When I visit my mom, I love to cozy up to her More and, I admit it, O Magazine, and read about just-released novels, the latest science on happiness and resilience, and long beautiful personal essays on death, love, aging. I feel a little like my second grade self sitting at the feet of my babysitter, Carly, and listening to her talk on the phone while she flips through a Sassy Magazine (the old school style).
I know I'm not the target audience (and I recognize that some of their content sucks too), but it feels nice to read pieces that actually teach me something or move me in women's magazines. Too often, the magazines targeted at my age group are chock full of anxiety-inducing body features (even when they claim to be giving you a "body image makeover" it tends to feel like they're secretly making you hate yourself), fluff pieces on what kind of sex you're supposed to be having, and shock-and-awe memoir by women who were kidnapped by a cult or discovered that their mother was their sister etc. etc.
The editors at these magazines, I imagine, would argue that they are just supplying the demand, that young women ask them for this kind of content in letters and focus groups.
But where are the women who ache for these anxiety-inducing sex columns and another frickin' article on working out? Why is it that older women seem to want complex personal essay and complex features on cutting-edge science, reviews of literary novels etc., but we youngin's just want fashionfashionfashion?
What would your dream magazine contain? Mine:
Lots of personal essays by really smart, funny women
Reviews of memoir and novels, indy movies and music
Profiles of social entrepreneurs, feminists, great thinkers
Cutting edge science that features legitimate peer-reviewed studies on health, psychology, and the environment
Op-eds where women take different points of view on complicated issues
Photo spreads featuring women with diverse body types wearing gorgeous, original, affordable clothing
Those awesome spreads where a magazine takes an issue--like the wedding industry--and gives all kinds of fascinating facts and figures (my favorite version of this is in Mother Jones)
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Wow! I was just thinking about this recently. I love magazines but it seems like the editorial quality is really going south. I recently picked up O magazine (I am soo not the target demo), and I have to say, embarrassing as it is, it was the best woman's magazine I've read in awhile.
Woman's magazines get a bad rap as being superficial and fluffy (and right now they are), but they can have tremendous influence and also have helped to develop female journalists and writers.
Does anyone read Bust magazine? Opinions? I've never picked up a copy, maybe because it seems a little too young for me.
"Why is it that older women seem to want complex personal essay and complex features on cutting-edge science, reviews of literary novels etc., but we youngin's just want fashionfashionfashion?"
Because at a certain point, we're kind of over it. I still like fashion, but I don't HAVE to look good 24-7. I have more important things to do. In other words, I am now an adult with other responsibilities, and my world is larger.
Hey! That sounds like an awesome magazine, Courtney. I think we are missing a publication like this.
I've never read Bust either. A magazine I used to read and like is Bitch. And I also enjoy some articles in O magazine. But I think we can do better! I've been thinking about this too recently.
I had a subscription to More, since I'm in their age demographic, and I couldn't relate to anything in the magazine. It's very geared to upper-middle class business women, who have healthy 401Ks and can leave the rat race in their 50s and 60s to open a B&B or a gourmet restaurant. More power to them, but what about the rest of us and what about lower-middle class women, or artists and musicians. Sorry, I'm not giving up my '67 Bug for a Range Rover, heehee.
Why is it that older women seem to want complex personal essay and complex features on cutting-edge science, reviews of literary novels etc., but we youngin's just want fashionfashionfashion?"
Do we? I'm 41, which counts as "older" I guess, and I want fashion and beauty advice in my fashion magazines. I don't read fashion magazines for reviews of literary novels. (Snooze.) I read them for a fun bit of fluff while on the train or on the elliptical machine. I like reading about fashion and makeup. And there's nothing wrong with that.
I personally love Bust. One of my favorite columns is the one by the little old lady mechanic who talks about cars and why they make (fill in the blank) sound. I also love the lady lawyer, and the awesome, awesome crafts feature. And of course, they feature awesome women in comedy, art, music and politics. My only gripe is that it only comes out 6 times a year.
I like both Bitch and Bust. I don't have a subscription to either but I do love to pick up an issue at the Bookstore. I also buy a Ms. every season. I like the book revies and I like the "no comment" section. The State by State and Country by Country news sections.
Real Simple satisfies me with affordable fashion and useful tips for not just home stuff, but for finance too. I teach at a high school, and the economics teacher and I had a great chat one day when I found her photocopying articles from Vanity Fair for her class. So I would like to have the political articles from Vanity Fair in Real Simple.
