I was feeling like I needed a good punishing today, so I took a Cosmo quiz online – the most offensive-sounding one I could find. “What Kind of Female Are You” was the title. First of all, it should be “woman,” not “female.” Referring to a woman as a “female” conjures images of rap videos where lusty girls dance around an aloof guy and get various body parts slapped. But the fact that I still have some faith in humanity made me hope that the “kinds” would fall into categories like “artistic,” “businesswoman,” “nurturer” and “wild child.”
I was beyond wrong. Apparently, I am “girlfriend material” – I like to troll the bars for guys (sorry, how does that make me girlfriend material?), don’t care about my career, and really just want to settle down with a nice man and have his babies and never think critically again. I’m “traditional to the core” and I spend all day chatting online.
Oh, where to begin. I did settle down with a nice man and have his baby, I’ll give them that. I suppose Cosmo assumes that married women anyone over 18 wouldn’t bother taking their quizzes, which is probably true. Not only do I work here writing all this crazy stuff, I go to graduate school full time, operate a small online business and volunteer at my kid’s school. However responsible this may all seem, I enjoy blowing copious amounts of money on books, travel, epic concerts, good beer, fine dining and handmade jewelry.
After re-taking the quiz a few times and inputting the formulaic answers, I found the second kind of female, the “go-for-it girl.” This female was raised to believe she can do anything she wants. She is empowered, exciting, in control of her life and her career. She might marry and have kids, but she doesn’t need to. Her life rocks. Unfortunately, to get this result I had to identify myself as a future CEO who doesn’t date very much or place a high value on family. On another retake, I got the same result when identifying myself as madly interested in sexuality and dating.
The third kind of female is the “restless explorer.” Flighty and indecisive, she can’t pick a job, a man, or even a pair of shoes. She constantly needs a new experience but is “overwhelmed by all the choices available.” She just can’t win, can she? Poor thing. Typical female – they can’t ever make up their minds, can they.
The fourth female was at first a great mystery (each question had four possible answers – I thought there would be four ultimate results). I selected all the answers that I thought would produce a result like “party girl:” I go out to bars all the time, I get up on tables and dance, I have one night stands, etc. The result? “go-for-it-girl.” Then I responded with what might result in “lazy girl,” or something to that effect: I don’t care about my job, I want to stay home and pop out babies, etc. I got “girlfriend material” again. At this point I gave up and decided there are really only three kinds of females: stay-at-home moms, empowered women, and those that can’t make up their mind.
Probably, I’m taking this all way too seriously. “It’s a silly Cosmo quiz,” you might say. “They’re just for fun and they don’t mean anything. They get people wrong all the time.”
It’s true on one level. On another, Cosmo is attempting to unravel the women’s rights movement and negate all the gains we’ve made since we got the right to vote in 1920 (Why don’t I tell you how I really feel?). Their quizzes create a need for girls and women to label themselves, to continually define who they are based on someone else’s criteria, which usually involves strong opinions about what women should and shouldn’t do. I refuse to believe that women actually compose these quizzes and about half of the content in Cosmo. Or at least, women with a vague understanding of third wave feminism, or even postmodern feminism. While the Wikipedia reference to the latter is severely lacking, this nugget of insight stands out: “[Sex is not] something completely determinate and definable. Rather, sex is part of a system of meaning, produced by language.” Hear that, Cosmo? Your attempts to define women as this type of sexual being or that are invalid. You undermine the entire “system of meaning” with arbitrary and desultory language. You make us try to feel like we must belong to a group, to as many groups as possible, so that we will feel fully defined and determined. Labeling one’s self with someone else’s labels is, apparently, a woman’s key to winning at life.
But, Cosmo’s just a business with the simple goal of selling magazines. Women like to take quizzes. Quizzes sell magazines. On the surface, everybody gets what they want. I take a Facebook quiz every now and then. There’s something inherently pleasurable in finding out whether you might be Armenian or, one of my favorites: “Which crazy bitch are you?” I’m Sylvia Plath.
