Time To Have a Little Talk About Those "Women's Magazines?"

I admire Caroline Kennedy. Her dignity and her character are striking. So when she made the remark to the New York Times' David Halbfinger the other day, "Have you guys ever thought of writing for a woman's magazine or something? ...You're supposed to be crack political journalists," I was surprised -- and disappointed. Then I had a wider concern: Why, 40 years after the advent of second-wave feminism, are the words "women's magazine" still so automatically a term of mild ridicule? Maybe it's a good occasion for a little public education.

First, a couple of general points.

(1) Women's magazines not only regularly break news, but many of them require "enterprise journalism." Many of them mandate exclusive stories. Any story that's been on national TV or in any national (and in some cases, big-city local) publication is automatically out of the question, even for a small feature. Writers and reporters have to hunt, hard and constantly, for fresh, never-told stories. That means keeping in touch with lawyers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, private eyes, doctors, whistleblowers, vice cops, shelters, NOW chapters, rape clinics, and the multidinous NGOs, small do-good orgs, and foundations whose press events the magazines's reporters are always running out to cover.

(2) Women's magazines have created whole categories of news. Ever since Ms. (a women's magazine) coined the term "Battered Women" on an early cover, the entire domestic violence field, with its many side-issues and offspring, has been a signature beat for these magazines. I remember first reading about the brand-new ruling Thurman vs. Torrington CT (the case that -- in the late year of 1982 -- made police departments liable if their members stood by and watched while men tried to kill their wives) in McCalls magazine. Women's magazines indefatigably (but not rashly or gratuitously) cover violence against women, a term that owes its salience to that publication genre. One example of many recent hard-hitting and creative responses: Several years ago, a proliferation of wife-and girlfriend killings led Glamour Editor in Chief Cindi Leive to commission a multi-part package that opened with two whole pages of mug-shot-like pictures, painstakingly culled from virtually every police precinct in the country -- of disparate women killed by intimate partners in that one-year period.

Women's health is second case in point. Breast cancer's existence as the gold-standard in medical charity and research owes a lot to the unflagging, cutting-edge coverage in women's magazines. Says Lucy Danziger, who's been Editor in Chief of Self for seven and a half years. "The life-saving breast cancer coverage in Self started with our co-founding of the Pink Ribbon for awareness and activism (specifically, breast health awareness and cancer research fundraising) back in 1992, and then continued with 16 years of award-winning coverage of the disease, including risk reduction through healthy lifestyle changes, the latest technologies for screening, early diagnosis, advances in treatment and ultimately cures. Now, if caught in the first stages, breast cancer is 98 percent treatable to a cure. That's something all women's magazines can be proud of."

Women's reproductive freedom is another. Says Wendy Naugle, Glamour's Deputy Editor (Health): "Historically, Glamour -- and other women's magazines -- have been champions of women's reproductive rights, not just in terms of abortion" -- Editor in Chief Leive grilled John McCain on his stand on the subject before the election -- " but also emergency contraception, contraception coverage, insurance issues and more." For example, a May 2006 Brian Alexander piece "The New Lies About Women's Health" was a comprehensive look at how local, state and federal policies (including those of the Bush administration) were affecting women's health care, including how doctors in some states are forced to lie to their patients about the fake abortion-breast cancer link." It was cited by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern for public interest journalism and, recalls Alexander, "also broke news about how the military first accepted Plan B [the "morning-after" pill] and then withdrew it -- an unprecedented move." Former Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt recalls that during her tenure "we found most insurance plans didn't cover contraception, so we secured bipartisan sponsorship of the Equity in Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage bill in Congress and started a campaign to pass similar legislation in states. Glamour jumped on the story even though most of the mainstream media ignored it for over a year. Glamour's coverage was extremely important to increasing public awareness. Today, half of states have contraceptive equity laws, it's part of the federal employees' health plan, and contraceptive coverage has become more the norm than the aberration. "

As Peggy Northrop -- who's now the Editor in Chief of Readers Digest after decades in high posts at women's magazines -- three and a half years as EIC at More, before which years spent at Redbook, Real Simple, Glamour, Mirabella and Vogue -- puts it, "Every issue that touches women has been dealt with first and often only in women's magazines."

