Can you be a feminist and like women's magazines?

[AlexanderSkarsgardIWould]

Have read a few things on here about the undesirability of women's magazines from a feminist point of view. My DP has also said to me I can't be a feminist and read these magazines. But I consider myself a strong feminist and have always quite liked reading them.

I used to subscribe to Cosmo before I had DS - after DS all the articles about sex and dating made me feel it's a younger woman's magazine. Plus all the fashion stuff, which I was never really interested in, became irrelevant to somebody whom pregnancy left with a size 18+ body.

I always used to wish there were more of the meatier articles about real life issues and less fluff about clothes and make-up, and the adverts for cosmetic surgery at the back always irritated me (quite often coming after articles in the main section about the dangers of cosmetic surgery and how we should accept ourselves for who we are).

I kinda liked the warm, gossipy tone though. It felt like having a chat with a mate. And yes, it was stuffed full of pictures of pretty young models, but so are just about all forms of media these days.

I now read Heat for the same thing, as well as the telly and film reviews (I also read Vanity Fair - lots of adverts for luxury goods I'll never be able to afford but more than balanced out by deliciously meaty articles that even dare to stray into the realm of politics and economics, unlike in Cosmo - the only vaguely political issue that'll tackle is rape). It does make comments about celebrities, e.g. about the clothes they wear, but I've never read anything I've thought was really mean.

What exactly is wrong with these magazines?

Just for the record, I can't stand Jeremy Clarkson

Naomi Wolf pointed out in the Beauty Myth that women's magazines are one place where women can access women's culture. Sadly it's a patriarchal version of it, but it's still there. So that may be part of the attraction for a lot of women, even if they are only dimly aware of it.

Women's magazines used to be a lot better in the 1980s - much more engaged with feminism - they are very retrograde now.

I used to love Company magazine. I still have days where I feel fond of it. It was, strangely enough, the place that I came to realise my relationship was abusive. Unfortunately, I spent the next two years still telling myself "he'll change".

I still feel less "feminist guilt" reading Company than I do with More. Company also used to do an annual edition, using readers of every shape and size as models. I loved those editions.

Nyac's just reminded me I should get round to finishing The Beauty Myth. I've had a horrible habit of getting half way through books, then starting another one lately... I have about six books with bookmarks around the halfway mark...

i read lots women mags dont see its compromising at all given i have free will and dont have to enact all the advice
and i like the frothy escapism of which mascara i simply must buy

ANother old fart here who remembers the days when, actually, all the mainstream young women's mags were hugely feminist, especially Cosmo and Honey (now defunct). There was also an interesting patch in the mid/late 90s with titles like Minx and B and So, which were sort-of modelled on Loaded-For-Girls and tagged (lazily and carelessly) as 'ladette' mags, but they were feisty and funny and the message was 'don't let men ppush you around'. Over the last 10 years or so all the mags seem to have got sillier and sillier and I can't be bothered with them any more; if I read one now it's more likely to be the Take A Break sort.

I used to like Cosmo. I can't read it recently, it makes me feel too frustrated, and I think it's because I've become more aware of feminism and so things in Cosmo etc are really jarring because they are so at odds with that. I'll try to find some examples.

I've never read Heat, because I'm not (personally) interested in celebrities. I can't remember if it's one of the ones which does this, but I used to work in WHS and would despise the magazines which came through with headlines like "Celebs' fat, disgusting cellulite!" or "Mel B sheds the baby weight, just one week post birth!" they just seemed so judgemental and bitchy.

But the real life ones, I do sometimes buy. They are utterly bonkers and although I know they're sensationalist, it's more of a guilty pleasure thing.

One I used to like was Scarlet, although it's gone now, and I used to read Psychologies as well which I still think is good. That has a lot of family and relationship stuff.

I'll try and find some illustrative examples of Cosmo being anti-feminist!

