Charlotte Howells writes...
As someone who used to think they wanted to work for a womens' magazine, I can't say I've ever had any particular aversion to them. Not even several years of studying their evils for my degree could really turn me against them - because to me, they were just harmless escapism.
Then my subscriptions ran out and none of the renewal offers were tempting enough to resubscribe. Coming back to them after having taken a few months break from '10 Top Tips To Please Your Man' and 750 Hot New Fashions', I began to wonder if I liked them quite so much, after all...
Apart from the fact that magazines take recycling to an extreme Al Gore would be proud of - just how many 'Amazing Tummy Toning Ups' do we need do read? - there's the fact that everything seem to evolve around looks, sex...and well, just looks and sex really (with the occasional reference to money). Is there really nothing more to life? Even supposedly serious topics are skewed to fit the magazine news values of looks and sex. Does the story about a female drug dealer in Glamour really need to be prefixed with 'young, pretty and posh'? In that situation, what significance do her looks really have? Gee, because a pretty person couldn't possibly become a drug dealer.
Continuing with the headings on the same issue of Glamour (April 2007, in case you're interested), it really does seem as if every heading revolves around looks, sex and a little bit of money. Let's do a mini analysis (hey, three years of a degree have to be useful for something).
1307 STYLE FINDS - Well looks, obviously. Also, I should mention here that womens' magazines, or womags, as I'll call them from now on, have an obsession with numbering things.
COLEEN. Why I won't sign a pre-nup - Money. Also: Celebrities, womags like them too.
LOSE WEIGHT LIKE A MAN - Looks, and I guess a bit of sex, it mentions men after all. Womags also seem to have a predilection towards capitals. AS IF THAT MAKES THINGS EXTRA SIGNIFICANT OR SOMETHING.
How your POSTCODE affects your ORGASM - Sex, clearly. Yet an absolutely absurd version of it. How did it get to the point that this, probably the most useless and pointless excuse for an article ever, constituted an article. And what's more, an article that deserves to go on the cover. Statistics gone mad.
Size 0 Horror. More looks, yada yada.
SEX with the ex! - Sex, obviously. Wonder how I worked that one out. Maybe it was the fact that the word SEX is in capitals and bright orange?
FANTASIES about your friends! More sex, but this time, it's creepy.
The secret things MEN do when we're not around - Sex, again. This time it's spiced up with the addition of MEN. You know, that alien life-form we're so dying to understand we buy magazines just to read reworded vox-pops uttered by these peculiar creatures.
So that's just the cover. Inside there's this gem: 'Success secrets of highly beautiful people'. Riiight. Because apparently ugly people never got a big fat pay check. Guess they've never heard of Alan Sugar then? In fact browsing the top females on the UK Rich List, there's Anita Roddick, JK Rowling, and, er, the Queen, and although none of them are hideously unattractive, I don't think they earned their fortunes through being 'highly beautiful'.
But for all their repetition, materialist ideologies and unhealthy obsessions with looks, womags have their good points too. The pages are usually works of art, laid out like a veritable feast for the eyes, along with technically brilliant photography and beautifully crafted words. There's no denying a lot of talent is involved in the creation of a magazine, and their visual appeal is much greater than, say, a high-brow newspaper.
I'm not saying I'll never read a womens' magazine again, but this little exercise has highlighted the fact that they really are faintly ridiculous in content, and I'm not sure I'll renew my subscription to the looks-SEX-money-athon that is Glamour.
Charlotte Howells is the editor of a blog she'd rather not mention for fear of appearing hypocritical. She also edits Nollie, which is much less superficial.
