Several years ago, when my periods were still regular, and a predictable monthly "hit" of estrogen made me THINK I WAS THINKING STRAIGHT, I decided to extend my subscription to More magazine for a full 3 years.

Not long after doing this, peri hit. And since then, each month I just get MORE AND MORE (so to speak) ANNOYED with this magazine!

It was great a few years ago when they had the ONE issue where Jamie Lee Curtis posed in her underwear, and we actually got to see her cellulite and thickened waist and - bless her heart - REAL features without makeup...

But that's the ONLY "real" woman More has ever shown us! This magazine, supposedly produced for women our age, features women who look, well, ****AMAZINGLY*** good for their ages.... Why? To sell us the products advertised within their pages!!!

I feel that my generation of women, who were coming of age in the 1960's, have been being nipped at the heels by the super-model mentality ever since. There's always someone our age, who (with a little help) looks FABULOUS! I am sooo sick of being reminded of how much BETTER MY LIFE COULD BE with the right diet/makeup/plastic surgeon/career/clothes/life regimen!

WHEN WILL MORE MAGAZINE DO AN HONEST PIECE ABOUT THE POTENTIAL HELLS OF PERIMENOPAUSE? They are so darned WUSSY about this!

WHEN WILL MORE MAGAZINE DO A STORY ABOUT POWER-SURGE? Because I know - I KNOW! soooo many women feel alone, and would love to find our community!

WHEN WILL MORE MAGAZINE TALK ABOUT THE REAL ISSUES WOMEN OUR AGE FACE? - the empty nest, the difficulty of finding friends at this age, the body booboos, the husbands going through their own mid-life crises? Women raising their grandchildren? People determining how best to navigate their remaining years? Spiritual concerns?

It's all about careers and looks!

I just received my most recent copy today, and there, on the cover is Diane Keaton, whom the cover text informs us is 61 FREAKIN' YEARS OLD, looking better than she did at 24! And why??? WHYYYYY??? We're meant, I suppose, to be impressed and consider how much better we could be, if only we once and for all - FINALLY - got our **** together!

I want a BREAK from all this nonsense. So many years of not feeling like I'm enough - not smart enough, pretty enough, sexy enough, talented enough, and I know I AM NOT ALONE.

I am SO GLAD that at 61, my grandma did not look like Diane Keaton does on the cover of "More!" I am SO GLAD my grandma primarily cared about being kind and making us soup and letting us sit in her cozy lap! I am SO GLAD my grandma sat outside watching us swing or teaching us how to knit or cook pancakes, or sing our ABC's!

I shudder to think of my grandma having been primarily focused on keeping her stomach flat!

And you know what else? I think my grandma was SO LUCKY not to have to think about all this nonsense! I want my life to be about something more than all this surface crap!

What MATTERS in this world, anyway? Am I to be focused on looking "young and sexy" until I DIE??? NO THANKS... I'll just relax and enjoy my grandkids, and hopefully give them memories of a grandma who cared about something more than her own selfish self!!

Sorry, all - I WARNED you this is a rant!!!

The remainding issues of my subscription are going straight from the mailbox into the shredder! NO ***MORE*** women's magazines that are all about the stuff that doesn't REALLY matter!

JJ

Just a thought:

Print out your post, and send it to More with a request that they suspend your subscription, if they won't cancel and return the balance, until such times as they get real, as it were.

More. I've never heard of it. I gotta get out more.

jj, duch has a great idea there,you should send them something and let them know how WE all feel.I agree with your post totally. I also agree, I have some good memorys of my gramma,baking pies and and sitting on her lap and kissing away the boo boos.when I think of that I get all warm and cozy inside.Do you think Diane's grand kids ( i dont keep up on this stuff, so if she has grandkids) will remember her like we do our gramma's.

I'm letting my subscription expire for the very same reason!

I want to see REAL women with REAL lives. Not some made up Hollywood beauty with good genes who has a chauffeur, a housekeeper, a cook, a nanny, a masseuse, a personal trainer, a plastic surgeon, etc.


I didn't even take the plastic off of this issue with Diane Keeton.

Back when I subscribed to MORE I thought it was a magazine for women over 40. It's not. It's a magazine that sells cosmetics and expensive clothing.

I honestly believe that if someone DID create a magazine for real women with real lives it would be a phenomenal success.

I realize magazines depend on advertisers' dollars to keep things going, but I'm sure there are many "useful" and "reasonable" items that could be advertised in a magazine for the average middle aged woman.

And let's get some interviews and stories with INTERESTING women who have overcome the odds of a disability, stood up to a bully boss or found some ingenious way to overcome something.

And by all means, can she just look like ME?

bumfuzzled

I will agree with most of your assessment of MORE magazine. I would love to read about ladies going through the hell of menopause. Too often I come across articles (not only in MORE) trivializing menopause by either making it seem like it's "lifes little nuisance" or not providing the REAL truth around what some women go through.

