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Women's magazines ignore technology and demean women
- hayksaakian 13y ago"The average British woman spends about £279 on beauty and cosmetics but she spends about a third more, £394 on technology products. By comparison the magazines she reads gives about 20 times as many column-inches to cosmetics than they do for tech. The disconnect between how the glossy mags choose to fill their pages and how British women actually spend their money suggests that traditional publishers are out of touch with their readership. Women spend more on smartphones than men, they spend one and a half times as much on technology and influence 57% of new technology purchases. The glossy mags have yet to acknowledge that women are now fully involved as technology consumers." The most damning evidence It makes me think that these magazines are not actually designed to optimally interest their readers, but simply to grab their attention and then mold it to their advertisers interests.
- circuiter 13y agoYes, but if women want to read about technology they can buy a technology magazine. How much of Men's magazines column inches are given to tech?
- tomchristie 13y ago> How much of Men's magazines column inches are given to tech? As a rule, shit loads.
- eonil 13y agoCurrently, tech magazines for men is nothing fun to women. In majority, women want artistic fun rather then numerical fun. Again, in majority, women has no interest on benchmark number stuffs, and more interested in which app look more beautiful. Such as "Best sexy looking app top 10" rather than "World fastest super-computer top 10". In other words, their behavior has not been changed. Only the medium has been changed. It was fashion and beauty stuffs before, and now it just expanded to electronics.
- homeomorphic 13y ago1950 called. They want their worldview back.
- omonra 13y agoJudging from the OP, he's right and you're living in lala-land. Ie - it could be a case of major conspiracy on the part of publishers (who are all women btw) to keep their readers away from tech. Or they could simply be giving their readers what they want.
- im3w1l 13y agoOr there could be an unfilled niche.
- PeterisP 13y agoIf (masses of) women really had a need like that, they'd buy the current tech magazines - it wouldn't fit the niche perfectly, but it would at least partly fulfill that need. They don't. Which is evidence that there is no such unfilled niche.
- halostatue 13y agoOr, much more likely, they aren't interested in the male focus of said tech magazines. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6738657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6738657 for a quick look at the covers of the tech magazine T3. Are you saying the average woman would really want to read a tech magazine with that sort of focus? We're not talking CACM here; we're talking tech magazines that, for the longest time, celebrated conference booth babes.
- PeterisP 13y agoIf what you say is true, then all the world's women with the desire for reading tech would flock to the few tech magazines that have less of "that sort of focus", they exist. This would cause these "non-booth-babed" magazines to have a disproportionally large amount of women buyers, which they would see immediately... but it's not happening. Reality is that which doesn't go away if you disbelieve or dislike it.
- ColinWright 13y agoMy wife reports to me that if she wants to buy a copy of Android Magazine she has to shoulder aside men who are much larger than she, and fish among the magazines about fishing, cars, "Lad's Mags" (ugh (her words)), and similar things. "Not fun" (direct quotation).
- girvo 13y agoExactly. Hell, I (as a upper middle class young male) get annoyed when trying to find a tech magazine on the shelves. Hidden amongst a dozen other things, and usually a terrible selection. Sigh... Not that it matters, my favourite magazine (Atomic MPC) that I subbed to for 5 years folded into PC Authority :(
- PeterisP 13y agoOk, so that's a message to retailers that they might get more sales by rearranging magazines on their shelves - how do we get this message to them?
- tommorris 13y agoHave a look at the front covers of T3 magazine some time... https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t3+magazine&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t3+magazine&tbm=isch There's a theme there.
- revelation 13y agoThat's a tech magazine, even if the cover doesn't imply that...
- tommorris 13y agoI know it's a tech magazine. I'm just somewhat flummoxed what the attractive busty woman on the front of every magazine has to do with iPhones or whatever.
- delian66 13y agoThe theory is that seeing them close together, will cause an association in the (assumed male) reader's mind, between the qualities of the attractive sexy model and the product, so that when the reader sees the product in the future, he will be attracted to it on a subconscious level, and thus more likely to buy it ... or in other words, "sex sells".