Okay, so women's mags serve women's needs. But what's hard news do they break, or feature in particularly thorough and hard-hitting ways? Here are just a few examples among many:

Essence had its own contract photographer exclusively follow Obama on the campaign trail, taking amazing pictures no one else had seen. Good Houskeeping did a powerful piece, "You Can't Live Here Unless You're White," (by K.C. Baker) on illegal housing discrimination that still exists, in 2007. Marie Claire had an exclusive interview with Debra Ryan, the wife of financier-turned-fugitive Sam Israel III, the hedge-fund manager who tried to fake his own suicide to escape a 20-year fraud sentence and an exclusive interview with the wife of a Belgian terrorist who went to jail for aiding the Madrid train bombers; she shed new light on how young people are recruited into jihadist circles in Europe. Elle's profiles by Lisa DePaulo are always news-breaking. O has featured long, revealing interviews with Nelson Mandela and Elie Wiesel. Glamour accomplished what the U.S. government had trouble doing: in 2005 bringing Pakistani women's rights activist Mukhtar Mai (who had been raped on the orders of her village counsel) to the U.S. for the first time, and arranging for her to speak at the U.N. And its piece on "The War's Deadliest Day for Women," by Susan Dominus--about an ambush in Iraq that left three US military women dead and 11 badly injured--showed the war: from the women soldiers' point of view, in all its brutal, patriotic and painful detail. More's "Leslee Unruh's Facts of Life," by Amanda Robb, exclusively revealed the deceptions and the money trail of a foremost abstinence-only and anti-abortion activist.

Assistant journalism professor Patti Wolter, of Medill, is proud of her former occupation as senior features editor for news (and head of an investigative unit) at Self magazine. She recalls how her stories won awards and how a piece she assigned and edited helped deepen the understanding of obesity as a national health problem. Of her sending a writer to Peru to investigate the impact of Bush's funding cuts to international health clinics that suppported abortion, Wolter rhetorically asks, "Would any other kind of publication [but a woman's magazine] would devote those resources to pursuing a story on global women's health?"

Women's magazines have foreign correspondents. Jan Goodwin has covered conflicts and crises in Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Cambodia, Congo, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, the Middle East and Gulf, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Uganda (and U.S. prisons) for Marie Claire (as well as for O, Harpers Bazaar and Glamour). And regular award-winners: National Magazine Award winner Stephen Fried, says, that, for Glamour, "I did the first-ever interview with the Justice Department's lead prosecutor on sex trafficking; the piece I did on addiction to Paxil was one of the very first (if not the first) piece on the subject of a drug side-effect which is now very commonly known but at the time was being disputed; and last year I did the first major piece on the psychological and financial issues facing widows of Iraq war soldiers." David France says, "For Ladies Home Journal, I spent a year following the a family whose son had committed suicide, the only piece of its kind, trying through forensic journalism to understand" the death. "For Glamour " -- aside from getting the then-yet-to-be-elected George W. Bush to admit he didn't know who the Taliban were --" I wrote an investigation on mandatory minimum drug sentences, which impact women more than men. Bill Clinton gave clemencies to each of the women I profiled." He adds, "I've always found women's magazines ideal places to write `justice journalism.'"

"Justice journalism." That's a good term for the work many of us do, and I agree with David about where it usually is most welcomed and fits best. For Self, I unearthed, through confidential Pentagon transcripts leaked to me, the known-to-the-military higher health risks to women of the mandatory Anthrax vaccine; and I learned of several hushed-up hospital deaths due to the 2001 U.S. nursing shortage. For Glamour I've done the first or exclusive stories on: a landmark victory of sweatshop workers, the travails (and shocking findings) of an FBI whistleblower Attorney General John Ashcroft was trying to silence, the 40-year-later aftermath of one of the most brutal murders of the Civil Rights era, and an abortion doctor's sexual assault on 32 of his patients. Sometimes having the cover of "women's magazine" is an advantage. Years ago, for Redbook, I sleuthed out biased judges, resulting in one being booted off the bench and official investigations being launched on two others. I was looking for America's "most sexist" judges, but a couple of my flattered prey thought I'd said "sexiest judges," and the best way to get a source to talk, of course, is to think you're calling him handsome.