Unfortunately, there are TOO MANY women who will not either fess up or live in denial about the crap they're going through. Until more women speak up and demand that mainstream show menopause for what it really is, instead of "just lil old" hot flashes, then we're doomed to continually read or watch this BS on TV.

About Diane Keaton, she's never had children nor been married. That helps! LOL I do not believe she's had plastic surgery. If you look at her current picture on the IMDB database, she LOOKS every bit of 61 years old. In fact, she kind of looks like my grandma at 61 (what I can remember, it's been 35 years) except Diane wears designer clothes, glasses and I'm sure she does yoga, works out or whatever.

Great post JJ!!! I couldn't agree more...so sick of the pretty faces, looking like they feel so good even during their menopause years, it's bull Here I sit, hardly ever looking good, feeling like crap from the stinkin hormones!! I've never had self-esteem and all these pretty faces, looking 30 instead of 60 do nothing to help us normal women feel good about who we are.

I'm a country girl thru and thru, to me a pair of sweats or jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, sometimes no bra.... sure doesnt help the saggy boobs tho but anyway..give me those, my fleece jammies...I'm happy.

I'm enjoying looking like a grandma...oh sure theres days when I pray to God nobody comes knockin at my door, it would be scary!!!

JJ~~You my friend are beautiful inside and out Love Ya!!

~Fin~

I subscribed to More the first year it came out. I thought,what a great idea! A magazine for women over 40!

It only took a couple of issues to realize that the women over 40 they're aiming at are hard-core professionals making over 100K a year with no worries in the world and all the money they need to pay for the clothes that they advertise in the magazine. Definitely not for women in the real world...at least not me or anyone I know!

I never renewed.

I never even heard of this magazine. Sounds useless.

But I stopped buy "women's" magazines a long time ago. All I had to see was how they'd contradict themselves often within pages. One time one gave this kind of advice on the left hand page only for it to be contradicted on the right hand page. That was it.

That said, I just renewed my subscription to Rolling Stone. Seriously.

Nevermore - You ROCK! Seriously

LOL, Gia, I'm really hanging on to that aspect! If that goes, everything goes. I'm still holding out some kind of hope for the future!

I really like Real Simple, although they too are aiming at the upper middle class woman--still, there are pretty photos and easy recipes, and they mix in some reasonably priced clothing with the spendy stuff.

I became impressed with them when they did something in the 2004 election that I saw in NO other women's magazine--they did a compare/contrast with Bush and Kerry that was relatively balanced. Sadly, diversity of thought is a rare thing in the women's mag. world, not to mention the rest of media. Since then the conventional New York culture has become completely dominant (or maybe I started noticing it), so there is a lot less diversity of thought expressed, but I give them credit for an attempt at objectivity.

I was hoping for more from MORE too--WHEN will at least ONE of these magazines face the facts about women over 40 and stop pretending we can just pull ourselves together and be perfect like the airbrushed ladies they feature?

JJ....I totally understand your frustration at all the celebrities who are our ages and older who look fantastic and act as if peri and menopause don't exist and if they do.....well these women just breezed right through it. Yeah...right!!!

Without their makeup and airbrushing, without hair being done and just in ordinary life I would imagine they don't look so good. Frankly I feel sad that so much emphasis is on "Looking Good" and "Looking Young" rather than living healthy and just aging with grace. I look at people like Goldie Hawn who keeps adding collogen to her lips and holds on desperately to her youth as if there is no substance to who she is from inside. My heavens....look at Faye Dunnaway...her looks have changed dramatically from all the facelifts. Frankly I ask myself do these women even know what is real anymore?

This website displays what women really are going through during the peri and meno process. We are supportive of each other and we listen to one another and we have empathy for what some are going through and say our own little thank yous that perhaps we are not having to deal with some of those issues. But we know it exists....we don't try to hide it.....we don't pretend that we will be 30 forever. We learn from each other and we know that no matter what time of day it is or what day of the week it is, we can come here for support and advice and help. To bad that Dearest doesn't start the "Power-Surge" magazine.

Now that I have said all this I must however disagree with you regarding Diane Keaton. She has chosen not to have cosmetic surgery and said she will go out of this world with the face and body that God gave her. It is one of the reasons she wears gloves all the time because her hands show the age and she tends to wear clothes that cover upper arms, neck, etc. She never married and she didn't want to miss out on motherhood so she adopted a daugther in 1996 and a son in 2001. She made this decision at the age of 50 after the death of her father, when she began to realize her own mortality. She has said that Motherhood completely changed her and that it was the most humbling experience she had ever experienced. If you look at her closely, you will see the laugh lines, the brow lines, the crows feet and she is quite upfront about her age and getting older. For me...she is one of the few actresses out there who appears to be "real". Just my opinion however.

