Fulfilling femininity and transcending the flesh: traditional religious beliefs and gender ideals in popular women's magazines

Abstract

This article analyzes and assesses two prominent religious themes - the transcendence of the flesh and the association between women and the body - as they appear in popular women's magazines. Such themes are tacitly embedded in these texts' iconography and stories, which define the identity and virtue of womanhood through the body, and which make the achievement of this feminine ideal contingent on the transcendence of physical processes and needs. The religious beliefs that holiness depends on subduing the flesh and its cravings, and that females have especial proximity to the body, present a peculiar - if not precarious - dilemma for women. Women's magazines are not only contemporary carriers of these age-old views; they are also a primary means whereby girls and women negotiate the mixed messages they imply.