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Women's Magazines |
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About Me Diaries Photos
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I know you’re probably sick of
me ranting about feminism. So I won’t. I don’t consider this to be a
feminist issue, it’s just something that pisses me off. I read a lot. And I mean a lot.
When nothing else is available I can get absorbed in cereal packets. So
I have read more than my fair share of women’s magazines. When I moved
out of halls last week I found about forty of them under my bed. I
don’t know why I keep reading them, because they really, really annoy
me. For a start, Sienna Miller is not the greatest style icon who ever
lived. She’s not the greatest style icon around at the moment. Sienna
Miller has done jack squat besides cling on to Jude Law and strip off
for about two brief film roles. If you see a picture of her without a
caption saying it’s her, you wouldn’t know who she was. Bloody
Sienna Miller in her stupid furry boots. I blame her personally for the
influx of irritating see-through gypsy skirts that have invaded the
shops lately, making it impossible to get any other kind of skirt
(except the always-in-vogue arse-flashing denim mini). Secondly, I’m amazed at the
number of men I’m expected to fancy. It seems to be a good couple of
hundred per issue. Occasionally, they’ll do that lads’-mag
centrefold thing – “Fit blokes in the buff!” or whatever. I went
to a girls’ school, and we used to find these pictures hysterical.
I’ve never met a woman who actually drools over pictures of naked men.
Women’s magazines haven’t quite grasped it, anyway – last time I
bought one of the centrefold issues, I opened it up to discover a
picture of Ainsley Harriott posing behind a pile of fruit. Disturbing
does not cover the half of it. Admittedly, this may be my problem, as
Brad Pitt, Justin Timberlake and all that lot leave me totally cold and
slightly confused, but I’m sure it can’t be just me. May issue: “Oh. My. God. Look at Coleen McLoughlin. What on earth does she think she looks like? She makes everything look cheap and tacky, no matter how expensive it is.” June issue: “Get Coleen’s look! Now you can look this stylish for just a fraction of the price!” Please, make up your damn mind. Any women’s magazine will be
about half fashion and beauty with everything else squeezed in around
it. If a celebrity dressed the way they dress their models, the magazine
would denounce them as “confused, pathetic fashion victims”. If any
normal woman dressed that way, they’d get laughed at, and possibly
beaten up (no, you’re not safe from pissed chavs just because you have
breasts). I refuse to spend any of my money, let alone the
three-hundred-odd quid sometimes quoted, on a nasty flowery dress that
even my gran would dismiss as looking like curtains. This sort of stuff makes me
worry about my gender. Apparently, we’ll forgive a cheater (if he’s
got a very nice car) but not a hairy back. But a bloke who admits he
wouldn’t forgive a bit of cellulite is a danger to all women (and
probably in danger, too, having admitted something like that in a
nationwide publication). Sixty per cent of us have had one-night-stands,
and seventy-five per cent regret doing it, says Cosmo. So why do
these magazines say, “God, that feeling you get when you wake up next
to this strange bloke and think ‘Bloody hell, I must’ve had the beer
goggles on last night’” and assume firstly that we’ve all been
there, and secondly that we all think it’s a joke? Call me
old-fashioned, but I’d find getting drunk and having sex with some
random bloke I met in a bar incredibly degrading, and to be honest I’d
be disgusted with myself. It must just be me and two of my friends
lining up on this, though, considering there are so many men in bars who
just assume any woman they choose to approach will be gagging to go back
to theirs without so much as an exchange of names. Of course, it’s
possible there are just a lot of self-deluding idiot males in this town. I’ve seen articles about
drug-rape opposite cocktail recipes and “How to get a free drink”.
I’ve seen articles about domestic abuse opposite “How to drive him
wild with jealousy.” I’m not saying jealous men have the right to
beat women up, but it’s a stupid sort of article to write at the best
of times. If he has to be jealous to be interested then it’s clearly
not worth it. And in my time I’ve met some incredibly manipulative,
borderline evil little bitches who’d love to think they were driving a
man mad with anger and jealousy. Some of us are horrible people.
Articles about managing your finances/student debt go opposite “The
Clothes/Accessories/Hair Products/Whatever You Have To Have This
Month! (So What If You Max Out Your Credit Card?”) Most magazines try
to create an image of being fun yet responsible, providing help on
issues from the most trivial to the life-or-death biggies. What you end
up with, in a lot of cases, is a clash between total frivolity and
intense paranoia. On the one side, you have pictures of dresses and
adolescent drooling over any reasonable-looking bloke (or even Adrian
Brody, who scares the crap out of me). On the other, you have
“harrowing real-life stories” that warn you about a headache leading
to AIDS/meningitis/your brain falling out, and that your husband is
going to mysteriously vanish/drop dead for no reason/go on a murderous
rampage and kill your family. Which is rather unpleasant, really. I’ve complained in previous
rants that some female journalists writing on feminism seem to regard it
as a man-bagging strategy. These magazines put themselves on the
forefront of the feminist cause. They kicked up a real stink when
Michael Howard made noises about lowering the abortion limit (rightly
so, too, shrivelled-up old bugger thinking he’s got jurisdiction over
women’s bodies), but generally, they tell us it’s good to be single
and independent because of all the men. I’m slightly confused about
this idea that if you’re single you get more sex. What kind of slapper
nation is this? Apparently, life is all about men. If your boyfriend’s
a tosser, give him one more chance, maybe two, then be a strong woman
and dump him. So you can find a better man. You don’t get any of that
in men’s magazines. I read one for an essay I had to write about
gender difference, and it seemed to be quite as screwed up as the
women’s. Half the magazine was naked lady pictures, but there was no
mention at all of women as girlfriends, and it seemed to imply that
having a girlfriend was actually quite an effeminate thing to do. I
proceeded to lose a lot of my faith in mankind, until I was assured by
several men that that particular magazine was bought by men who
couldn’t get a girlfriend under any circumstances (although Nuts
remains my number one warning sign. Girls, if he reads Nuts, do
not do it. Just don’t. Unless you read Heat, in which case you
deserve it). It’s possible I’m being naïve. Maybe everything I’ve just cited makes up quite an accurate picture of womankind today. If it does, please tell me, so I can run away very fast. We’ve accepted feminism as far as career goes (you must have babies, but not until you’ve forged a successful career and then you have to do both at once), we’ve decided we can dress how we like (but if we’re wearing a short skirt it’s our fault if we’re raped), and we can even drive now (car pages have only arrived in women’s magazines in the past year, and they’re all about insurance deals), but it’s still all about men. And those of us who don’t fit into this have been forced to go stark raving mad in self-defence. But that bit’s fun, at least. The British woman: superficial nymphomaniac paranoid alcoholic slapper in furry boots and sparkly green eyeshadow. Just don’t tell the American comedy writers. They’d never recover. |