But you guys have my total agreement on the other items.

Thanks
Gramz

Dear JJ
I have never heard of the magazine....MORE. Now that I am aware of the name you can bet your bottom dollar that I will no doubt see it at every news stand that I frequent
With that said, I thank you for the warning of this blatant money grabbing, ADS R US, piece of glossy garbage.

Cheers !!

OMG, YESSS!!!! It would sell, for sure! With 34 profound symptoms (at LEAST) of perimenopause, one could have endless years' worth of articles about approaches, natural and traditional, for coping with them. Woo-hoo! I'd love that!

I feel a little bad that Diane Keaton got picked on here, as it isn't SHE who is the problem at all - she's a very fine actress, and a naturally beautiful woman. It's the idea that we have to keep looking great forever and ever! Clearly the "More" cover photo of her was seriously airbrushed and otherwise tinkered with.

My husband works in the advertising industry - there are a lot of magic tricks!

But I do yearn for a magazine that leaves me feeling encouraged and heartened, rather than like I'm just not up to "social par."

JJ

I've never seen More magazine but I know that all the media puts tremendous pressure on us to be youthful and beautiful and sexy always. It's hard to keep up the appearance, every year over 50 it takes more and more time dedicated to looking good.

Just last weekend I spent half the weekend on routine maintenance; home pedicure and polish, bikini wax, hair color (at 25 all I did was take a shower every day). I shudder to think what I would look like now if I didn't do it.

Everywhere I look I see images of beautiful young women like they grew on trees. Cute tummies, bouncy tits, lush hair, all of which they got for free just because they're young. Even with all my maintenance I know that I can't measure up. The standards are impossible to meet and I find myself frequently despondent that the world wants women who are not, and do not look like me. It's crushing isn't it?

I know we're all allowed to rant in here but the fact is that the world loves beautiful women, and fertile young women--and this is what we are not.

I think that older women certainly can be beautiful, but it isn't the same kind of beautiful that young girls have. And the media has no appreciation for older beautiful. Maybe More magazine for whatever its failing is just a tiny step in the direction of Older Women Can Be Beautiful Too.

Money helps too--a lot. (I ain't got that either)

MsMom,

They say that in Europe, there is more appreciation of older women, that they don't feel the same kind of "youth pressure" as we do.
I'd love if some of our European P-S sisters would come in and say something about this!

Meanwhile, I agree with you 100%. Surely the people at More Magazine believe that what they are bringing is a new focus on the "older" woman, but unfortunately, that seems to be all about making older women look like younger women! Waiting for the articles that show women with REAL wrinkles and round tummies and flattened boobs!

JJ

joliejacq, I live in Europe.

IMHO the pressure to be young and shapely and sexy is more crushing here than in America.

The media here is far looser than the US. TV commercials for cookies featuring partially clad beautiful on a couch waving their legs in the air. Billboards featuring cleavage and lingerie that you'd never get away with in America.

Face it, young and perfect is in your face everywhere.

siiiiiiiiiiiigh. Any one here with an Asian tale to tell on the veneration of the senior generation?

(Playing devil's advocate in defense of Diane Keaton)

Yes, she looks great (and her cover shot might very well be computer-enhanced) but let's remember she IS still 61 and works in an industry dominated by men. She's got to look her best so that she can continue to work at all. There aren't a lot of parts out there for women past 30, since May-December romances seem to work all the time in Hollywood movies. If she let herself go, she may wind up not having a job ever again. Change comes slowly if at all, and I don't see Hollywood ever changing its fixation on the young.

I looked at one issue of More magazine and found it to be chock full of ads, and I felt I was being manipulated. I sure won't subscribe.

Bottom line is, we all need to love ourselves first and stop comparing ourselves to anyone (or everyone!). I'm not a "granny" type (do not know how to make a pie nor do I have the desire to do so) and do try to keep my stomach flat and my weight down, but that's so I can give myself the best chance of being around when my daughter does decide to have children. If she doesn't, that's okay too.

This is a great topic.

Riv

Lots of great points, Riv.

I am definitely a "granny type," but don't want to sound judgmental about others who aren't - sorry if my post sounded that way. Heavens, we women have simply got to support each other, and appreciate our differences!

If your daughter has children, you'll just be a DIFFERENT kind of grandma. Less tummy, but just as much love!

I got excited when I first saw More magazine. I've read a couple of issues and have the same problems with it as the rest of you. I just can't relate to it. As far as getting mad at a mag, I quit reading Allure about 3 years ago. They had a article condemning anorexia and talked on and on about how terrible it is. Then when you turned to the fashion section, there were models scrawnier than the ones depicted in the article! I decided they were hypocrites. I've only bought it one time since, when I was desperate for something to read.

