"De skulle väl aldrig ställa en ful kille där" : Unga män om mansbilden i Vecko Revyn och Cosmopolitan

Sammanfattning: Our study aims to discover how young men aged 15-19 perceive the image of men in women’s magazines. To do this we let eight young men read the two women’s magazines most read by young women their own age, Vecko Revyn and Cosmopolitan. We want to find whether they consider this image to be representative of their own reality. We are also interested in their opinion when it comes to possible consequences of this image as well as their ideas on how men should be portrayed. We used a combination of different methods. First, we used introspection by letting each of the young men note down their thoughts in a diary while reading the magazines. We then used qualitative interviews to further explore their opinions. We applied the method of phenomenology to our research, which allowed us to concentrate solely on the young men’s experiences without regard to our own opinions or interpretations. Our study shows that the majority of the young men in our study consider the image of men in magazines to be stereotyped, sexualized and lacking in complexity. They express a wish to see more ordinary men as well as different sides of men. Also, there is an interesting contradiction between the young men’s ideals which are very traditionally masculine and their criticism of these values being portrayed in the magazines. Furthermore, there is a noticeable gap in insight between the 15-year olds and the other young men. The youngest two alone accept the image of men in the magazines. All of the young men deny that they are affected by the image of men in the magazines, though they express their concern that other, weaker individuals as well as young women may be affected.