In fact, saying "women's magazines" with an implicit eye-roll is, these days, like calling Brooklyn a hip residential "frontier" or using a VCR: transparently passe. As the earnest compliance with the requests for sit-downs with as many women's magazine EICs who requested them by McCain and Obama made clear, "politicians understand that they can't get elected without women," says Cindi Leive. "So they give us access they never would have two decades ago. Anyone who doesn't get that is sort of trailing the boat, anyway."

Peggy Northrop has it right, when she says: "I'm waiting for the day when a woman's magazine editor runs for office. Now that would be a candidacy I could get behind. A smart businesswoman, in touch with women's everyday concerns, resourceful, committed, well-informed, a communication genius, and, damn it, brave about stuff that really matters.

"I can name ten women off the top of my head who fit the bill. Let's start a movement."

Comments

[propitiousmoment]

How about if we got all that serious reporting in a serious-reporting forum? Camoflauging it in ads for sexy underwear and makeup is perhaps the reason it gets overlooked. Somebody needs to start a women's version of Time or Newsweek.

[texasrodeoqueen]

agree prop I was standing in line at the supermarket and noticing the articles - almost all the same- "have an orgasm every time", "LOSE WEIGHT EASY" "LOSE WEIGHT THIS WAY>>", "LOSE WEIGHT WHILE YOU SLEEP" "How to Please a Man" " Lower Your Stress" blah blah blah

[Petronilla]

Why would women need ther own version of Time or Newsweek? We can read either, and we even get it. Those publications include issues that apply more specifically to women, don't they?

[ericjs2]

The term "men's magazines" carries a similar (if differently flavored) suggestion of medoicre journalistic quality. That this didn't occur to you suggests a certain bias, or predilection for finding bias...

While some women's (and some men's) magazines certainly contain some examples of quality journalism, as a genre they both target a certain not-so-lofty denomenator. For the most part they play to stereotypical men's or women's interests; it's not the hackneyed 50s stereotype but frankly it is there, and this tends to keep them firmly in the middlebrow region.

[JZ735]

I find the men's mags that talk about, in less than subtle ways, how to bag a babe pretty sad...if you need to read a mag to know how to do THAT, then you are a pretty pathetic creature, as would be any women who needs to figure out what men want from them...

[lisakaz2]

I gotta tell ya I hate the use of the "wave" thing because I find it rather chronologically problematic. Which "wave" do you assign to Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges?

[djsalvatore]

Bravo to Sheila for speaking out about this! I assigned Sheila to write for me a 2-part series on America's Most Sexist Judges back in the 1980s for Redbook, and it was truly groundbreaking. Until recently, I was the EIC of Ladies' Home Journal, which is where I commissioned David France to spend a year writing Broken Promise, a year in the life of a family after a teen's suicide and ran it at 6,000 words--perhaps the hardest feat of all. While EIC for 6 years, I did no fewer than 12 pieces on the Iraq War's affect on American families, far and away more than any other woman's magazine. I was the only women's magazine editor to put Presidents (Bush, Clinton and Obama) on the cover, not just First Ladies. I assigned gritty pieces on the deaths at BP oil company, and shocking pieces about husbands partaking in internet porn involving little girls. Not puff pieces by anyone's standards. And yet, I was still brushed off as a "recipe magazine editor" by more fellow editors and TV broadcasters than I care to remember--mostly men, who, presumably, never cracked my magazine's spine. Where Caroline Kennedy hit a nerve, though, is that it's harder and harder for women's magazines to publish substance, thanks to an economic model that does not support it. In the end, women readers--and citizens--have the most to lose.

[Foohog]

Sorry, but I've heard this "economic model" excuse for too long.

If you play to the Jerry Springer crowd, that's a choice. Just like building an SUV that gets 14mpg at a time when we are trying to get off of foreign oil is a choice. Just like relying on the Saturday morning ad inserts in a newspaper to make money instead of doing good, relevent journalism every day is a choice. Just like making the first story I see at the Ladies Home Journal web page right now a puff piece on New Year's resolutions is a choice.

The newspaper industry, the auto industry and, yes Virginia, the magazine industry are all in trouble right now because of choices, not because some all-powerful economic model is dictating your fate from high atop Mt. Olympus.