- nicholassmith 13y agoA reasonably large amount, ranging from cool toys to the latest apps and random websites they've come across. Add on a lot of technology magazines may as well be men's magazines due to the content focus, tonality and usage of scantily clad women caressing the latest tech products.
- halostatue 13y agoOr I could buy Playboy. The tech and music coverage in there is very good. Despite being a “men's” magazine in the most direct sense, the breadth of coverage (music, movies—both new releases and home video, video games, automotive tech, men's fashion, and technology in general, plus the politics, interviews, reporting, and fiction) is generally good. GQ also has fairly good broad-based coverage. A couple of other magazines that aren't strictly men’s magazines but have a male editorial slant do much the same (VF and Rolling Stone). Men's magazines tend to cover far broader interests than women's magazines. Tech magazines, on the other hand, almost exclusively cater to a young male audience.
- cstross 13y agoIt makes me think that these magazines are not actually designed to optimally interest their readers, but simply to grab their attention and then mold it to their advertisers interests. The whole point of the editorial content in trade publishing is to sell advertising pages. Back when I was a columnist for Computer Shopper (in the UK, circa 1999-2005, during the golden autumn of the computer magazine publishing era -- before direct PC sales over the internet gutted it) the ABC audited circulation of the mag was around 135,000 readers (multiply by 5 for an equivalent US readership). Cover price was on the order of £2.35, so you could expect revenue of £317,000-odd per issue from paid subscribers/store customers. Around 120 pages consisted of editorial content, plus up to 550 pages of advertising. (This ratio holds in the US, too, where to take advantage of printed matter bulk postal rates magazines had to have no less than 20% editorial content mixed in with the ads.) I don't have exact revenue figures, but a half-page black and white ad in CS sold at the time for roughly £2000. So, ignoring the premium for colour and blow-in ads, we can approximate the advertising revenue to £2.2M per issue. In actual fact, colour ads sold for a lot more, so the revenue per issue would be closer to £3M. The take-home here is that at most 14% of the magazine's revenue came direct from the readers -- indeed, the readers were probably getting the colourful 650-page object for the cost of printing alone. The remaining 86% -- or more -- of the magazine's revenue came from advertising. Now, from a business perspective, whose interests do you expect to weigh more heavily on the mind of the publisher -- the readers, or the advertisers?
- rwmj 13y agoI was going to say: Since technology sales are higher, why aren't technology companies advertising more? But the markup on cosmetics (scented water with fancy labels) is huge, so the cosmetics companies have much more money to spread around in advertising.
- rhizome 13y agoPeople would likely forget about cosmetics to some degree if they weren't advertised so much, they are pure luxury. Technology provides functionality (beyond luxury) used in everyday life, so it doesn't have to advertise as much. Cosmetics have to advertise to just stay alive.
- hrktb 13y agoIs money spent relevant though ? I spend more on car insurance, gas and other maintenance fees than on entertainment, and really don't care about cars as long as mine doesn't break. A lot of women might have as little interest in the next Samsung phone.
- workbench 13y agoMoney spend is almost irrelevant and comparing it to cosmetics is mostly pointless. Especially when that annual number doesn't even cover the cost of a single major tech purchase. Time invested in researching purchase and how much they cared about purchasing decisions in each area would be far more relevant. Also why do women have to be treated like mindless drones that have to be protected from evil magazines? Critics really need to start giving them more credit. "The endless pages of thin flawless models make young women frown critically at themselves in the mirror" Mens magazines are full of muscled up sports stars, if I read them I'm pretty certain it wouldn't make me get all upset when I look in the mirror. People are not stupid
- pgsandstrom 13y agoThe amount of money you spend on something does not equal your interest in it.