This is actually really interesting that you women are complaining about women's magazines. I b*tch about them all the time. The publishers of women's magazines put us into three categories -- either we're 20 and need eye shadow tips and ideas on how to pick up guys at Spring Break, we're planning a wedding to rival Princess Diana's, or we're all making quilts while we're watching Oprah. I have lots of interests, from current events to sports to films to philosophy to science, and my friends all do too. But to read women's mags, you'd think the only thing we're interested in is cooking, babies, makeup and "Brangelina" (GOD! I hate that word, but I'm using it in comtempt to make a point. Please forgive me .) And I get so tired of having to buy 15 different magazines to cover all my interests.

I've come up with an idea for a magazine for women over 40 who are in the same boat, women who are more interested in the stem-cell research debate than how to use your leftover chicken, women who want to travel to Italy to study art, not just shop. It could still have beauty and fashion and decorating articles, but it would also have features on politics and science and travel and health and psychology and sports -- real sports like baseball and mountain climbing and canoeing, not just jumping rope on the beach. Plus I'd have a Hunk of the Month section -- a pictorial on some hot actor or sports figure or politician. And I'm talking beefcake, not an interview, except maybe a cursory one. Not in the buff -- after all most nude guys look kinda dorky anyway -- but rather in a tux, on a horse, playing tennis, etc. I never understood why women's magazines never have pictures of men in them. I love looking at good-looking guys, and I'm sure lots of other women do too! And you wouldn't have to be rich to read it. I tried reading Vanity Fair once because it looked like the type of mag I'm talking about, but I get the impression you have to have a 7-figure income just to buy the damn thing!

I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I can't make it happen. I have neither the publishing experience, the time or the money. But you never know. One day....

I used to be a subscriber to More Magazine because in the beginning I thought it was a very different magazine and more geared to my age (I'm now 47). I no longer subscribe to More because over a period of time it became clear it was no different than the other magazines that cater to/brainwash younger generations. Quite frankly, I got tired of seeing the same four over forty actresses on the cover over and over again. Sela Ward and Sigourney Weaver are the exceptions to what over 40 women look like...not the rule. I also found that the articles stressed outer beauty more than anything else. Occasionally you'll get a cancer-scary article. As far as I'm concerned it is just another publication to make us feel bad about ourselves. While More likes to present itself as a progressive magazine for older women, it is no different than any other fashion/beauty mag that's out there.

I agree with everyone else about "More"...to me it's much "Less" than I thought it would be when it first appeared on the magazine racks. One magazine that I do enjoy is "O", the magazine created by Oprah Winfrey. It has very intelligent articles and it profiles women of all ages, races, and walks of life. It's probably the most balanced of the women's mags I've tried. And I still read "Good Housekeeping", which really isn't about housekeeping at all and tends to have articles geared toward "regular" women.

I agree that the articles in "Oprah" are better than just about any other women's magazines (IMHO), as far as dealing with essential issues, and lots of spiritual content, too. I especially like Martha Beck's columns.

Still there's the focus on beauty and fashion, tho'. Oprah looks more airbrushed, thinner, and younger on every new cover that comes out! I do respect that on her TV show, she allows herself to be shown at times as she is when she first arrives, and man, it looks like the REST of us in the morning!

It takes a strong woman to do that!

JJ

I love reading magazines, though I've long given up "young" women's magazines (and they are only about sex now, anyway). I do read More, Oprah, interior design and finance magazines.

I agree that More mostly profiles only very educated, fairly wealthy, good-looking women. But I'm sure they would say their readers aspire to those attributes and don't want to read about dumb, poor, ugly women. Or something like that. And women's magazines say that they only use beauties on the covers because when they don't, the magazines don't sell.

I personally like reading about real people (i.e., not rich, not beauties, etc.) and would definitely buy magazines that profiled them. I also love self-improvement stories on real people. That is what is inspirational to me.

And of the older women More does profile, I would guarantee they have had "procedures" done. Doesn't have to be a facelift. There are so many fillers and injectibles out there it is unbelievable. I'm going to try Sculptra myself, LOL. 50+ women just do not have faces that do not sag at all, at least somewhat. Gravity for over 50 years will not be denied, no matter how much they protest that they've not had plastic surgery. Maybe they don't count all of the other procedures.

Hi JoliJaq

I definitely understood your post and didn't think you were being judgmental! sorry it took so long to post this; I don't get in here very often. No worries and Happy Valentine's Day!