In six years you did 12 whole stories on the affect of the war on families. Gosh, that's two stories a year. Where did you get all that ink?

[djsalvatore]

I am no longer the EIC of Ladies' Home Journal. So I can't comment on what's in there now. As to when I was, two stories a year on the war was two stories more than many many other women's mags were doing at the time. And the war stories were NOT the only hard hitting stories during those years. As I say, if you read my mag at the time, you'd know...

[pir anha]

it's not just men who don't crack LHJ's spine -- you've gotta realize that the name alone does not call out to women who have an interest in something other than homemaking.

i am not dissing homemaking -- i consider it important work, and IMO feminism should encourage women to run their own lives instead of run them for what other people want from them. and if that means some women want to create a pleasant, well-run home, more power to them. but homemaking doesn't interest me at all. ergo i am completely unlikely to see any hard-hitting stories you might have commissioned. i'll look to ms. before i look to any so-called women's magazines (and i don't count actually ms. among them). is that unfair?

maybe so. but makeup and fashion bore me, i find celebrity gossip repellent; i like to eat, but not cook, i don't have children and don't want any, i can find and keep partners without any help from pop psychology, i despise the weight loss industry (i consider it a blight on women's lives), and interior decorating is something i only fantasize about :). as long as women's magazines first and foremost specialize in those subjects, i am completely unlikely to check them out for an occasional hard-hitting story. especially when there are magazines which focus on hard-hitting stories in every issue, and without all the things i don't care for (and without the noxious perfume samples to boot).

[pir anha]

part II:

i suspect caroline kennedy hasn't cracked the spine of LHJ either -- and maybe she should, if she wants to be senator. because contrary to me, she should know what her potential future constituents read. but i don't blame her for having the attitude that women's magazines are more fluffy than political magazines. because they are. except, of course, she should have tried to avoid insulting journalists who write for them, because as is apparent from this article, they don't all write fluff.

my thanks to the writer of this article, because it educated me. she ought to send it directly to caroline kennedy as well.

[JZ735]

Caroline is living in the bubble we know she is in, and thank God David Paterson will have none of it.

[wagadog]

Look. there is someone called C. Kennedy who is up for high office and was being interviewed by a serious newspaper of record.

It has NOTHING to do with her gender.

And yet these effwits insisted on asking her questions about her husband, her marriage, her "life plan" a little narrative about how it made her FEEL etc etc. All gender-stereotyped questions. So OF COURSE she snarked back at them about maybe they're writing for

If they had asked her how this was going to affect her huntin' and fishin' and whittlin' plans, she'd have asked them if they were from Field and Stream.

AND those questions would have been JUST AS IRRELEVANT to her consideration for high office.

[katheyquilts]

Oh how I miss GEORGE Magazine..­.her brother was more than a pretty face.
I also own every book SHE has written. I consider her a serious person and qualified for the job. I only wish she was going to represent the state I live in.

[banats]

Reminds me of the fluff interview that Hilary Clinton had on 60 minutes with Katie Couric and the far more substantial interview that Obama had with Steve Croft. They were both aired on the same night.

[NevaforLeadership]

I would like to say more about women's magazines, specifically fashion magazines.

I understand the need to feature beautiful, young, tall, thin models. Clothes look decidedly better on them. Politically correct magazines with plain, old, short, fat models wouldn't bring out my sense of wonder or beauty.

But, where are the African American or Asian models? And for the older dreamers amongst us, including me, it would be inspiring to see beautiful older, tall, thin models -- just once in a while.

In this day and age, in my view, women's magazines have no excuse for not featuring beautiful, young, tall, thin models of all ethnic groups in every issue as regularly as Caucasian models are featured.

[RobinSeattle]

The message that women are just glorified coathangers is hardly what I would call progressive. Most models are vapid and not all that attractive anyway and receive way more attention than their worth to society warrants.

[NevaforLeadership]

It is society that values their worth.

[JZ735]

Bitter?

[rucognizant]

Yes, once upon a time, fashion magazines featured photographs of lovely older women of note like writer Issack Dineson. Nowadays its all skinny drug addled kids with black fingernails!
ANd there isn't much fiction anymore.