- berrypicker 13y agoThose stats are pretty much useless. Technology is more expensive. Hey, women spend more on cars than cosmetics, should they include car columns too? Buying a laptop, an iPhone and a tablet or something will cost way more than a year's worth of make up, doesn't say anything about a person's real interests. Also, the average British woman is not the average Women's magazine reader. It's more likely that readers of women's magazines 1. don't spend as much on technology, or 2. if they do, it's simply the case of buying an expensive smartphone or whatever to listen to music or browse Facebook.
- Shivetya 13y agoIt makes me think technology items are just too damn expensive. Phones and the contracts associated with them are more than a tad expensive. How much are we paying just to stay in contact with each other?
- venomsnake 13y agoTechnology items are dirt cheap. A white label tablet with decent specs is 100$, a no name android phone 150$, decent gaming PC - 500$ ... its the fashionable tech items that are expensive. And the abusive carrier practices.
- Toenex 13y agoBritish women probably spend thousands on petrol but I doubt they want to read about it.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- edoloughlin 13y ago"The average British woman spends about £279 on beauty and cosmetics but she spends about a third more, £394 on technology products. By comparison the magazines she reads gives about 20 times as many column-inches to cosmetics than they do for tech. The disconnect between how the glossy mags choose to fill their pages and how British women actually spend their money suggests that traditional publishers are out of touch with their readership" It does suggest that, but it also suggests that they're in touch with the "beauty and cosmetics" companies who spend money advertising in their magazines. Anyone got any data on how much technology companies spend advertising in women's magazines?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tehwalrus 13y agoIt mentions later in the article: > "One of the magazines we studied, Glamour seems to recognise the value of advertising with 6.3% coming from tech companies. In this regard the publisher is somewhat ahead of the trend." (Side point: Jumping on a "problem" you found in the first paragraph, and ask a question answered a few paragraphs further in, looks rather like you're interested in confirming your bias that this article must be wrong. That isn't a good way to learn about how the world works - If you're only reading HN to feel good, no problem, but I come here to learn stuff.)
- theallan 13y agoIs this not simple supply and demand? If people didn't want to read magazines such as Hello etc they wouldn't buy them and the publishers would realign to what people do want to buy (be that reading about technology or anything else).
- jb17 13y agoYes, but the article suggests that there might be demand for something that does not exist at the moment.
- nxpnsv 13y agoSome good points. The mistake here is assuming technology magazines have male only readers...
- Morgawr 13y agoI agree, people interested in technology buy technology-related magazines. People interested in fashion (don't assume just women do that, it's a bit sexist) buy fashion-related magazines.
- Toenex 13y agoPrecisely. The error here seems to be assuming that just because these magazines are often aimed at women they should cover all areas. The magazine is still a dominant force in fashion whereas technology is heavily supported by many and varied online resources.
- tehwalrus 13y agoGendered behaviours (according to society, your peers, etc) permeate all sorts of things that you personally might not consider "gendered". I wonder how many girls would get surprised questions if they read a tech magazine, compared to the lack of attention they would get reading Heat... Not that some of them don't, but that's not how society expects them to behave (wrongly, of course), and most people hate standing out.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoAs posted above, this is a tech magazine: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t3+magazine&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t3+magazine&tbm=isch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T3_(magazine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T3_(magazine) If somebody is making "The mistake of assuming technology magazines have male only readers" and it is everybody who works for or with the tech magazine in question
- noir_lord 13y agohttps://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t3+magazine&tbm=isch#q=cosmopolitan+magazine&safe=active&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t3+magazine&tbm=isch#q=cos... I do get what you are saying but you are literally judging the magazine by it's cover. If I was the editor a tech magazine and knew my readership breakdown was 70/30 then I would be inclined (given that I have to have either a woman or man on the cover) towards putting the woman on the cover.
- neur0mancer 13y agoMagazines are crap. Why we should care?