The fact that there’s no way I could be Armenian, and that I might possibly identify with Sylvia Plath – I already know. It’s stupid and time-consuming to take quizzes that tell you what you already know. But I will argue that it’s much more sinister to take quizzes that tell you, with an air of definitiveness, exactly what you are, whether you knew it or not. I imagine the young, hapless girl who takes the Female quiz and discovers that she’s girlfriend material. “Yay!” she thinks. “I knew there was a reason why I have no ambition to succeed at anything other than the traditional gender role prescribed to me. I am validated!” Please understand, I fully support stay-at-home-moms. I’ve been one myself. Their devotion to their families is a beautiful thing in an age where many parents see their children less often than their teachers, nannies and gymnastic instructors do. Workaholic parents represent a bigger societal problem than Cosmo, I think.
Cosmo mostly just plays to women’s perceptions that men live in a heightened state of emotional awareness, one that rivals the one that Cosmo readers inhabit. See “Why Men Forget Valentine’s Day,” for example. It’s not because “mens’ emotions are reactionary,” I can tell you that much. Men have selective memories, especially when it comes to mushy stuff. There. I just re-wrote that article in one sentence. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. But I don’t think he meant we should examine ourselves into neat little boxes, over and over again, until we cease to have an inner sense of who we are. “Girlfriend material,” “go-for-it girl,” “restless explorer:” Women are much more than the sum of these stereotypes. Every woman has the potential to be all three of these things, among a myriad of others, simultaneously and harmoniously.
Related articles:
3 comments
Suzanne says:
Feb 14, 2010
The quizzes in Cosmo kind of bother me, too, but you’ve got to look at who buys Cosmo. It is mostly (though the magazine reps might not admit it) teenage girls who want to be grown up and sophisticated, and silly college girls, half of whom do not take the magazine seriously and half of whom are constantly seeking how to improve their sex lives so that they can catch, hook, or keep a man. Most girls I have known who read Cosmo avidly are extreme flirts who act in such a way that it is as if they feel there is a camera on them at all times filming their sexiness (or attempt at such). In Cosmo world, “25 ways to satisfy your man in any location” is The News, so it would stand to reason that any quiz you find in the magazine would relate to either dominating the business world, being the world’s greatest lover, or how to wear your snow-ho boots with a micro mini.
polishbee says:
Feb 14, 2010
Great entry! Even though I am old enough to know better, sometimes I still get trapped into this whole question of what kind of woman am I, or that I have to make excuses for not wanting to do the traditional woman thing (take my husband’s last name, shave, own giant diamonds.) But, I also struggle with the fact that I have gotten a lot of education that will provide me with some amazing professional choices and I yet I also yearn to be a mom. It is confusing, is it one or the other?
On Cosmo’s take of men…
My husband actually complains a lot about the way men are portrayed in the media–he says it is despicable and they are portrayed as bumbling idiots. I have to say I agree with him. As much fun as I have had laughing at a silly slack-jawed lazy man in TV commercials, its to the point where they are getting a bad wrap–its like TV says it is not manly to be a considerate conversationally adept grown man.
KristineEmpire says:
Feb 16, 2010
@ Suzanne: Good point. I tried to address that by realizing that I was taking it too seriously, but then I continued to take it seriously. It is important to note that Cosmo and similar magazines are just catering to their customers, as any business should. I have to wonder though – did the snow-ho girls create the magazine, or did the magazine create the snow-ho girls? omg, micro mini! That made me laugh.
@polishbee: Being a mom and a professional woman are simultaneously possible, and thankfully more employers are willing to work around a demanding mommy schedule (more flexible hours, sometimes working from home, childcare in the building, etc.) Don’t ever feel like you have to be one or the other! (But don’t be one of those parents that drops your kid at daycare for 12 hours a day – that goes for dads too). I’m curious what you meant about men’s portrayal in the media. True, they are portrayed as bumbling idiots – every sitcom ever comes to mind. I was trying to address the fact that some women obsess over what men are thinking, and guys have told me that they don’t dwell on all the tiny little details that constantly freak women out. Like if you ask a guy if he’s upset because he’s quiet and because he told you 3 weeks ago that your hair looked weird. More than likely he’ll say “Nope. I was just thinking about dinner.” Or saving the polar bears, or work, or the current state of the Middle Eastern peace process… just that he wasn’t thinking about a hair comment from 3 weeks ago.