Aspirational reading
Whilst crushed on a City bound train this morning, I couldn’t help but notice a woman sitting nearby reading a weekly glossy of some description.
The two ‘readers’ stories’ she was pouring over went something like:
‘I spend £600 a month so that my 11 year old daughter can become a model.’
‘I made a pact with 15 other girls to get pregnant. And we did, isn’t it great!’
What I can’t figure out, because I’m quite stupid with such things, is whether these articles are meant to be sensational or aspirational.
Life’s confusing these days.
Tags: 30-something angst
July 4th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
the strangest thing is that you don’t need to read anymore of the article to get the full gist.
July 4th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
yep, and you probably don’t want to read the rest of the article either. I’ve never understood ‘women’s’ magazines though…
July 4th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Sounds like the really cheap end of the women’s market. The market equivelent of ‘Nuts’ maybe? I have to say, on occassions, I’ve been sorely tempted to purchase one of those rags, some of the stories sound so unintentionally hilarious, real C&W song material.
July 4th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Ill Man - it’s hard not to be patronising/snobbish about these things but I suppose they must brighten up lots of people’s days in some way. Even if, yes, much of the content might be better suited to C&W treatment…
July 5th, 2008 at 8:24 am
The Gloucester plot to get pregnant by 17 girls quickly unravelled after Time posted the news. The Principle then said he wasn’t sure of how he heard of it and Time had to go back and correct the story.
I flick through copies of these mags people buy and just wonder at the images we pass onto girls. Thin is good, any curve or fat is bad; conspicuous consumption makes us happy; fame is all.
Things have moved on from Womans World and I wonder in 10 years what the magazines then will push as the ideal life.
July 5th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Mark, thanks for this - I had no idea it was such a big story. Interesting.
Feminism really has failed on the women’s magazine front in many ways. As you say, the images passed on to girls are often not particularly realistic. Although I didn’t properly read the articles referred to in the post, I just couldn’t quite tell whether they were portrayed as being ‘realistic’ and whether the reader was meant to question them or not.