By Melanie Montes ’18

This is a common scenario: you walk into a store and the racks are full of elite fashion magazines like Vogue, Marie Claire and Elle, stacked one on top of another. You pick up one of them and lo and behold, there’s a woman on the cover. Another one catches your eye; a woman is still on the cover. Every single magazine you see has a woman on the cover.

On most print issue cover-pages, all anyone ever sees are female models, and on rare occasion, a male model falling behind a female. The fashion industry is dominantly female, rarely giving male models a chance to prove themselves.

Freshman Teddy Press has an idea of why women are always on the front page.”Female models promote an image of sex appeal on the cover, with men more likely to pay attention to her and women wanting to look like her,” he said.

Each issue from Vogue and Elle contains photographs of mostly female models, but you rarely see any males grace their glossy pages. The value of hiring a better-looking male model pales by comparison because few men care about their appearances, and fewer read fashion magazines.

Sophomore Emily Johnston believes society restricts men and women. “Most girls in school will have makeup on and dress nicely. Meanwhile, men are told that beauty isn’t for them so they go natural faced,” she said. “Society wants girls to look perfect, so there are more fashion options available to them. Guys are expected to not care about their appearance.”

When have you ever heard of a male model making millions? Sean O’Pry, the biggest male model to date, has made $6.5 million in a span of nine years, while Gisele Bundchen has made an estimated $44 million in the span of 20 years. With these staggering facts, the dark reality of the fashion world is brought to light. Both O’Pry and Bundchen are doing the same job, with equal amounts of dedication to the industry, but it is more difficult for men like O’Pry to make it big.

Junior Isabel Parzecki said there’s societal pressure involved with men and their appearance. “There’s a stigma against men caring about their appearance she said. It just has to do with society. If men didn’t feel like buying products for themselves was looked down upon then they’d find a lot of choices. “

In order for us to take action, we need to value one another and realize that every one of us has something to offer, whether it’s in fashion, school, with ideas, anything at all. No one should ever give anything up because others don’t believe in their vision. If we start caring about everyone as equals and give everyone the benefit of the doubt then we are one step to changing and opening the playing field for other male models.