A shift in women’s magazines?
In November 2019, Women’s Health released a podcast with Procter & Gamble, ‘Project Body Love’, a ’30 day series designed to help women with their body confidence’ (Thorpe, 2019). This podcast follows the magazine’s ‘In shape, my shape’ campain from 2018, which aimed to change women’s negative opinion about their bodies. Each episode gives women exercises to do, like stretching, breathing, or repeating mantras. Following this, Women’s Health will release their own podcast, ‘Going for Goal’, which will give women advice on how to achieve their goals. Is this a new trend, where women’s magazines shift their viewpoint and turn away from their fashion and diet focused articles?
In the early 2000s, women’s magazines were bodyshaming women, they were focused on fashion and did not cater to women of colour. As a result, several magazines like Mille Worlds and Gal-dem were born. Essentially online, the first one was created by Arab women for Arab women, and the other was created by women and non-binary people of colour. They want to focus on real issues and aim to ‘provide women with just one thing: a voice’ (Aroesti, 2018). These new independent titles have an original approach. They are quite niche but ‘[define] the expectations of younger women readers’ (Burrell, 2018), and therefore could overshadow bigger magazine brands.
Indeed, in 2018, well-known magazines like Glamour and Seventeen stopped their print issues and moved to digital-only. This could be because that’s where readers are nowadays, but it also shows that women may not be interested in such magazines anymore. As Jennifer Nelson said in her 2012 book Airbrushed Nation, ‘the further we get into the pages of these magazines, the experience often feels less like an easy escape and more like a passport to slow-creeping angst.’ She also added that these magazines ‘glorify super-thin models, patronizingly refer to “real women,” and muddle readers’ sense of self’ (McKeon, 2018). In an era of feminism where women want to accept themselves as they are, most of them don’t want to read pages upon pages on how to lose weight or get rid of love handles, because it’s superficial and reductive (Ramanathan, 2019).
However, thanks to social media, magazine brands realised they needed to change their approach to stay relevant. Elaine Welteroth, Teen Vogue’s editor-in-chief, said that they had to ‘mean more to [their] girls’ (Ross, 2017), and ask themselves why they existed and what they could improve. They now try to diversify themselves, and while they still talk about fashion and beauty, they also address real issues like gender pay gap and climate change.
If women’s magazines themselves are changing, celebrities and political figures also have a role to play. For instance, Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, her daughter, guest edited Stylist’s October 2019 issue. They talked about the women who inspire them, but also about UK politics and women’s responsibility to make the world a better place (InPublishing, 2019). They revealed that they agreed to take over this issue because Stylist has an ‘unapologetically feminist’ point of view, and they hope it can inspire people to do whatever they can to ‘make sure women everywhere can follow their dreams and live life on their own terms’ (InPublishing, 2019).
This desire of change does not mean that women don’t want to read about fashion anymore. It just means they want something more. As Laura McKeon said in one of her articles, ‘we may all be ready to hear about how chunky headbands are the next big trend. But we’re also ready to smash the patriarchy.’
- Aroesti, R. and Greenwood, P. (2018) ‘From glossies to gal-dem: the websites revolutionising women’s media’, The Guardian, 1 May. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/01/from-glossies-to-gal-dem-the-websites-revolutionising-womens-media (Accessed 19/11/19)
- Burrell, I. (2018) ‘Have women’s glossy magazines reached the end of their shelf life?’, iNews, 4 June. Available at: https://inews.co.uk/news/media/have-womens-glossy-magazines-reached-the-end-of-their-shelf-life-510403 (Accessed 19/11/19)
- McKeon, L. (2018) ‘Are women’s magazines doomed?’, TVO, 13 December. Available at: https://www.tvo.org/article/are-womens-magazines-doomed (Accessed 19/11/19)
- No name (2019) ‘Hillary and Chelsea guest edit Stylist’, InPublishing, 15 October. Available at: https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/hillary-and-chelsea-guest-edit-stylist-14865 (Accessed 19/11/19)
- Ramanathan, L. (2019) ‘Women’s magazines are dying. Will we miss them when they’re gone?’, The Washington Post, 1 January. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/womens-magazines-are-dying-will-we-miss-them-when-theyre-gone/2018/12/31/a3bbe3ac-f729-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html (Accessed 19/11/19)
- Ross, M. (2017) ‘Fashion, politics and feminism: Women’s magazines find new winning formula’, The Mercury News, 18 February. Available at: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/18/fashion-politics-and-feminism-womens-magazines-new-winning-formula/ (Accessed 19/11/19)
- Thorpe, E. (2019) ‘Women’s Health to launch ‘Going for Goal’ podcast after Project Body Love success’, What’s New In Publishing, 13 November. Available at: https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/womens-health-to-launch-going-for-goal-podcast-after-project-body-love-success (Accessed 19/11/19)
