Stupid women like to shop
US magazines and TV stations have reversed the gains of feminism
U.S. magazines and TV stations have undone the gains of feminismBy Thérèse Balduzzi American women are currently being wooed with a plethora of media and marketing offerings that purport to be specifically tailored to the needs of the modern, working woman. Websites, television shows, even entire cable channels are aimed specifically at women. On closer inspection, the offerings turn out to be disappointing.
Oxygen, a cable channel, was recently launched to great media attention. Oxygen Media combines a cable television station and an Internet network into an entertainment and marketing conglomerate aimed at "modern" women. The channel includes sports programming, yoga, a comedy series, an animated film called "X-Chromosome," a talk show with Candice Bergen, and Friday night pajama parties with female celebrities.
The audience learns practical instructions from the twelve-part series "Oprah Goes Online," in which the talk show queen is explained the Internet by a beau named Omar. Financial advice for women is offered by Ka-Ching's "Money, Business & Career" show and webpages with titles like SheCommerce, a "virtual shopping tour that helps women be better consumers."
Oxygen was conceived by Geraldine Laybourne, former president of Disney/ABC Cable Network, and produced with powerful partners including Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Entertainment Group, America Online and TV producers Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach. The budget is $400 million.
Oxygen is the largest new marketing company targeting the female audience. The iVillage.com and Women.com websites follow similar patterns, providing entertainment and advice on career, family, personal relationships, finance and personal care issues.
They come against the backdrop of an astonishing abundance of media products marketed specifically to a female audience: TV series like "Ally McBeal," talk shows like "The View," Hollywood movies like Diane Keaton's new comedy "Hanging Up," and books like the box office hits "The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing" by Melissa Bank and "Bridget Jones's Diary" by Helen Fielding. They are joined by the older women's cable channel Lifetime, the countless daytime talk shows and the numerous women's magazines that present themselves with a new facelift every year.
Pseudofeminist media products
The new media offerings are presented as a response to a long-held desire for special attention to the complicated modern lives of working women and mothers: "We've had to wait a long time for this. Now there's a place where women can not only read about how to make the most of their lives, but also help each other achieve that goal," reads the welcome message from Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of iVillage.com Nancy Evans.
The spot for the website suggests that after a busy day trying to meet professional and family demands, women can finally relax in familiar surroundings where they will be understood.
But the reality is disappointing: The topics on iVillage.com move from astrology, diets, wrinkles, pregnancies, health, to relationships, shopping, travel, work and money. Time management for the chronically overworked woman runs under the title "Find more time for your family." The articles are short and trivial. "Quick solutions to your beauty dilemmas" promises one link. One article offers cooking tips for the (presumably male) football fans in the house.
The only modern aspect of this concept is the fact that a computer section is included in these rip-off topics. But this probably only serves to encourage female visitors to click on one of the brightly colored advertising links for shopping sites as soon as possible. A visit to the Women.com website is nothing more than a virtual walk through the shopping mall.
The new morning television magazine show "The View" on ABC was created by celebrity journalist Barbara Walters. "I had this idea about different women with different points of view, sometimes a little too different," she says in the opening credits. The show presents itself as a coffee klatch of four women, two of whom are politically correct white, one black and one Asian.
Questions of education, cosmetics, fashion and morals are discussed in a relaxed chatty tone. For example, at the beginning, presenter Meredith Vieira tells us that one of her children pretended to be sick so that she wouldn't have to go to school, which is what a mother is supposed to do. During the perfectly staged coffee round, guests such as the health guru Andrew Weil, the current girlfriend of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner or an unknown singer appear again and again.
Even more obviously than on other talk shows, the individual segments turn out to be purely promotional rounds for books, CDs, cosmetics, the latest baby care products.
Special discounts for shopping
on the internet
The sudden interest in the supposed needs of women does not come from charity, but from market research, which shows that the proportion of women among consumers is growing, especially those who shop over the Internet.
Internet shopping is being vigorously promoted in America: Campaigns for websites have recently captured a large share of advertising time and space in magazine and television commercials. Supermarkets and drugstores have recently started offering discounts through loyalty cards, as well as additional discounts that can only be obtained through websites.
Even more annoying is that behind the pseudo-feminist offers are often successful women who would hardly have experienced such professional advancement without the feminist efforts of their foremothers. Even marketing companies obviously guided by the profit motive could come across as more cheeky and honest.
Shopping as a substitute action for stressed women
Since the mid-nineties, numerous feminist achievements have been quietly reversed. Equal pay for women remains a distant goal, with the difference that it is no longer fashionable to talk about it. Affirmative action regulations, the legal measures that were supposed to remedy the discrimination of women and minorities, have been gradually abolished or watered down.