Actually, I'll find some examples tomorrow, I'm off to bed :)

I've been mentally writing a thesis on the subject of Feminism in Real-Life magazines for about the last year... Yes, they're not perfect either but send out so many more positive messages than the glossies (esp my bête noire Grazia). I haven't read a gossip magazine for years, occasionally dip into company but much prefer the honesty of TaB, Chat, That's Life and their shinier cousins Pick Me Up and Love It! Positive about women, funny (never bitchy) and entertaining.

Bertiebotts i used to like Scarlet as well as Eve and New Woman all of which are now defunct.
Now i get Red and Psychologies...(i like an intelligent read that makes me think.)

I CANNOT stand Heat/Closer or anything from that "celebrity family" The sort of people im interested in are never in them anyway. They are more for people who are into reality TV and i hate it. Also cant stand the mysogyny in them and the way they criticise and even sometimes laugh at womens appearance. Its just sick and nasty.

ONe of the great things about Filament was the full on feminism in the articles. So pissed off it closed down. I hated Scarlet but, OK, there was a lot of professional pissyness about my hatred of it; they wouldn't give me any work. But I did think it was a consumerist fucking cop-out by ignorant posh birds.

Filament has gone as well?! Thats a real shame.

Sadly it has. The editor/publisher had just had enough knocking herself out for no money, as far as I can gather.

I'm with you on this one MoChan.

In answer to the OP, yes of course you can, providing you keep your critical faculties well and truly engaged and try and resist the unrelenting message that being good looking is The Most Important Thing For A Woman.

But you could argue that by spending your money on these publications, you're financially supporting media which mostly perpetuate a tonne of damaging attitudes about women, especially regarding how they "should" look and what is most important to them (getting and keeping a good man).
And who owns the magazines and the companies that advertise in them? I suspect you'd find most of those boards of directors are male-dominated.

There is a "bread and circuses" argument that suggests by encouraging women to be continually obsessed with their looks and to spend inordinate amounts of their hard-won money on clothes/cosmetics/fashion accessories etc. etc. we are being distracted from the more important issues that we need to fight for.

Yes, some of the magazines occasionally have features which are meaningful from a feminist point of view, but as posters have pointed out upthread, these seem to becoming fewer and farther between.

That said, I enjoy a bit of escapism as much as anyone, but since becoming a mum and more aware of feminism, I've become increasingly bored of the glossies and celeb magazines. I find them patronising because they seem to make the assumption that women are interested in little more than what the next "trending lip colour" etc. is. My brain needs a bit more than that to engage it nowadays!

A bloody good example of mysogyny in womens mags is going on right now on the facebook page of Woman magazine. If youve got time take a look. Its fucking shocking.

Yes I suppose you could, but I would make an assumption that you are a bit of a hypocrite. But most of us probably are in one way or another.

I can't see anything, saint? Just some stuff about hair...?

I do think there is a difference betwen women's magazines. The RL ones for example talk about women's lives which is so rare tbh in mainstream media. Yes it is still in certain codeified roles as mother, wife, daughter and friend, but I find it refreshing to see ordinary women's lives treated as important. I also like how any of the ones I have read are very clear in their messages that DV is not acceptable and women shouldn't stay with abusive DP's

I quite agree, eatsbrains. They also talk about different lifestyles without there being some scandal, eg featuring stories with lesbian couples where the story is not the lesbianism (iyswim).

If you go on the Woman mag facebook page and keep scrolling down where it says Recent Posts you will see some really nasty comments from women saying that its womens fault for opening their legs. Last week Woman ran a benefit bashing article about a woman with 10 kids and 99% of the comments on there are blaming the woman. Theres barely anything there about the fact that her husband is partly responsible too. Its unbelievable that some women read and are actually hoodwinked by this trash.

Thats awful! Don't read woman, so didn't see this

I dont buy Woman either but i saw the article in the mag that started it all when i was flicking through it while standing at a till last week. I knew then that the woman would get all the blame.