Riv

The woman who started MORE and is its current publisher, Myrna Blyth, wrote a book a few years back called "Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness--and Liberalism--to the Women of America" (St. Martin's Press, 2004). It's a take-no-prisoners, burn-all-bridges kind of book that attacks every leading media lady from Oprah to Diane Sawyer. Blyth was the editor of Ladies Home Journal for many years, a magazine I loved under her direction, by the way. One of the things I found interesting about Blyth's book (and shocking) was that she doesn't believe there is such a thing as perimenopause. She thinks it's just a media concoction promulgated by Oprah to give American women just one more reason to feel bad about themselves and their lives. How can a woman who's publishing a magazine whose aim is to be empowering to over-40 women adamantly deny the existence of perimenopause? It's certainly a riddle.

One of the thesis of her book is that she believes the NY-based media, both publishing and TV, has neglected the true issues and concerns--the true spirit of American women. I agree with her on that, at least on certain points. But I can't agree with the perimenopause thing. It still makes me gasp just to think about it.

I can't even bring myself to pick up the magazine for that reason.

I had been going back and forth on whether to continue to pick up MORE magazine. You just helped me with my decision. Any woman who denies perimenopause exists is a traitor. I realize that there are women out there who use and maybe exaggerate their symptoms in a manipulative way to get sympathy (that's not an opinion, I KNOW women who've done that.) They sit around feeling sorry for themselves, and blaming all their problems on peri, when they really are just either lazy, or scared to get off their butts and take charge of their lives. They prefer to play the victim. But there are plenty of women out there who truly have problems with perimenopause. Just because that Blyth woman didn't have problems doesn't mean nobody else did. I didn't think the mag was that great to begin with, I KNOW I won't pick up up again now. Thanks.

Oh, and from the sound of that book title, she's probably politically conservative, which means I REALLY don't want to read anything she has to say.

I stopped my subscription to"MORE" magazine as well. I sometimes buy Oprah's magazine ... haven't really found a magazine suitable for this period in my life. Maybe I am just more critically and expect more...

Plumeria

I like how you think!

What I find disheartening is that a woman who's spent over thirty years writing for, editing and managing women's magazines--and managing staffs that are largely female--is so adamant in her claim that perimenopause doesn't exist. Is she that unsympathetic? That unobservant? She chides Oprah for devoting shows to it. Insists its just not in the realm of human reality. Has she never observed the women around her, wondered what they are feeling or thinking as they go through the change? Hasn't she ever talked to other women?

Yet she claims that she and her husband started MORE to empower middle-aged women. One of the surest ways to empower women is to help us to understand, accept and acknowledge the crazy things our bodies do. The feminist movement understood this in the '70s. But that knowledge appears to have been lost. Now the magazines that are supposed to empower us, especially at mid-life are telling us that we can look as good as Christie or Susan with just a little bit of diet and exercise, a few regular injections of Jello-like substances into our wrinkles, and what's wrong with us if we can't? Instead of empowering us these articles are demeaning us. When we allow society to tell us that our bodies should look and behave differently than they do we are giving up not only our precious freedom but our feminine soul.

Can you tell I'm an aging feminist who feels abandoned by the movement?

No, there are no magazines that seem to have any relevance to my life at this point either. Even gardening magazines annoy me. (Yeah sure, my patio could look as great as the one in that magazine if I bought $800 worth of plants and fancy pots and had full tropical sun in which to arrange everything. Spare me such tutorials.)

I am a regular MORE reader/subscriber. I would never describe it as conservative, not at all! As a former New Yorker, I would describe it as a very East coast mag...liberal and trendy.
As for Perimenopause, boy am I confused!!! They have run many good and helpful articles, compared Bios and Synthetic hormones. AND, the most recent issue had a super article on how to keep weight off during Peri/Meno. I even brought the issue in to my exercise teacher, who is also in her 50's.
What I do NOT like about MORE are the expensive clothes...but even those make me at least feel that getting older does not have to mean getting frumpy!
I will most certainly continue getting MORE!!!

I didn't mean to imply that the mag was necessarily conservative. It's just that the title of Myrna Blyth's book --"Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness--and Liberalism--to the Women of America" -- implies to me a conservative point of view. It may not be that at all, but the my experience has been when the word "Liberalism" is used, it's generally in a negative light. While I truly honestly believe that people are entitled to their opinion, I don't want to endorse an opinion I don't believe in.

But regardless of whether I'm right on the politics of the editor, the magazine just doesn't speak to me. No women's magazine does these days. I'm so much more than what these magazines portray women as, especially older women. I tried to give one magazine that seemed promising a chance and I'm no renewing my subscription, and that is SELF. Two things irritate me -- all the women look like teenage boys, all in the guise of "healthy bodies", and most of their articles are obviously written by older women (references to parents dying of old age, starting new careers to combat empty nest sydrome, recharging one's love life after years with the same man) but all the photos along with the articles are of 20-somethings.

