Although Erikson recognizes the female as unique and her experience as individuated,he approaches gendered societal roles with fatalism.“Woman in many ways,has kept her place within the typologies and cosmologies which men have had the exclusive opportunity to cultivate and to idolize,”writes Erikson.Erikson,Erik,Identity,Youth and Crisis,p.262,New York:Norton,1968.Indeed,though women can be blamed for their acceptance of the gendered status quo,Erikson does admit to a masculine influence in the preservation of the patriarchy:“No doubt there exists among men an honest sense of wishing to save...a sexual polarity...and an essential difference which they fear may be lost in too much sameness.”Erikson,Erik,Identity,Youth and Crisis,p.264,New York:Norton,1968.With these statements,Erikson implies a certain biologic determinism in the construction of sex or gender roles.This determinism is exemplified in the teen magazine itself:the magazine is a form of place-holding within Erikson's so-called typologies and cosmologies.While many magazines aimed at teenage girls preach“girl power”and even a political agency of sorts,that the magazines'notions of power are gendered confirms the preservation of Erikson's“sexual polarity.”A static system is continually recreated as new generations of adolescents come of age and accept or absorb traditional ideas of their roles within a capitalist society.
Where do magazines fit in this relationship of maintenance and revolution?Are teenage girls,like communist countries,in need of democratization?Are magazines for girls,mediated by capital and directed at females in a critical stage of development,a tool to maintain the patriarchy?Joy Leman,in a criticism of women's magazines,writes of the monthlies as“media products”and deems them“part of an ideological apparatus presenting a view of the world which is at most points locked into the economics and political interests of the capitalist system”.Leman Joy,“The Advice of a Real Friend:Codes of Intimacy and Oppression in Women's Magazines,1937-1955,”In Women and Media,edited by,H.Baehr,p.66,New York:Pergamon,1979.Dawn Currie echoes this point in her study of teenage girls'magazines:“Teenzine messages are a product of the relations among various economic interests that include editors,publishing houses,and advertising agencies and their clients.”Currie,Dawn H.,Girl Talk:Adolescent Magazines and Their Readers,p.282,Toronto:University of Toronto Press,1999.Here,Currie identifies girls'magazines and the messages within them as products of a greater(capitalist)mechanism.If we view capitalism as a masculine construction in which women cannot assert themselves,we may also recognize women's magazines as an evil tool of this system.However,an alternative view can be constructed via Erikson's theories of identity development.Women's and girls'magazines celebrate the feminine inner space(emphasized in the girls'constructions)and represent a forum,albeit limited by advertising,for issues of interest to females.Angela McRobbie's recent work concerning women's and adolescent girls'magazines has included critical remarks regarding the discursive tradition that would focus on the detrimental(read“nonfeminist”)nature of these publications.McRobbie writes:“There remains an important relation between feminism and the world of girls'and women's magazines;the new intersections between them need to be examined in depth.”McRobbie,Angela,“MORE!New Sexualities in Girls'and Women's Magazines,”In Culture Society:Art,Fashion,and Popular Music,p.47,New York:Routledge,1999.
Both Erikson and fellow developmentalist Jean Piaget recognize the power of the peer group to influence identity development,and the teen magazine as a guide is a peer group itself.Piaget claims that the identification with a microcosm of society allows an individual to feel anchored in the world.“The adolescent,”claims Piaget,“views its own plans and activities as they relate to an idealized social group.The individual(thus)begins to think of itself as a full-fledged member of society.”Evans,Richard I.,Jean Piaget,The Man and His Ideas,translated by E.Duckworth,p.96,New York:Dutton,1973..The teen magazine,with its images of corporeal perfection and promises of social success,can be seen as evidence of a social ideal to which developing teens may aspire.Self-development is referential and in varying ways influenced by an individual's alignment with asocial group.Such identification may lead an adolescent to form a mirror group,or clique,of her own.According to Erikson,the“discomfort”of adolescence(“when genital puberty floods body and imagination with all manner of impulses”)is assuaged by“forming cliques and stereotyping themselves.”Erikson,Erik,Identity,Youth and Crisis,p.133,New York:Norton,1968.Elizabeth Heilman,echoing Erikson in 1998,claims that the dominant class structure“is additionally reinforced through the self-determined groupings of adolescents from different social class backgrounds.”Heilman,Elizabeth E.,“The Struggle for Self:Power and Identity in Adolescent Girls,”Youth and Society,30,2(1998),p.6.The media are a direct source for images of social groupings,as teens seek refuge in a socially safe category;teen magazines in particular offer monthly images of social promise.