Well, sorry for the shameless plug (since we do have an ad to the left). But, if you're interested in travel, we've basically got the exact content you describe...and just launched on Tuesday! (With thousands of readers so far...woo hoo.)
Galavanting is an online women's travel magazine with a feminist slant. We've recruited diverse women from all over the world to write essays and tips and commentary. We also profile women-owned small businesses.
In August we're shooting a video guide to Costa Rica and will be visiting a local rural women's coop whose enterprises sustain their villages and children's education!
Check us out: http://www.gogalavanting.com
Cheers,
Kim & Katy
I love Bust, and have an on/off love for Bitch, but also enjoy the mainstream ladymags as a guilty pleasure -- Glamour's Don'ts, the embarrassing caught-in-the-act sex stories in Cosmo, and the pretty pictures of pretty clothing. Sure, much of the fluff of these magazines is size-ist, the models are mostly white (unless the trend is animal prints, then the brown models get a shot). But, over many years reading these, I've seen a definite trend toward comprehensive birth control and lady health info, pro-sex for pleasure stories, and about once every other issue, a great indepth story on an important issue, such as women veterans from Afganistan and Iraq, fighting rape on college campuses, and the like. I imagine that it takes a bit of a fight with the folks upstairs every time one of these articles is publishes, and I appreciate those writers and editors that take on that fight, as they have the ability to reach such a wide, and young, audience.
I like Bitch. Bust is a little too porn-is-empowering for me. My favorite women's magazine these days, though, is BrainChild http://www.brainchildmag.com/ . It's aimed at women with children, so it's narrower than what you're looking for, but it has a lot of what you list. In every issue there's a pro/con pair of essays on something debatable, as well as book reviews and commentary on politics and science. I just wish it came out more than four times a year.
Blue Pencils, there's certainly nothing wrong with reading fashion magazines for a piece of light, fluff reading while bounding along down the track.
But your (Snooze) re: criticism of literary novels made my eyebrow involuntarily raise as it usually does when I see an uninformed/ignorant comment. English major, occupational hazard.
Literature rocks. Let criticism and discussion of cool feminist and progressive lit be included in this hybrid magazine we dream about!!!
Bitch is my favorite, but it's not a "women's" magazine in the classic sense - it's a feminist media critique magazine, though they do have straightforward music, book, and movie reviews. I get my fashion/accessories/crafty home-improvement fix from Bust, which is on the fluffy side, but has some great articles (and their fashion spreads, with regular-sized models, are usually terrific). I wish both came out more often! And I wish Katha Pollitt wrote for The Nation every week...
I hate those fluffy magazines with a passion (i.e. they are good for starting fires)- they are a major vehicle to reinforce sexist oppression. I usually read Herizons or Bitch magazine. Bust is a little too commercial for me and isn't easily found in Motnreal anyways.
Your dilemma is questionable. You have a problem with the content of young women's magazines, and desire more substantial material. But why do you need to get it from a magazine geared towards women? What's wrong with The Atlantic, Harpers, The New Yorker? These magazines satisfy many of the needs you listed. The reason women's magazines are so vapid is because they are filling in the blanks. Many women do want to read about exercise and makeup and fashion and sex, and they aren't going to find that in The New Yorker. So Cosmo and Elle are fillers. I occasionally glance through them, and consider them incomplete. But it doesn't bother me, because I wouldn't dare to focus on just one magazine. The Atlantic talks about feminists all the time, so what does it matter if the magazine, itself, isn't for women exclusively?
I highly recommend the UK magazine Psychologies (subscriptions at www.psychologies.co.uk). It contains a lot of what's on your list and it's the only women's magazine I'll buy.
I wrote a post on my blog objecting to the anti-oprah sentiment in the feminist community inspired by your column. You might be interested in checking it out:
http://popfeminist.blogspot.com/2008/07/anti-oprah-and-feminist-elitism.html
I have to admit something: I have a subscription to Self magazine, which I got for free. Sometimes I like to have something really brainless to read.
As much as it's full of the stuff anyone on this blog would hate (diet tips, sex tips, fashion), there are occasionally a few surprises. In the June issue, there was a very lengthy article on late-term abortions, and it was very clearly pro-choice. It did a GREAT job sharing the stories of a few women who needed late-term abortions, clearing up some of the medical information, and talking smack about some of the absurd legalities these women had to face. And maybe about a year ago, there was an article on how many women are denied basic reproductive healthcare. Plus, the magazine founded the Pink Ribbon campaign.
Definitely not the ideal magazine described here, but I just thought I'd share the surprises I found, after flipping through the pages of fashion and health. Well, I like the health part :-)