Stereotypical teen girl magazines

[moutonfou]

Just loved this:

womenyoushouldknow.net/appalled-graphic-designer-shows-girls-life-magazine-what-their-cover-should-look-like/

I read all of these magazines when I was younger and lapped them up. Does make you wonder why we are still sending the message out to young girls that what's most important in life is being pleasing to men, when few adult women (including the ones who are writing these things presumably) would agree. Where is the disconnect?

I would definitely buy a magazine like the one on the right for my teens. We were in a huge WH Smiths recently and I looked for a suitable magazine and found nothing.

I think that the disconnect is just lazy journalism TBH.

Its about selling advertising space. The cover and articles are designed to appeal to advertisers as much as the girls who read them. The big spending companies aren't swimming clubs, they are cosmetic firms and cloths shops.

Its frustrating because there aren't magazines for my teen dd either. But I can see that her interests wouldn't appeal to a huge number of people or attracted much advertising.

Teen girl mags are just a distilled version of Glamour, Red, Vogue etc. aren't they? The whole female mag market is entirely built on superficial, gender biased interests (with a token 'women in developing countries' bit of serious journalism thrown in).

And its not just teen magazines - the tv tie in mags aimed at younger kids are just as gender biased. Hello Kitty will be all about putting together outfits while PJ Masks is about rescue missions. You don't see Owlette matching her shoes to her bag...

I was subscribed to french teen magazines when I was younger, partially to practice my french (bilingual family), partially because they were gender neutral, (and also genuinely interesting to young people and not partronising- I read them until I was in my first year of university).

There was a "girls talk" and "boys talk" page that was like an agony aunt type thing about puberty, relationship problems, drugs etc. The other sections of the magazine where all about neutral topics like musics, films, clothes, technology, current affairs, study tips. I loved them, and to my knowledge they are still equally good (occasionally flick through a copy of the 15+ aged one in the library )

I definitely remember looking at kids magazines on the shelf in WHSmith and noticing that a) most of them were strongly gendered and b) Very few that 14-20 year olds would be genuinly interested unless it was for a specific age group- no general interest ones.

Closest one I've found in the UK was "Flipside" although that leans a bit more male (video games, technology, films...)

Someone here recommended a book called "Girl Up" for teenage girls. for an alternative view to the magazines:
www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Girl-Up/Laura-Bates/9781471149504

Mind you, I was about 40 before I realised that I was never going to have the perfect skin I saw in magazines - when I was a teenager I thought it was just a matter of growing out of spots, not that every single photo is airbrushed.

stopmakingsense me too, I think although a lot of people are aware people get nipped and tucked and lit very well on these photos, for a long time I did genuinely think there were people with not a blemish on their skin and I was just one of the unlucky ones.

Bigdeskbob if it was just about advertising space then why was the boy's life cover all about careers and not fashion? And I can't see much difference in cost between

Posted too soon!
Can't see much difference in cost between the crappy magazines that are all advertising and the ones that are more content heavy. My kids are younger so we're still buying The Beano vs Hello Kitty though.

I'm not aware of either magazine, I think they are both american? But a quick google shows that 'a boys life' is a boys scout publication, 'a girls life' is a private, much newer publication. They are not run by the same organisation and are funded in different ways. I'm sure (or hope) a girls scout magazine would look more like the 'a boys life' cover.

I'm not saying the cover of 'a girls life' is not problematic, but I do think that they are intended for very different readers (and not just that they are boys and girls). I agree with dameofdilemma. They trying to get the future readers of women magazines early.