Women's Magazines
by
Every so often, the television adverts will plug a new women's
magazine. "For women like you! For real women! What women
really want to know!" usually accompanied by an impossibly clean
woman raving at how "like her" this magazine is; she feels as though
she's just made a new friend.
Great, another fucking women's magazine, full as ever of dumbed-down worthless crap about who's sleeping with whom, the new
Gucci shoes that every girl must have, and of course, everything
about MEN. Sure enough, I look at the cover and it's all the same.
Tom and Nicole: the Truth! How I got this Amazing Body! Diary of
a Divorce! Lose 10lbs in a Week! How to Meet the Man You Never
Knew You Wanted!
Don't tell me all women really want to read this soft-soap shit.
Who gives a fuck about Tom and Nicole? I think the people who
make these magazines secretly despise women. Or they're
schizophrenic. Love your body - but diet diet diet. Be happy
single - but look for a man. Sort out your finances - but blow £200
on a pair of fucking shoes. Geri Halliwell starves herself & now
smokes to look thin - here's a copy of her plan for YOU to follow!
We're all independent chicks with brains - now here's an issue full
of sex and how to be a total fucking doormat to a man who MUST
be a shit, because after all, he's a man isn't he? You still have to
please him though. Otherwise, although you're an individual with a
life, you'll be a complete loser with no life because you're single.
Lesbians? What are those? They're in the gay section, thanks
very much. All our women are STRAIGHT and NICE.
I don't swoon over George Clooney. I don't want to look like Kate
Moss. I don't identify with Bridget Jones and I think Ally McBeal
needs a damn good slap. If I want to lose weight I'll do something
about it, and no I don't shriek in horror at a hint of cellulite or
stretch marks. I'll love my body because it's healthy, not because
it's thin. I'll love my boyfriend because he's a wonderful person, not
because he's a man & I have to have one to validate my existence.
I don't think chocolate is the only food and I don't brag that I can't
even boil an egg. I couldn't give a flying fuck what's going on in
soaps this week, what heel I should wear, what new hideous
hairstyle I should adopt or what music I should buy. I'll make up
my own mind, thanks.
If women's magazines really gave a toss about women, they might
actually be interesting to read. Heaven forbid! They're there to
keep us in our moronic little Stepford places. Read about
Hollywood instead of history. Find out diet tips instead of health
statistics. Please your man instead of actually making your own
way through life and finding out who you are. Magazines want us
all to sit swooning over Brad Pitt & thus be safely out of the world's
way. After all, if we actually started thinking, we might realize that
Cosmopolitan is as interesting as toilet roll and far less useful.
Although, given the amount of shit in both of them, it might be put
to some useful task...
K' Clarke
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