- _s 13y agoSo this is something that has been on the back of my mind for ages (at least a few years / through one or two relationships now) - I used to subscribe to Men's Health / Fitness, a Motorcycle Magazine and another tech one (T3 or stuff, I can't remember) - and they'd all be on the bookshelf (dozens and dozens spanning a couple of years). Whenever my any of my previous significant other(s) would thumb through them - they would always comment on how much more practical and informative they were - literally everything was put there in some way to help you become a better person; from fitness tips and guides, to the business insider interviews and "lifestyle" hacks / articles, down to the insider information on upcoming gadgets / vehicles and what not. These was in comparison not just to the top selling female magazines (Marie Claire / Cosmopolitan etc), but with the equivalent female magazines (Female Fitness etc). I haven't read any of these magazines recently (in about 3 years, since the onset of tablets and whatnot), so I can't comment on how they are now but it definitely came as a bit of a surprise to me to see how different they actually were - and how they actually continued to reinforce an incredibly old fashioned female stereotype; I don't know how else to describe it other than the "dumbing down" of information targeting females, and a subtle encouraging of various fashion / gadget trends that need to be followed to "keep up with the times". I couldn't help but question it all, and wonder why women would actually buy them ... and then my mind would wander over to women's issue's and how magazines that make them question their image and self-worth, talk down to them and greatly encourage the whole celebrity / paparazzi environment whilst touting feminist ideals etc etc ... it's a whole other world that I am in no way equipped or educated enough to think about; a giant paradox thrown inside pandora's box.
- Peroni 13y agoI can't speak for the US but some of the top 'mens' magazines in the UK are disgraceful. FHM, Loaded, Nuts, et al. You mention how the top womens magazines "reinforce an incredibly old fashioned female stereotype", well these mens magazines are arguably worse considering the primary content is boobs, toilet humour and football.
- nailer 13y ago> I can't speak for the US but some of the top 'mens' magazines in the UK are disgraceful. FHM, Loaded, Nuts... Loaded and Nuts are 'lad mags' - 15 to 25. They're not for grown up men. The biggest, and by far the most profitable Man's Magazine is Men's health. It has a little tech, lots of workout/fitness stuff, a lot of diet stuff, and some fashion. (not sure if FHM still exists so can't comment there)
- patio11 13y agoApropos of nothing: Google Glass and Marissa Mayer both got very long spreads written about them recently in the US version of Vogue. (I buy a copy periodically when visiting the US. Business-related research expense.) n.b. If you do this regularly you'll be able to make pretty accurate predictions about 30% of the magazine by reference to 70% of the magazine.
- leoedin 13y agoWhat the statistic completely ignores is that the £394 a year spent on tech is almost certainly spent on one or two big items. I'd say iPhone ownership is fairly ubiquitous - the average cost of an iPhone is probably about £360/year. The rest is probably made up of the fraction of a tablet or laptop that the average woman purchases each year. Even if someone theoretically spend £394 a yer on tech, it doesn't mean that advertising a tech product to them will make them buy it. Phone purchasing decisions happen annually, laptops or tablets even less frequently. Cosmetics, on the other hand, are purchased across many small transactions in a much more continuous manner, giving far more scope for effective advertising return. And as others in the comments have said, magazines are really about delivering adverts to customers.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoYes, but those magazines could be delivering iPhone adverts. Or tempting iPhone owners with galaxy S5 adverts. The could have articles (you know, incitements to spend money disguised as articles) on "how an iPhone gal could date an Android-using guy". You can't stop vapid, consumerist magazines from being vapid and consumerist, but they seem to be missing a trick with their target audience.
- 001sky 13y agoTo argue the devil's advocate position: Fashion and Beauty, on the other hand, are seen as celebrations of femininity that put women on a pedastal, the center of attention, and on a higher tier of social power and rank. Gadgets - either kitchen or electronic - however desirable are seemingly out of place in this context, as they are ultimately ultilitarian.