The much-hyped economic recovery has virtually eliminated unemployment, but at the cost of countless Americans having to simultaneously work several of these numerous, newly created jobs in order to survive. As is often the case, this trend disproportionately affects women. At the same time, daycare centers are in short supply and women are all too often left completely in the lurch when it comes to organizing their daily lives.
Hot and topical issues about the hardships women face in combining work and family, being worn out and having too little time for themselves and their families, are hardly given a word's worth in the whole range of women's media.
Feminism's achievements overturned without a sound bite
The magazine landscape reflects this backlash: In the early nineties, numerous women's magazines at least conveyed a light version of feminism. When it came to cosmetics or sex, the focus was on women's well-being.
Meanwhile, the headlines are back to their usual "Ten Sex Tricks That Will Leave Your Husband Begging for More" style. Glamour magazine, which long conveyed a mainstream feminist keynote, until a year and a half ago included the Women in Washington column, which discussed policy decisions affecting the status of women.
Glamour also ran articles on the emergency of after-school programs and affirmative action. Meanwhile, the political column has disappeared and been replaced by an astrological one. Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire have undergone similar transformations. Allure, a Condé Nast magazine launched in 1991, tried to discuss cosmetics and fashion in an intelligent setting, inviting high-profile writers like John Updike. Meanwhile, it, too, is all about makeup and celebrities. The level has dropped, the circulation has risen.
Hollywood feeds the farce
from the successful woman
The farce of pretending to cater to women's interests and problems in order to spur them to buy unnecessary products is not only cynical but also reactionary: the more offers are designed specifically for women, the more the worst stereotypes and prejudices are reproduced: Why does Oprah need twelve lessons to get on the Internet? Why does she have to have a man explain the steps to her and not, for example, a young college student?
The successful TV series "Ally McBeal" and "Sex in the City," which feature young, ambitious women, pretend to be modern by letting their protagonists talk openly about sex. But at the same time, the independent, professional women are only interested in one thing: getting married.
The worst female stereotypes are also reproduced in the films on Lifetime, an entertainment channel for women: The heartless, elderly seductress of young male innocence is still the most refreshing. Most of the time, these are stories about women who have gotten involved with a con man who wants nothing more than to get them out of the world as quickly as possible in order to get their life insurance, sister or best friend. And Hollywood, on the other hand, focuses on fairy tale prince stories and family sentimentality.
The range of magazines and TV shows is ultimately as depressing as it is insulting, leaving women with only two options: run off to a desert island or buy frustration. But that is precisely the intention.
Oxygen, a cable channel, was recently launched to great media attention. Oxygen Media combines a cable television station and an Internet network into an entertainment and marketing conglomerate aimed at "modern" women. The channel includes sports programming, yoga, a comedy series, an animated film called "X-Chromosome," a talk show with Candice Bergen, and Friday night pajama parties with female celebrities.
The audience learns practical instructions from the twelve-part series "Oprah Goes Online," in which the talk show queen is explained the Internet by a beau named Omar. Financial advice for women is offered by Ka-Ching's "Money, Business & Career" show and webpages with titles like SheCommerce, a "virtual shopping tour that helps women be better consumers."
Oxygen was conceived by Geraldine Laybourne, former president of Disney/ABC Cable Network, and produced with powerful partners including Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Entertainment Group, America Online and TV producers Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach. The budget is $400 million.
Oxygen is the largest new marketing company targeting the female audience. The iVillage.com and Women.com websites follow similar patterns, providing entertainment and advice on career, family, personal relationships, finance and personal care issues.
They come against the backdrop of an astonishing abundance of media products marketed specifically to a female audience: TV series like "Ally McBeal," talk shows like "The View," Hollywood movies like Diane Keaton's new comedy "Hanging Up," and books like the box office hits "The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing" by Melissa Bank and "Bridget Jones's Diary" by Helen Fielding. They are joined by the older women's cable channel Lifetime, the countless daytime talk shows and the numerous women's magazines that present themselves with a new facelift every year.
Pseudofeminist media products
The new media offerings are presented as a response to a long-held desire for special attention to the complicated modern lives of working women and mothers: "We've had to wait a long time for this. Now there's a place where women can not only read about how to make the most of their lives, but also help each other achieve that goal," reads the welcome message from Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of iVillage.com Nancy Evans.
The spot for the website suggests that after a busy day trying to meet professional and family demands, women can finally relax in familiar surroundings where they will be understood.
But the reality is disappointing: The topics on iVillage.com move from astrology, diets, wrinkles, pregnancies, health, to relationships, shopping, travel, work and money. Time management for the chronically overworked woman runs under the title "Find more time for your family." The articles are short and trivial. "Quick solutions to your beauty dilemmas" promises one link. One article offers cooking tips for the (presumably male) football fans in the house.
