Women's Magazines

Sorry for the late post, yesterday was for a Star Wars Marathon and chilli. Yeah you jealous.

Have you ever flipped through a magazine like Cosmopolitan? I'm not gonna lie, it's hilarious. Terrible, but hilarious. It's fairly common knowledge that they're designed to make the average early twenties through to early thirties feel insecure and shitty about themselves, but then again, it's not as if it's hard. Society does that anyway. These women's magazines though, they take it to the next level, concentrating as many insecurity-causing half facts and airbrushed models as possible into the ridiculous number of pages they have (a decent portion of them are ads for perfume and hair colour... women stink and are off-coloured apparently. Never thought so myself, but what do I know, I'm not a cosmetologist), all the while putting on this faux-playful, serious-but-not-quite air. It's just like Cyndi Lauper said: Girls just wanna have fun so they can cover up their crippling insecurities and present an air of confidence and please their man. Those are the lyrics, right?

I had the pleasure of flipping through a copy of Cosmopolitan from 2008 yesterday. Maybe it's a case of genders communicating in different ways, but I don't understand the appeal. Case in point: 4 pages dedicated to quizzes, each quiz with less than eight 3-part multiple choice questions, designed to tell you how confident you are with friends, in yourself, with new partners and in bed. Here's the kicker though, no matter what you scored, the result could basically be boiled down to the same thing: It's cool that you're yourself, even though it may be alienating people. It's a tactical strike that ensures every reader who's gullible enough to buy this crap feels at least a little bit crappy about themselves. Another section, delightfully entitled "Manscripts," is basically a transcript of Hamiash Blake and two friends chatting at a pub. Scintillating. Of course, the article header says something like "Ever wonder what guys talk about at the pub? We lift the lid on secret man-talk!" as if all men are a secret cabal of conspiracy theorists and perverts. That said, to get to the heart of the article, what Hamish Blake discovered over the course of (I think it was) three hours at the pub is that guys talk about sex, work and the minutiae of first world life. Wow, thanks Hamish. Of course, it was carefully edited to include just a few jabs at women in general, this time about bowel movements and labial grooming. If the economy ran on women feeling like shit about themselves, we'd all be living in solid gold houses.

I'm almost certain I could excel as a writer for women's magazines, following the simple formula: No-one knows everything and everyone has insecurities, so providing "facts" that play to insecurities is addictive and makes people feel like shit. It's a winning combination. Case in point, spot the fake article:

"Ten Things He's Thinking But Not Saying"

"Why Sex Is Ruining Your Relationship"

"Forget Fake Tan, The Sun Is The One"

"Seven Special Treats For Him This Valentines Day"

"Frisky Festive! Sample This Season's Yule-Tide Lingerie"

The sad part? There is no answer, they're all fake. Not to say they couldn't be written, it'd be easy as hell. First one? Make up some shit about how eyes linger on body parts that are getting flabby. Second? Sex can take away intimacy from relationship and drive him into the arms of another woman. Or drugs, who cares. Third? That's easy, even colouration and vitamin D. Fourth one, make up some silly names for old positions and be out in time for lunch. The fifth one would just be a fun afternoon on Photoshop. I'd feel a little bad about how much disdain I have for the editors, writers and readers of women's magazines if it wasn't completely and totally justified.

You'd think after all this, I'd be anti-women's magazines, but you couldn't be more wrong. There's a sucker born every minute and at least half of them are female, so why not cash in on how crappy they feel? It's not as if they're gonna feel better any time soon.