I guess I'm either going to have to start my own magazine like I said earlier, or be content with buying a dozen magazines a month to cover all my interests (not that I actually buy that many but I easily could). Am I the only woman that feels this way? Is there truly not a market for a magazine that covers a wide range of topics besides fashion, diet, interior decorating and celebrity gossip? Surely not. I'm an oddball, but not THAT big an oddball, right?

It would be fun to start your own magazine. I am with you regarding the choice of topics. I get tired of the same old ones. I tried the recent MORE magazine since I hadn't read it before and it was getting a whole lot of attention here. It was ok. There was an article on exercises and diet plan for the over 40 woman I enjoyed. I agree with someone else who posted the fashion was very expensive. There was a write up about wallets ranging from $200 to $400. Give me a break!!!! My husband would divorce me if I purchased a wallet for that much. Anyway. If I knew anything about publishing a magazine, it would be very exciting to do.

Webalina, I agree, none of the magazines we get truly "speak" to me either...With 2 teenagers, we get: National Geographic, Self, Allure, Fitness, Teen Vogue, Real Simple, More, Good Housekeeping, Yankee, Oprah, Discover, just canceled In Style,......I read most of these ( but draw the line at Teen Vogue, and must confess I do not read Discover) I actually get the most, in terms of stuff I can relate to, from the New York Times online....also like the Wall Street Journal, which my student gets...

But as for Myrna Blyth and her book, here is an Amazon review....
"Most women's magazines sell misery. About 10 years ago it dawned on me that reading my favorite magazines was well, depressing. All the articles were either about losing weight, (You arent' good enough as you are) or were about sex (You aren't good enough) or how to get a man,keep a man, change a man (Men are the enemy but you can tame one through "clever manipulation)or seemed to be pushing some new crisis. They painted a picture of American women that makes us
look dumb, helpless and under constant attack. The lifestyle magazines were bad but the fashion mags were even worse. And they all seemed to be pushing a political agenda.
Today I still read a lot of magazines but the Vogues, the Allures, Redbooks and Good Housekeepings don't cross my doorstep. Martha Blyth was actually part of the women's mag industry for many years. She took part in slinging the women's mag slop and admits it. The book is very good and explains completely why women's magazines are so dreary and how the readers are being manipulated."

and from another reviewer.......
"Let me start by saying that I am very much a liberal Democrat, and the right-wing slant of this book did bother me a bit. (Especially the relentless Hillary-bashing!) And I agree with a lot of the reviewers that Ms. Blyth seems unnecessarily catty and vicious about a lot of her colleagues, as well as about a lot of famous people (e.g., Susan Sarandon). Frankly I'm surprised that she's burning so many bridges! However, I still found it an excellent read. Sure, an educated woman may already know that the women's mags are full of crap, but I'm not sure that teenagers do. I certainly was very influenced by those mags when I was a kid -- in fact, I'm sure that Seventeen had a lot to do with my becoming anorexic and then bulimic. And finally, I was relieved to other women are as fed up with the clownish garbage that passes for "fashion" these days."
I think that I will get this book from my library, as it sounds interesting, at least in part........
I plan to cancel my Good Housekeeping,and am pretty fed up with Self and Allure ( though my girls still like them).......I used to like Mothering magazine, when my kids were little, which was pretty much a hippie mag, and was a nice counterpoint to the typical parenting mags......
Yet , we women "of a certain age" ( as the French like to say) are SUCH a diverse group, that I do not see how any one mag could appeal to all of us???

I still subscribe to a few magazines but the only one I still read from cover to cover is Health. I still like that one a lot and I also give a gift sub to my SIL and will to my DD when she moves out as well.

The only other ones I really read are my knitting mags!

One weird thing I've noticed about women's magazines is how they like to number everything on the cover. Like " 14 great recipes you can make in 10 minutes." and "20 ways to make your man happier" "385 easy crafts for Christmas" "summer's 18 hottest gotta have hairdo's" "Hollywood's top 50 makeup secrets", etc. You really don't see this peculiar numbering on magazines whose target market isn't women.

I wonder why they do that. Are we especially attracted to to things that are numbered moreso than men or kids?

>>>You really don't see this peculiar numbering on magazines whose target market isn't women.

Not true. I worked for a magazine targeted to men and nearly every month we had numbers on the cover. But the thing was if the numbers pertained to gadgets guys could buy they were always very, very high numbers ("1500 HOT Gidgy-Gadgets You Gotta Buy This Month!")--and of course all gadgets must be described as HOT. But if the numbers pertained to things that guys should do ("5 Things You Can Do Now to Turbo-Charge Your Cell Phone") they were always very low numbers because guys do not want to read articles that describe a lot of things they can or should do. They won't read articles with titles such as "1000 Things You Can Do...." Women on the other Hand DO read articles like that. That's where the difference comes in.

