Thinking women's magazines have had their day

[EduardoBarcelona]

I was given a copy of Marie Claire. I just read it. Why? Adverts. Adverts. Hard adverts hard to bend. Samples.

Shit trite editorial and letters "I read the article on North Korea im so pleased to live in Europe". Yup thanks for that.
Articles on what it's like in the hamptons. A big on dodgy abortion providers. Pages on a woman in the desert with skeletal legs. See pic.

Then the most hilarious "get the look for less" see pics.

Agree marie Claire really flew the flag in the early days for reporting interesting worldwide women's issues

Don't read any of them anymore. I used to get stressed reading the lists- how to be more organized, how to update your look, how to get a guy, how to be in fashion this season. You were never good enough. I feel much better about myself now I (40 something with middle-aged spread) don't compare myself with them (20 something low BMI). Easy way to improve your life if you ask me.

I like The Oldie.

I enjoy The Lady. I enjoy The Lady and Take A Break completely unironically. Also, I do like Rachel Johnson since she became Jack Monroe's champion.

Rachel Johnson doesn't edit The Lady anymore but it is still the best of the bunch (IMO)

I buy history magazines now.

and the only 'womens' mag I ever get is 'Yours'. I love nostalgia and all the sweetheart stories and fashions from the war years onwards.

I don't think so. When i was working i used to buy take a break and thats life etc every week so i would have something to read in my break. I do buy these still every few weeks as i love the puzzles too.
I do buy closer every week. I love to sit with the cat and read my trashy mag!

Isubscribe to The Oldie, Fortean Times and Vanity Fair.
They are my indulgences.
I used to buy heaps of magazines - Viva, 19, Spare Rib, Company and Marie Claire were ones I bought every month.
Like others have said, so many are so same-ey. The letters pages are vacuous (or the letters that are printed are).
They are also expensive, for the amount of reading they contain and books are just the same price nowadays.
I do buy if I really want the freebie, though

Once you have read a monthly magazine for a year it just repeats itself - how to have the perfect Xmas, perfect Valentines, declutter your house, declutter your finances... then get the beach body, make the Halloween costume, and then we are back to the perfect Xmas....

Stopped buying them, just glance through the odd one in the hairdresser every few weeks.

My dsis is a journo on women's magazines. She thinks her job won't exist much longer, and would not encourage anyone to go into journalism. She's quite matter of fact about it, even though it is tinged with sadness for what used to be a good career.

I stopped buying Red when I realised I was paying four quid for something I could read from cover to cover in the course of a half-hour soak in the bath, when I could buy an entire book on Amazon for £2.80 and it would last me a fortnight of baths.

Not to mention the fact that I don't trust their skincare/beauty reviews to be remotely objective (advertising revenue being what it is). If I really want to know about a new skincare or make-up product I use blogs to see what people really think.

I love that get the look for less - so just don't wear a top then? ha ha

I used to be a women's magazines journalist. I am not now. I think that says it all. Even the people still working on them hate them.

I read Men's Health now.

Once you have read a monthly magazine for a year it just repeats itself - how to have the perfect Xmas, perfect Valentines, declutter your house, declutter your finances... then get the beach body, make the Halloween costume, and then we are back to the perfect Xmas....

Absolutely!
And it drives me mad that every cover has to have a sleb - usually some Hollywood person who is trying to flog their latest film. Who decided that actors had anything important to impart?. Where are the interviews with scientists, business people, politicians and other such genuinely interesting people. Where are the Big Ideas.

It's all so vacuous and repetitive. I've let my subscription lapse.

The Gentlewoman is great.
Kinfolk is great.

I get UK and US Vogue free. I enjoy a bit of vacuous fluff and the photography has interest for me.

Vanity Fair can be great and UK Harpers is looking up under Justine Picardie's editorship- interesting articles on fashion history and fashion geek detail.

I think they really declined when they sacked the more experienced staff who could write properly and just hired inexperienced people that they could pay ridiculously low salaries with the idea of making a bigger profit.

A few years ago I thought I might get back into writing a few freelance articles, and sent off some story ideas which were roundly rejected. It was interesting stuff for women with a brain, but the way magazines work now is that they have a very small coterie of staffers (I say staffer but they may well be on freelance contracts) who basically write about their friends and the freebies that arrive in the office. Nobody seems to bring on the younger talent any more, the transfer routes from tabloid journalism and local press are more or less a thing of the past, and professional journalists are a diminishing resource. This is very worrying as without a free press, which includes a free press that covers the merits of lipstick, you end up with a warped economy and democracy, IMO. Our alternative is citizen journalism which is the world and his wife on the web setting themselves up as experts which works sometimes, but not always. All very sad.

Picked up The Lady today to read in the coffee shop. I've not read such an interesting and diverse review section in a women's magazine in ages - not just the latest books/films/plays that everyone's heard of, but genuinely interesting things, whether niche or more mainstream. I also find that The Lady manages to champion women in all kinds of careers (eg writing, farming, journalism) without being patronising or resorting to tokenism.

In contrast, I glanced at Diva while in WH Smiths (maybe the shitness of women's magazines is related to the shitness of WH Smiths?), which is the only print glossy for lesbian/bisexual/queer* women. The current issue is 'the sex issue' despite every other issue being that! It's just a lesbian Cosmo now, and so boring.

*I self ID as queer - it's not used as an insult here

Is anyone else bored of reading about sex all the time?
Don't get me wrong, I like having sex, it's just the endless reading about the same thing over and over again.

I gape up entirely after someone gave me a copy of Marie Claire and the article on trafficking and prostitution went on and on about what the campaigners wore and what they looked like. I couldn't give a shiny shite whether someone trying to save young girls from rape and trafficking is wearing wedges FFS.

I remember one teen mag which advised my chubby 14 year old self that in order to identify my 'wobbly bits' ie: the parts of my body which aged 14 were considered unacceptable, I should:

1. jump up and down naked in front of the mirror and note which bits jiggled.

2. stick a pencil under each breast and note if it stayed there I put a whole pack under there and lost them but never mind

I should then embark on the diet taped to the front of the mag which involved grapefruit for breakfast and two choc chip cookies fir lunch.

And yes to the notion that every woman works in an office, and that £600 is a normal amount to pay for a handbag

I don't care how turned on it gets him, I'm not rubbing my nice scarf all over someone's penis.

And the above quote illustrates why mumsnet is so much better than any women's magazine

squirrel007 - thanks, I'd never heard of Libertine. Wow, a magazine that actually looks (gasp!) interesting!