Prompt's TechBlog
Female bloggers turn on glossy women's magazines
25 May 2007
Posted by Fiona Campbell-HowesOne of the myths propounded by the mainstream media about the blogosphere is that it is populated exclusively by men.
Last summer, for example, the Independent and the Guardian both ran articles claiming that women don't blog, and, in the case of the Independent, explaining why.
(It's because women are too busy cooking and looking after the kids, apparently. Go figure.)
Unfortunately for the opinion leaders on the UK's national broadsheets, it was later revealed that women do, in fact, blog in copious numbers. No fewer than 46% of bloggers are women, according to a Pew Internet survey published last July.
But this is old news, so why mention it now? Well, one of the reasons for the antagonism between the mainstream media and the blogosphere is that bloggers are increasingly calling their professional counterparts to account. And in 2007, it seems to be the turn of the glossy women's press to come under fire.
This week saw the launch of NYC-based Jezebel, a new blog from the Gawker Media stable. Jezebel's manifesto lists the 'five lies' that glossy magazines tell women, and says it aims to be "the sort of...magazine that would never actually see glossy paper because big-name advertisers and the publishers who kowtow to them don't much like it when you point out the vulgarity of a $2000 handbag."
But while Jezebel purports to undermine glossy magazines, it still buys into the myth that all women are fascinated with celebrity gossip and expensive clothing. I see more to admire in the UK's defiantly un-glamorous Observer Woman Makes Me Spit blog, whose entire raison d'etre is shooting down the self-serving female stereotyping evident in the Observer's monthly women's supplement.
Until recently presumed to be non-existent, female bloggers are starting to bare their teeth - at the very magazines that claim to be on their side, but which are in fact anything but. I like it.
Comments:
Oooh, how nice! Thank you Fiona.
What makes us so mad about Observer Woman is largely that it assumes all its readers earn hundreds of thousands per year and live in fashionable parts of London. In Vogue or Grazia that is fine, because people choose to buy into the nonsense. That's up to them. More fool them, but none of our business.
But OWM is given away free with a traditionally left-wing paper, the paper we have read all our adult lives. The vast majority of female Observer readers don't meet the target demographic, but we are obviously considered superfluous. Where's our supplement?
Anyway, blah blah blah, we just do it for giggles and an excuse to get a bit drunk really. We're not really Andrea Dworkins.
Check the many (mostly) female bloggers in our blogroll for impressive evidence that women do blog, and often blog extremely well indeed.
Much love
Ally McBile,
(Observer Woman Makes Me Spit)
Couldn't agree more, Ally - I'm pretty sure that OWM is completely unrepresentative of the female readership of the Observer.
Mind you, I think they're probably just using it to bring in advertising revenue (and get free stuff from PRs) without really thinking about who they're supposed to be addressing with it.
That said, I did think their interview with Philip Green and Flic Howard Allen was a good insight into M&S management and strategy. It's just a shame that they dress up the good content with so much vacuous rubbish about handbags and celebrities.
It would be great if you could persuade someone at OWM to explain their raison d'etre and what makes them think female Observer readers are interested in the kind of content they present us with.
NB I'm a regular reader of quite a few of the blogs on your blogroll, and even know some of them IRL, as they say.
<< Home