The Myrna Blyth book is definitely a worthwhile read and I would recommend it. Even though I cried "Whoa!" when I read many of her opinions. She is needless to say an interesting woman with some very interesting things to say. I found the book at my public library.

The idea that women's magazines peddle misery has been around a long time. It was the theme of Judith Krantz's novel "I'll Take Manhattan" which is about an idealistic young woman who tries to start a women's magazine that doesn't focus on women's faults and shortcomings, but instead aims to glorify women as they are, saggy middles and all.

Another great book is "Free Gift with Purchase: My Improbable Career in Magazines and Makeup" by Jean Godfrey-June, which was published last year. Godfrey-June is the former beauty editor at Elle. This is a very entertaining account of her life and travails trying to write about the beauty industry and all its lunacy. It reminds me a lot of some of the books by Betty MacDonald who wrote the bestselling memoir/women's/humor books in the 1940s including "The Egg and I" and the unforgettable "The Plague and I" which was an hilarious account of being stuck in a TB sanitorium for a year.

Wow, Foggybrained, thanks for the great info!! I will check out those books! I loved the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books, and so did my girls...sad to say, they did NOT like the Betsy Tacy books, which I had loved, or the Mary Poppins books....
I have already reserved the Myrna Blyth book at my library.

And MrsB76, I used to get Health, and did like it at the time, so might try it again.....

Huh.

My God-daughter sports a T-shirt that reads, "A Man's Gotta Do What A Man's Gotta Do, And A Woman's Gotta Do What A Man Shoulda Done But Didn't"

And yet again, you all have written what I've been thinking. I can't even bring myself to read it anymore. It sits on my counter for three weeks and then goes in the recycle bin to trash. I don't recommend it anymore either. I find it ridiculous and unreal. Power-surge has done MORE to help me than looking at people with trainers, chefs, plastic surgeons, etc., all of which I could never afford nor care to. Empower me to embrace this age and allow nature to perform gracefully, not make me feel bad about it. The women who email in are my heroes, my support. Thank you all.

Well I for one am proud of my age and how I wear it. I earned every single scar, stretch mark and cellulite dimple that I own. If someone wants to think less of me for actually looking my age then so be it. I feel that most of the time and money spent trying to look young is ridiculous. I recently had a seventy year old man tell me he didn't want to wear his glasses because glasses made people look older! GIVE ME A BREAK, He's seventy! So all those magazines are just fine and dandy, because in reality, it isn't reality ... Heck with the right photographer, and alot of airbrushing I could look just as good as they do. Believe me, they don't look that way up close in real life, unless they've had so much plastic surgery that they've got the smooth face, chicken neck thing going on. And then that just looks like an oxymoran ...
I say to all of my mature sisters here. Get up, dress up, apply some moderate makeup (don't hide behind it though) and be proud! I'm proud of us. Just look how far we've come! It isn't all about looking young. It's about sooo much more. Too bad some of the people out there never get that. They spend their whole life fighting a losing battle, because they just age anyway.
I like that if I want to wear a loose mexican house dress and birkenstoks to the store, then I do. I don't have go change into something constricting just so my butt shows. I'm content in the freedom that my age has brought me. I guess that someone on the job where my husband was building a house, made a comment about their wife being worried about her age, and I heard that my husband bragged that "his wife was proud of her age", he even quoted me and told the guy that I "had earned every one of my years with alot of hard work". It made me realize that when we are confident in ourselves then it can change everything around us.
Let me reiterate ... You women are valuable, you've weathered the storms of life, you know what makes other people tick. Haven't you ever looked at a young twenty something girl and been able to see right through her when she's got no clue how transparent she really is? I have, and her behavior hasn't irritated me, it has just made me glad that I"ve outgrown that insecure, silly stage. I would never, ever, offer to go back and do it all over again. I want to continue on, and see what else there is for me ahead.

Great post, Thirdseason! I agree whole-heartedly!!

I have never looked to magazines....at any time in my life....to reflect the reality of my life.....certainly when I was a young mother, and read Parenting mag, I never felt that it really "was " my life....
magazines are a small escape for me, and More has some really great articles on , for example on exercise, that are specific to this time in our lives!! If you are not even going to look at it, for the sake of the environment, you should cancel your subscription....but you are really missing out on some good things....as they say in AA, take what you like, and leave the rest behind...
my 2 teenagers read their mags in a very cynical way, and do not at feel that they reflect their lives....again, an escape.....

