Date Thesis Awarded
5-2010
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Arts (BA)
Department
Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies
Advisor
Leisa D. Meyer
Committee Members
Nancy Gray
Kimberley L. Phillips
Abstract
Cosmopolitan is a controversial magazine among feminist scholars, because it contains both liberating and oppressive messages for women. The following is a study of the history of the Cosmopolitan philosophy and its distribution in modern India. I argue that Cosmopolitan's liberating discourses of sexual and economic independence for women is accompanied by discourses of sexualization and mass consumption due to Cosmopolitan's ties to the capitalist advertising and publishing industries. Discourses of sexualization and mass consumption negatively affect Indian citizens by contributing to the proliferation of eating disorders, environmental degradation and economic stratification. I focus on the presence of cultural hybridization on the pages of Indian Cosmopolitan and the role of Indian elites in the production and distribution of these discourses. This study points to the significant role of mass media, and more specifically women's magazines, in India's development.
Recommended Citation
Brown, Andrea Frances, "The Best That You Can Be: Conflicting Messages of Liberation and Oppression in Indian Cosmopolitan Magazine" (2010). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 723.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/723
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Comments
Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.