[NevaforLeadership]

The irony is that Isak Dinesen died of anorexia nervosa!!

[LS1958]

Caroline Kennedy has become less a serious candidate for office and more a "flavor of the month" for the media - largely because a few of the comments she made during a lengthy interview have been parsed and exploited. We're not talking about her positions on the issues, we're talking about an off-handed statement meant to insult a couple of idiotic political reporters, who weren't taking her seriously anyway. Or the way she speaks - and thanks, NYT for transcribing every painful inch of that conversation, very helpful.

Anybody still wondering why women are so under-represented in Congress?

On the subject of women's magazines, while this list of hard news covered by women's magazines is impressive, let's not forget the advertising that supports those budgets - the vast majority of which are designed to convince women we are too fat, too short, too frumpy, too busty, not busty enough, too bumpy, too red in the face, too pale, too disorganiz­ed... and could we please have a few more advertorials pitching designer home furnishings that are disguised as "DIY" articles? I don't think we get enough of those.

I deeply appreciate these shining examples of journalistic integrity. I realize lots of hard-working writers and editors have made monumental contributions. And I understand magazines need advertisers to pay for what they do. But if you ask me, the women's magazine industry, considered as a whole, has some 'splainin' to do.

[kas70]

Well said - bravo!

[KarenKarbo]

As someone who's written for so-called "womens" magazines as well as Esquire, Outside, Fast Company, The New Republic, the New York Times and others -- I'd like to add something to Sheila Weller's smart and awesome (in the old sense of the word -- I'm in awe!) post. The editors who routinely assign and vet the features at these magazines are as diligent and fastidious as anyone working in so-called hard journalism. The pieces are never just filler between the ads but well-conceived, well edited and fact-checked within an inch of their lives. While it's true that they're forced to share the pages with what seems like a huge amount of advertising, ads are a necessary evil in print as well as digital media. I don't hear anyone complaining about the number of ads in Vanity Fair -- a magazine known for its strapping profiles and "good" journalism -- and I invite you to enjoy the Caesar's Palace banner ad at the top of this very page.

[RobinSeattle]

The advertising isn't the issue. It is the writing of articles that basically tell women to use those products or they won't be attractive plus all the celebrity coverage in them. That kind of stuff also makes so-called women's magazines seem as if they shouldn't be taken seriously and so nobody does.

[Petronilla]

How about taking seriously women themselves? The upcoming generation doesn't seem to know what trouble women have gone through to be taken seriously. And now the young'ns have gone back to exploiting sexuality again. Years thrown out the window.

[JZ735]

You are living in a fantasy land of magazines from ages ago.

[NevaforLeadership]

Sorry, Ms. Weller, nice try, but women's magazines are women's magazines. No more, no less.

Don't get me wrong. I love women's magazines. I look at them all the time. I use the word, "look," deliberately. The fashion and lifestyle layouts usually catch my eye long before I get around to reading the articles.

I was one of the first to read "Ms." I read the first issues in the face of enormous ridicule from both men and women. Then women with a brand of feminism I do not admire hijacked that magazine, so I stopped reading it. Now I feast on fashion and beauty magazines, and once in a while "O" for inspiration and something slightly deeper.

Let's look at your point-of-view from a different perspective. If I were to read only women's magazines, my depth of general knowledge about current affairs, politics and business would be sadly lacking. So for information that really makes a difference, I turn to "The Economist," "Forbes," "Time," etc.

In my view, Caroline Kennedy, is dead on.

[MindyM]

The simple truth is that this is not an issue of great importance. Some women's magazines are very good, some are mediocre and some are bad. I do agree that there are a few that are guilty of emphasizing appearance, looking good, getting a man and other superficial aspects. But there are some that have done great reporting on issues like domestic violence, sexual harassment, reproductive rights and other issues of great concern to women.

I just do not feel the need to make a passionate defense of women's magazines because of Caroline Kennedy's remark about them. There are more important things to do with our time.

[RosanneofTennessee]

I do not have a problem with the concept of "women's magazines.­" I think women united can best share ideas to solve our world, community and family issues and magazines that speak directly to them are still needed. Women need to be inspired to be female leaders... especially in a society that still speaks volumes about male leaders from its PULPITS. I would also like to recommend women pick up Lost Women of the Bible by Carolyn Curtis James published in 2005 which beautifully fills in the gaps not told about women in leadership roles in the OT and NT and is a real eye opener about what women are called to do and become: LEADERS & CATALYSTS for change.