As for how I look and dress, when I was a young mother I was frumpy and dumpy....totally focused on being a mom, did not care how I looked.
Now I am in great shape, and feel great. I do not wear much makeup, and tend to dress in athletic clothes most of the time, as working out is my recreation.
My heroes are my daughters...my eldest is a super student, and is in a positive relationship with a nice guy ( something I have never had!!)
My younger daughter is an athlete. She persevered through a shoulder injury, ten months of rehab, and showed me what real strength is. I have never been athletic, but in accompanying her through rehab, I learned so much that I have been able to overcome knee pain, and get back into shape...for myself and my own well being, and for my girls....
We are not plastic people. my girls and I...we have never been in sororities, never gone to the prom. We are politically liberal.....and take most things with a grain of salt.
If some of you choose not to read MORE mag, that is fine...but please do not look down on those of us who like it!!!

Thirdseason -- LOVE your attitude!

I've always felt the same way. I've never given a hoot about my age, it never crossed my mind to lie about it. And I plan to do the same thing 40 years from now. And I don't believe in unnecessary plastic surgery. I think people should appreciate how aging adds interest and character to one's face. Unless you have a deformity of some sort, such as burn scarring, or need a breast reduction for back problems, cutting into a healthy body is wrong. Some people say "What about nose jobs?" In some cases it might be warranted -- my brother just had one to correct breathing problems caused by a deviated septum. But ask Jennifer Grey about nose jobs for vanity reasons. She had hers done and it ruined her career.

As for botox, I can't believe people would intentionally inject poison into their skin. That's crazy! What's wrong with facial expressions? One of the things my guy has said he loves about me is that my face is so expressive. Why would I want to look like a talking Barbie doll? Why would anybody? Do these people want a world where everybody looks alike?

Heck, I don't even dye my hair. I'm a natural brunette, very dark, and had my first gray hair when I was 17. I'm about 25% gray now and have no intention of changing it. I colored it a couple of times in my 30's at a boyfriend's request (I know it's stupid), and it did look nice, but my hair grows really fast so it was a pain in the neck to keep it up, so I decided to let it go. And I've never regretted it. I love it.

I'm not familiar with "More" magazine but from reading your posts I have a pretty good idea of the overall content of the magazine. I won't condemn it because I have not read it. I'm 52 years old and growing old was never an issue with me. I'm proud of my age and everything that goes with it. I'l even use my menopause symptoms to excuse my behavior. When I worked, I remember the girls in the office talking about the different day creams and night creams and sculpting creams.. I never used any of those. I hardly used any makeup at all. The whole thing is about balance! If you stay healthy, exercise a bit and feel good about yourself, does not matter if you are full bodied or slim .... you'l look good as well! It's simple as that. It's all in the image you give back. A few years ago I lost 41 pounds because of my health. My cholesterol and sugar level were up the wazoo! But I din't do it because I wanted to look like the movie stars in magazines! When I was working a customer complemented me on the way I looked, naturally I was on the defensive and replied " If I were 10 or 20 pounds lighter maybe and no I was not going to give him a discount on his order!" Well he told me that I was a beautiful woman and to stop thinking the fact that because I thought I was fat I was not beautiful " After that I felt different about myself. Today and even when I was heavier, people always said that I look younger than I am. So to get back to "More" magazine well if reading these types of magazines or anyother type for that matter gives a person leasure time or an "escape" as Ex-urbanite says FINE and that's good and just as long as, as she says, take what you like and leave the rest behind. Balance, balance, balance that's what I say!

Bravo ThirdSeason! A timely reminder of what's important, and well said at that!

When I was 21 a woman couldn't get a mortgage on her own - in fact, it was frequently difficult to get the banks to give us credit towards the calculation of a mortgage for our regular income even as married women because the wife will get married and quit. Married women generally had their credit stripped and re-assigned under their husbands' name.

Promotion at work topped out at senior tea-lady or some other such thing, because the woman will marry, bear young and quit. I know married women who worked whilst pregnant who were not allowed to serve the public (shhhh! She's had s. e. x.!! How disgraceful!!)

There was no such thing as time off for child-baring, bonding ??? What the duece is "Mother-Child bonding"? Some nutty liberal notion no doubt! Today, having children is no longer regard as a 'female's self-induced condition that renders her unfit for the work place". In fact, not only may women take paid maternaty leave, the father can too.

Women earned pennies on the dollar compared to men. Today, women earn 71 cents on the dollar compared to men; 81 cents on the dollar if they're in a union. (By the way, what happened to the cent key on keyboards? Talk about flaunting your wealth Bill)

Men went to, and graduated from university at a rate of 5:1. Today more women finish uni then men.

My mother was a Rosie the Rivetter type gal, I was out there burning my bra. We've earned our stripes, although most of them seem to be on our foreheads. I'm not bothered if other people want to tidy up a few things, surgically or elsewise. I may too, some day. But I'm greatful for the wisdom and knowledge I've gleaned over the years, although I'm a little saddened by the loss of innocence. I should be jaded, I suppose but I can't seem to get the hang of it. Age hath its advantages. Just ask any of connoisseur expensive wine.