The only modern aspect of this concept is the fact that a computer section is included in these rip-off topics. But this probably only serves to encourage female visitors to click on one of the brightly colored advertising links for shopping sites as soon as possible. A visit to the Women.com website is nothing more than a virtual walk through the shopping mall.
The new morning television magazine show "The View" on ABC was created by celebrity journalist Barbara Walters. "I had this idea about different women with different points of view, sometimes a little too different," she says in the opening credits. The show presents itself as a coffee klatch of four women, two of whom are politically correct white, one black and one Asian.
Questions of education, cosmetics, fashion and morals are discussed in a relaxed chatty tone. For example, at the beginning, presenter Meredith Vieira tells us that one of her children pretended to be sick so that she wouldn't have to go to school, which is what a mother is supposed to do. During the perfectly staged coffee round, guests such as the health guru Andrew Weil, the current girlfriend of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner or an unknown singer appear again and again.
Even more obviously than on other talk shows, the individual segments turn out to be purely promotional rounds for books, CDs, cosmetics, the latest baby care products.
Special discounts for shopping
on the internet
The sudden interest in the supposed needs of women does not come from charity, but from market research, which shows that the proportion of women among consumers is growing, especially those who shop over the Internet.
Internet shopping is being vigorously promoted in America: Campaigns for websites have recently captured a large share of advertising time and space in magazine and television commercials. Supermarkets and drugstores have recently started offering discounts through loyalty cards, as well as additional discounts that can only be obtained through websites.
Even more annoying is that behind the pseudo-feminist offers are often successful women who would hardly have experienced such professional advancement without the feminist efforts of their foremothers. Even marketing companies obviously guided by the profit motive could come across as more cheeky and honest.
Shopping as a substitute action for stressed women
Since the mid-nineties, numerous feminist achievements have been quietly reversed. Equal pay for women remains a distant goal, with the difference that it is no longer fashionable to talk about it. Affirmative action regulations, the legal measures that were supposed to remedy the discrimination of women and minorities, have been gradually abolished or watered down.
The much-hyped economic recovery has virtually eliminated unemployment, but at the cost of countless Americans having to simultaneously work several of these numerous, newly created jobs in order to survive. As is often the case, this trend disproportionately affects women. At the same time, daycare centers are in short supply and women are all too often left completely in the lurch when it comes to organizing their daily lives.
Hot and topical issues about the hardships women face in combining work and family, being worn out and having too little time for themselves and their families, are hardly given a word's worth in the whole range of women's media.
Feminism's achievements overturned without a sound bite
The magazine landscape reflects this backlash: In the early nineties, numerous women's magazines at least conveyed a light version of feminism. When it came to cosmetics or sex, the focus was on women's well-being.
Meanwhile, the headlines are back to their usual "Ten Sex Tricks That Will Leave Your Husband Begging for More" style. Glamour magazine, which long conveyed a mainstream feminist keynote, until a year and a half ago included the Women in Washington column, which discussed policy decisions affecting the status of women.
Glamour also ran articles on the emergency of after-school programs and affirmative action. Meanwhile, the political column has disappeared and been replaced by an astrological one. Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire have undergone similar transformations. Allure, a Condé Nast magazine launched in 1991, tried to discuss cosmetics and fashion in an intelligent setting, inviting high-profile writers like John Updike. Meanwhile, it, too, is all about makeup and celebrities. The level has dropped, the circulation has risen.
Hollywood feeds the farce
from the successful woman
The farce of pretending to cater to women's interests and problems in order to spur them to buy unnecessary products is not only cynical but also reactionary: the more offers are designed specifically for women, the more the worst stereotypes and prejudices are reproduced: Why does Oprah need twelve lessons to get on the Internet? Why does she have to have a man explain the steps to her and not, for example, a young college student?
The successful TV series "Ally McBeal" and "Sex in the City," which feature young, ambitious women, pretend to be modern by letting their protagonists talk openly about sex. But at the same time, the independent, professional women are only interested in one thing: getting married.
The worst female stereotypes are also reproduced in the films on Lifetime, an entertainment channel for women: The heartless, elderly seductress of young male innocence is still the most refreshing. Most of the time, these are stories about women who have gotten involved with a con man who wants nothing more than to get them out of the world as quickly as possible in order to get their life insurance, sister or best friend. And Hollywood, on the other hand, focuses on fairy tale prince stories and family sentimentality.
The range of magazines and TV shows is ultimately as depressing as it is insulting, leaving women with only two options: run off to a desert island or buy frustration. But that is precisely the intention.