- chrisro 13y agoFashion and beauty are vehicles for self-expression very much like technology is (iOS or Android; power user or not, etc). We identify with the technology we choose every bit as much as we identify with the style we wear and the manner in which we groom ourselves. This is not limited to women (graphic tees, anyone?). The iPhone is now available in several colors and finishes, there are tech-mirroring trends in beauty (matte finish nail polish, metallic finish makeup, etc), and wearable tech is becoming a thing. I'd say the line between tech and fashion/beauty is pretty well blurred. And technology hasn't been "ultimately utilitarian" in a long while.
- 001sky 13y agoThe worst mysoginists are often other Women.
- Volpe 13y agoWhat are you talking about? Please clarify your position.
- 001sky 13y agoWomen's magazines ignore technology and demean women The editors of these titles are disporportionately Women.
- Volpe 13y ago... so you might of (very badly) shown that some woman are mildly mysoginist (if even that)... How do you get "worst mysoginists" and "often" out of that?
- 001sky 13y agoInsecurities, eg body image, are propogated to support the beauty and fashion industry. Just one example. Others (studies and simple empirical checks) will also corroborate this. It shouldn't be controversial, but YMMV.
- Whitespace 13y agoQuoting TFA does not clarify your position at all. "Often" implies women outside of the editorial staff of these magazines. And I fail to see how they are "the worst mysoginists[sic]." Please clarify.
- 001sky 13y agoMarissaTV, the Yahoo Q3 News — If It Bleeds, It Definitely Does Not Lead __________ But this is far from atypical, as a little google-fu whill show you. And if you look into some research, some additional things will emerge: eg What attracts the media to woman-on-woman (WOW) bullying is the fact that women are targeted at a higher rate by female bullies (71%) than by male bullies (46%). I won't belabor the point. Merely pointing out an empirical irony relevant to the headline and the context of this discussion. This is not counterfactual (nor apologetic) to other types of bad behabiour, but it is oddly not widely understood (it appears).
- perlpimp 13y agofashion magazines do not make woman a woman just like woodworking magazines do not make man a man. Geek culture is a niche and it is more healthy to deal with it as such, promote stars female and otherwise. I am sick of people being divisive on this issue, we have women coders that like to put make up on and look pretty. However I also have friends, dudes and dudettes who don't really care about tech beyond very easily usable iPhone. Brandishing fact that magazines don't give adverts about iPhones is much like saying that woodworking magazines that do not give adverts about family cars with automatic everything(IMO). iPhone is the easiest phone to use compared to older dial a number phones so I am not sure where argument stands here. As well fashion industry stands by itself as far as I know it and they don't really care to change their ways just because they say so.(re: movie: Devil wears prada). If I subscribe to woodworking or mechanics magazine, I am not sure I'd care to see adverts for game boy or Playstation. Given that I am all for women in technology - however I think that making the rest of the world think(like general purpose womens magazines) is presumptuous that people are into nerdy stuff and computing. my 2c.
- girvo 13y agoBut is technology just geek culture? I don't think so, and I believe that's the OP's point
- awjr 13y agoI think a mean analysis would have been more useful here.
- nathan_long 13y agoWhile I agree these magazines are frivolous and unhealthy, isn't this a stretch? >> The disconnect between how the glossy mags choose to fill their pages and how British women actually spend their money suggests that traditional publishers are out of touch with their readership. ...except that, apparently, such women also spend their money on the magazines being criticized. Which seems to say the publishers are in touch with what their readers want. Obviously not all women buy such magazines, but those who do are not being forced to.
- theorique 13y agoPerhaps there is a market niche for a good quality tech magazine for women. If there is a demand for it, some smart entrepreneur could make some money providing it!
- venomsnake 13y agoEnlighten me what exactly will have a good quality tech magazine for women as a content - because everything I could think of is offensive to any woman that has real interest in technology? Tech content is gender neutral. The only thing I have really noticed gender differences is that color and industrial design play a bigger role in purchasing decisions than raw specs but this is very shaky foundation on which to build a magazine.
- theorique 13y agoI'm not sure. Perhaps more articles written from a female user perspective? I really don't know if it is a good idea. I wouldn't personally invest in it, but maybe I'm off base.
