Anyone who has ever known me will attest to the fact that I am not interested in fashion. I don't carefully craft my outfits or spend hours watching beauty tutorials on YouTube, and a pony tail is as elaborate as my hair style gets. Hence, my love for the magazine Cosmopolitan often surprises people. Many view Cosmo the same way I once did, that it's just a fashion magazine. However, I love Cosmo because it's about more than just fashion. It's about love, friendship, careers, politics, health, and all the issues that concern women. Besides learning the difference between a romper and a jumper (I might not be into fashion, but I'm never against learning), I've learned about challenges that other women face, some of which are similar to my own and others which I never knew existed. Cosmo wonderfully balances being entertaining and light with being serious. Moreover, any woman -- single, married, girly, athletic, college student, career woman, you get the idea -- can find something to relate to.
New perspectives.
A few years ago, if I saw a girl in her twenties on a date with a man twice her age two thoughts would cross my mind. She's a gold digger and he's a cradle-robber. At least, that's what I would've thought until I read the article "Would you date a much older or a much younger man?" in the September 2015 issue of Cosmopolitan. The piece featured two different women, one in her twenties dating a man twice her age and the other a woman in her forties dating a man in his twenties. The article was honest and genuine about the issue and gave me a whole new perspective on the matter. Now, if I saw that twenty-something girl on a date with a man much older than her, I would think of the twenty-something in the article who was called all sorts of names just because of who she fell in love with. And that's just one of the eye-opening articles Cosmo offers. From stories about what it's like to start over after you've beaten cancer to articles about women dominating the tech industry, you'll definitely find something that will change your perceptions.
New connections.
In the May 2016 issue of Cosmo, Tia William wrote a brilliant article titled, "Where are all the black women in fiction?" She describes her experience as a young reader painfully aware that none of the protagonists in the stories she loved looked like her. And she explains her frustration with a publishing industry only interested in stories about the struggles of black women, ignoring the fact that characters should be as multilayered as black women are in real life.
Reading the article, I was struck by two realizations. The first was that, despite being an avid reader as a kid, I can only recall two books I'd read with a person of color as the protagonist. The second was that I remembered how I felt when I encountered a Muslim character in a book for the first time (it was Hassan, from "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green). I was 15 when I read it, and recall the excitement I felt coming across a character that was like me, and how bereft I felt after when I became aware that it hadn't happened before and wasn't likely to happen again.
I don't claim to understand the struggles of a black woman in America, but certainly after reading that article I experienced a connection between the struggles of Tia Williams as a black woman and myself as a Muslim girl. So, beyond introducing new perspectives, Cosmo also sparks new connections, ones that you often don't anticipate.
In short -- I love Cosmopolitan because it has a little bit of everything. But, most importantly, I love Cosmo's attitude. Other magazines seem to exist solely to tear people down--be they celebrities going through a rough patch in their marriage or girls who don't have the perfect body type -- but Cosmo encourages everyone to live fearlessly and be confident in who they are. And that's why it's more than just a fashion magazine.
