...

-2001 HoroScopes is the same horoscope they use every-year...I used to get myself all worked up because mine would always say something such as "the cute guy you have been after will finally ask you out"...it never happened. I am a fan of astrology, and it is real and effective. However Seventeen Magazine is cheapining the art of astrology by making it out to be some fortune telling device, as opposed to a tool of introspection. I read the Horoscopes and not one of them encouraged good study habits, positive self-talk, community service, nothing. it was all about boys and fashion

-Fashion is the section where the models come in and model the "latest" trends...I never liked this section. I am not going to wear an outfit just because some designer says it is "in"..I wear what I like, period. The first "modeling pose" is a very photogenic man with two girls. He is wearing a tux, they are wearing evening gowns. The thin slender model is a blonde, a more "round" model is brunette. The guy is leaning his body over toward the blonde, not in a model pose, but in a subconscious mannerism that allows the reader to see that even though the "fat girl" was included, she was not wanted...and its funny because even though they do include a so-called "larger size", I hardly say this girl is plus-sized. She is a size 9 at most. The next set of photos, the same people, this time the gorgeous guy is in a carriage with the slender blonde...turn the page and you will see the "plus size" model alone, no guy, but happily smiling at the 2 slender couple...What kind of message is that?

-Get Kissed By Midnight is a revolting article if I have ever read one. The basic premise is that if you are going to a New Years Eve Party, there are certain scenarios that might happen, and they give you exactly how to act so you will kiss a perfect stranger. Thats just absurd

-Turning Heads features real life girls with make-overs...or so they say, but in this case the so-call real life girls are actually Seventeen Models under cover...Again, girls are getting the idea that their life centers around becoming "beautiful" through make-up

-Self-Improvement Article...towards the end of every issue, there is always some flim-flam pseudo self-improvement article aimed at girls...IN a way it is like a "detox" from all the brain-washing the magazine has put the girls through. They will usually show some girl who has overcome surmountable odds or give a pep talk on improving your self confidence or loving yourself or realizing that having a boyfriend is not the important thing in life....but the cliche "Too Little, Too late" always comes to mind...I always skipped over this section because it was unrealistic.

Seventeen is not about making girls feel good, it is about making girls feel bad. Thus they keep buying this magazine in the hopes that one day they will be "cool enough" to be the "pretty" one with the cute boyfriend.
I use to enjoy this magazine when I first bought it, I am not sure if it truely declined in content over the years of I just "grew-up" to realize the truth. I would have to say a little of both is the order of the agenda. Still, I do not recommend this magazine to girls. It is a catalyst to self-destruction for young impressionable teenage girls mind. Perhaps one day Seventeen will see that in the real world, women are not about fashion or beauty or getting played as a sex object. In the real world, women are sexy, not because of their clothes or red lipstick but because they are intelligent, goal-orientated, assertive, and most of all, because they are women. Someone inform Seventeen Magazine that the boat for "Reality Island" departs in 10 minutes




Recommended: No