in thinking women's magazines make women out to be stupid, and many of us are complicit

[RitaLynn]

After years of reading my mum's magazines and those left around in doctors' surgeries, I've come to the conclusion that women's magazines largely make women out to be stupid.

They're full of news-lite stories, fake health information (detox), celeb stuff, psychic stuff and horoscopes.

In contrast, there are lads magazines, targetted at young men, but there aren't men's magazines in the same sense, that work on daft stereotypes. If men are reading magazines, they're reading The Economist, or New Statesman, Prospect etc.

Am I being unreasonable to suggest that women's magazines make women out to be stupid, and too many of us are complicit?

decent

But magazines are gooe for people with a short attention span or who have things that need to be done at certain times. I know that I have to have lots of time if I settle down with a novel, but with a magazine it's easier to not get absorbed.

A novel serves a different purpose to a novel IMO.

I cheat and read The Week - Economist occasionally - Psychologies can be good - I read a lot of my news online but if I buy a 'women's mag' it's for fashion, so essentially I treat them as a catalogue. Just don't find browsing clothes online as satisfying. Although now I've discovered Style & Beauty on here (which will bleed me dry - have already purchased a Babyliss Big Hair styler and various other items I have coveted needed) I haven't been buying any fashion mags - just as well, because they are bleeding expensive. If I have to wait somewhere and don't want to read work related stuff I do like the occasional National Enquirer - very cheap and oh so awful. I'll get my coat.

(SNF - I agree - books are for bedtime or for train journeys where I can get stuck in for at least half an hour)

I read Easy Living. Nice recipes, intelligent articles and no essays informing me on how to give DH the best blow job of his life.

Which would be teaching granny to suck eggs, obviously.

I get Olive, Delicious and Good Food (call them my food porn!) Quite like Essentials, Psychologies and The Week. DH comes back from business trip with Stuff ( normal), Grazia, Star or Closer!!!

Ooh I like Essentials too, Arion. Nice recipes in there too!

Hi bupcakes, yes, good recipes and a handy tear out section (if I ever got round to tearing them out!!)

Rita - you don't have to read only "womens" mags, you could read new statesmen or the economist if you want, you don;t HAVE to be a man. I think some men read things like Nuts though - i dont personally know any men who read any form of magazine at all. Well, my DP might read classic car sometimes but thats about it.

I do know what you mean though Rita, my MIL reads take a break and that sort of shit, i can't even read them out of desperation because the only other reading material she has is the Daily sodding mail.

I want to say again, I'm not saying that the Economist is a men's magazine, I'm saying it's a magazine that a man (and also women) would read

I read Economist, Prospect, etc, and I'm called Rita

I will not read ANY glossy magazines (and Psychologies is aimed at women, just look at the adverts!) because they are 2/3 real adverts, 1/18th article and the rest is made up of "Fashion Bargains!" - like a £230 paid of revolting cropped jeans.

I read The New Scientist. It actually teaches me something I don't know every time I turn a page.

Love this quote
"Nuts and that sort of shite are equivilent to the likes of closer, Basically just trashy RL and celebrity (the obvious difference being the boob jobs in the mens versions are "big" and in the womans "botched")"

That's pretty much it!

Did anyone see the editor of Nuts's reaction in the media to football pundit sexism scandal? I thought he responded with quite a bit of intelligence and humour. (I don't read Nuts, though. Not out of PC-ness, I just don't fancy any of the slappers they put in it.)

There are just as many "products assuming men are stupid" out there as there are "products assuming women are stupid". Not every magazine for one gender has its exact equivalent for the other, but they know exactly what they are doing.

I was once tasked with buying supplies for the ex when he had man "flu" including some sort of magazine.

I thought he was going to hit me when I came back with "Men's Health" - he was furious!

YANBU in relation to "lifestyle" magazines, OP. Total waste of time and money. Better to stick with mags that don't target a particular gender. The only mag I read regularly is Runners World.

I read Private Eye and the Sunday papers. Can't be bothered with 'lifestyle' glossies. I must be out of the habit, as I bought Cosmo Bride mag for pre-wedding-planning research recently and nearly lost my breakfast.

I wonder if I can find a good dressmaker in the back of Private Eye?

I don't buy mags...too expensive and mostly get on my tits (not in a good way)..and yes they tend to appeal to the lowest denom ..irritation level is very high and adverts are too numerous..

Lots of you seem to read the Economist, is it good then?

shlocky schleb mags exist cos folk buy em and have inane interest in them

like ll folks who habitually daily mail onto mn and then protest
a. never read it
b. the 'orrd content

well dont buy it/ read it then duffus

This will probably ruffle a few feathers, but the dumb magazines must surely appeal to the ingrained dumbness that characterises so much female conversation - tho' not this one, natch . In ten years of full-time mothering, I have barely ever heard a group of mothers talk seriously about any kind of grown-up topic - politics, history, scientific breakthroughs, take your pick. The cretinism tends to be at its worst around the alpha mothers, who reel out Mobius monologues about John Lewis (yawn). Meanwhile even the most Neanderthal men do at least have opinions on said grown-up topics, and - shock horror - will even defend their views. Which would be a quick route to death-by-eyerolling at my local NCT.

I would love to be able to read a decent magazine aimed at early 30s women but none such exists. I look at zest and stuff for health mags but they are predominantly about losing weight and your figure etc. All the womens mags are obsessed with dieting and the ads are all about cosmetic surgery. Is rubbish. Would love something decent with topical issues but can't find anything at all.

simple market forces-supply & deand.folk buy thta shite

worthy doesn't fly off shelves like article about jordan or a wags vaginal reconstruction or some such

publishers sell what the dullards like to read

prole food

I thought "Red" was meant to be good. I know it has articles on politics because I contributed to one!

YANBU. They're mostly adverts and trash journalism masquerading as very important life knowledge such as how many millimetres high your heels "should" be.

for as long as folk buy,shit mags sell