lessons learnt from women’s magazines
I was reading a magazine I don’t usually read a few weeks ago. I was on a plane and needed some light reading – I can never read my books on planes, I tend to get extremely nauseated. Apart from the usual pages of mostly-unattainable-fashion and “must have!” tips and titbits, there were articles on health. One such article stood out as a person interviewed for the article made a comment along the lines that no one could be happy being “overweight”. Because, you know, obviously that person had talked to every “overweight” person in the entire world and every person had said they were unhappy. Or, they talked to one person who was unhappy and decided that their experience was exactly the same as everyone else’s experience. Case closed, of course.
At that point, I closed the magazine in disgust and resigned myself to being nauseated for the rest of the flight. I thought this magazine would be at least a little different than most of the ones geared towards women – there surprisingly wasn’t one feature inside the magazine of how to please your man, how to dress for your man, how to be totally heteronormative and be more feminine and that made me feel more positive about purchasing it. Until that article.
To be honest, I felt tricked. I can put up with fashion that I can’t afford and have no hope of fitting for lovely photography. I can even put up with articles that don’t really relate to my situation or my life! I cannot, however, put up with blanket statements on complicated issues from a magazine that should be smarter.
So, once again, I resolved, no more magazines that proclaim to be about and for women when clearly, they only cater to a certain type of woman that fits in a neat little pigeonhole and knows her place. Ugh.