I think Maria Schriver and the Women's Conference she has created are of greater interest than these few off-the-cuff remarks made by Caroline Kennedy. I believe we must become the architects of the change we want to see and live authentically (without apologies).

[RobinSeattle]

"I do not have a problem with the concept of "women's magazines.­" I think women united can best share ideas to solve our world, community and family issues"

Absolutely. Women are a demographic segment like any other and that you would, if you will, "narrowcast" to them is a fine marketing strategy.

But look at where all the women with real talent (and many who aren't that imbued with it) are going: the mainstream media. The NY Times, the LA Times, Time, the Nation, NBC, CBS, MSNBC (love you Rachel!) and not Elle. The rest get left behind to try to cadge jobs at women's or celebrity (same thing) magazines. So there is a huge cerebral gap between women in the MSM and women's magazines and it shows in the vapidity of periodicals marketed to females.

To me, women's magazines, as they are manifested right now, are little different in their ethos from such outfits in the 1950's. That has to change or they will never be taken seriously.

[RosanneofTennessee]

As the author and owner of The New Tennessee Woman www.thenewtnwoman.com I believe we still have much work to do as women to achieve parity with men. The fact that women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn, rankles. The fact that we still are talking about added more women to "boards" and other tables where decisions are made, tells me that we need more catalysts and advocates for nationwide change. And, why aren't more women entrepreneurs than employees?

Success for Women www.sfwmag.com is a clear winner in the arena of "women's magazines" to me. Those magazines nearest the checkout still focus too much on external beauty and purient curiosity/gossip to interest me. Women do write hard hitting news and I find that it's easiest to find their info ONLINE, for they are not featured front and center in many publications. Find them and copy their RSS feed.

[rucognizant]

This woman entrpreneur, has less possibility of finding free lance work since the "women's" magazines have cut out the illustrations they used to feature! Society now is so determinedly left brain hemosphere oriented, there isn't much to challenge the imagination. It seems as if everybody has some exotic ailment that needs to be featured, gets really booooooooring! So do articles about plastic surgery.
And maybe if there were more home decor articles, it might STIMULATE sales....e­ven if not every one can afford a pricey decorator.

[gwynece1]

Great article, and I see your point, but lets be honest and admit that many women's magazines place alot of focus on loosing weight and pleasing men......

[Andie Olivia]

Those are all fabulous achievements, Sheila, I just wish more women's magazines had more substantial journalism. I subscribed to Seventeen for one year and it didn't take me long to figure out that it was mostly ads for clothes I couldn't afford, boring activities, awful skank perfume samples, and I remember _one_ useful article about how to buy a used car. A waste of money and an awful lot of garbage to dispose of.

I've been stuck in enough waiting rooms to know that Redbook and it's ilk are just more of the same except with more neurosis-stoking articles about diets, sex and keeping your man from straying (poison to a relationship, if you ask me.) Reader's Digest, however, is pretty good and I will say I was very entertained by More magazine despite being twenty years removed from its demographic.

[holdee]

Congratulations on a great summary of the good work womens' magazines have done over the years. What they offered, and still do, is news written for the most common denominator, which is why they serve so well on women's issues.

I have been a reader of women's magazines since I was a teen -- a long time ago. I am no longer in the desired age group that advertisers like, and finally stopped all but one (I am a recovering magazine addict so I need at least one fix).

The reason I finally stopped all my subscriptions is b/c they are targeted to an age group I have outgrown. How about a "women's magazine" for all of us who are now out in the cold b/c we are seniors? We are still people who read, buy goods (adverisers note!), and work for issues we feel are important.

Here's one: Yesterday the Washington Post ran an article of circumcision of girls in Muslim countries and how men's efforts to control women's sexuality and freedom to grow is framed in religious requirements. In other words, when a women is uncircumcised, she is "unclean" and therefore cannot cook or serve food to anyone -- nor is she a viable candidate for marriage. Here is an issue that should be taken up by women's magazines.