This paper examines the way women are portrayed in women magazines in Albania, focusing on three main elements: career, beauty, and motherhood. Assuming that the views, perceptions, and figures portrayed in the media reflect the existing trends, perceptions, and culture in society on gender roles, the analysis tries to identify the ways in which media discourses and representations of women and gender roles and relations correspond to wider social norms, stereotypes and practices. The article claims that the portrayal of women in these magazines underlies the importance of achieving femininity, and consequently self-esteem, mainly through beauty, while downplaying other important aspects in a woman's life, such as professional achievements or the struggle for gender\nequality. Not only does beauty appear to be a typical feminine value and aim;, motherhood is also upheld as an ultimate goal, without which a woman's life would be\nincomplete. The portrayal of family life and roles with regard to motherhood explores no other possibility than the values of the traditional family model, thus reinforcing existing societal norms and stereotypes. Hence, the combination of the myths of beauty and the family confines the models of successful women in these magazines, and consequently their readers, to the pursuit of beautification and motherhood. This leaves careers and other social achievements an option rather than an necessity for one's self-actualization, thus reflecting and reinforcing existing social norms and stereotypes.\n