- Millennium 13y ago70 years ago, women's magazines centered mostly around how women can please men. Today, this is pretty much still the case.
- senthilnayagam 13y agoasking glossy print magazines to shun gloss is too much to ask for, people who pay for it, women who buy it and the advertisers, use the medium. a sufficiently advanced user would just go read it on their website. These are the same women who make Romantic Comedies popular, you can't complain romcom has too many beautiful people and so less tech/geek stuff
- vilda 13y agoThe whole article is flawed in one major point. They assume that women are buying women's magazines because they are for women. In reality they are buying magazines that are of interest for them. Thus women's magazines are women's magazines because of the content. If you change the content (let it be rocket engine construction) it won't be women's magazine anymore because women won't buy it. I think this is a typical mistake feminists make. Instead of understanding and accepting what women want, they represents their view of what they should want and blame all other factors (stereotype anyone?).
- golergka 13y agoExactly. "Women's magazines" should really be called something like "women's traditional role model in society". It's something of a remnant of a previous era which is still useable for some purposes. My wife can read Cosmo if she needs women's fashion advice, but we read the same articles in Esquire or TechCrunch.
- tachyonbeam 13y agoFortunately, the internet should help change this. Magazines will die, and be replaced by something much more dynamic and adaptable. With content aggregators like Reddit and Prismatic, viewers can choose what actually interests them. Those sites aren't immune from demographics-based marketing, but I suspect that in the long run, the most efficient kind of marketing will be the kind that tries to learn what you actually like, instead of just prescribing you something based on your age and gender.
- VMG 13y agoAlso: is there a law that stops women from buying tech magazines? I don't think there is, and I wager that women who are interested in tech do buy them. Isn't it demeaning to perscribe adult women which magazines and which content to like?
- halostatue 13y agoMaking tech more accessible to women and less about the cooler-tech-to-get-you-laid attitude that most tech/gear magazines have would be a positive thing. Tech magazines are written for a predominantly young male audience, not for a broader audience.
- graycat 13y agoYes, women spend a lot on cell phones. So, that means that they are interested in technology? Not really! Here's why: Read D. Tannen, You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation -- she's long been a prof at Georgetown. There learn that girls and young women want to get security from memberships in groups of other girls, and one of the main ways a girl/young woman can do that is to bring to the group some juicy gossip. So, they gossip. Yes, they do gossip. And drawing from the movie Jurassic Park, yes, "They do form herds.". For technology, that's things. In simple terms, in year 1, month 1, nearly week 1, in their crib, the girls are trying to get emotional connections with adults via facial expressions, and the boys are trying to hack the latch on the crib and write C++ code to automate the toy fire truck on the floor. The girls are interested in emotional connections with people, and the boys are interested in things. The boys are seeking mastery over the physical world, and the girls are seeking care taking via emotional connections with men who have mastery over the physical world. The girls are interested in fashion and cosmetics both to attract men and also to fit into the groups of other girls they want to be part of. Can women do technology? I don't have much insight into what the real limits are, but I've seen a wide range from (1) having a super tough time with 8-9th grade algebra to (2) work with programming languages, starting with no real background at all, totally blowing away some of the brightest people in computing. But, I've nearly never seen a girl or woman who actually likes something technical. Again, basically the women's magazines are correct: What girls and women really like is belonging to groups of girls/women and making emotional connections with other people. And that's what girls/women use technology, radio, TV, magazines, cell phones, social media, for -- to belong to groups of girls/women and to make emotional connections with other people. For the technology itself, the girls/women don't care, don't care any more than they care that it was a Diesel powered 18 wheel truck that delivered their women's magazine, cosmetics, cell phone, laptop, skim milk, etc. Just because the women's magazines dish out material based on stereotypes does not mean that the stereotypes are wrong.
- what_the_heck 13y agoI can't believe you're serious. I'm a woman who's been programming for years, and I really, really like technology. I'm currently at hackerschool, and nearly half the current batch consists of women who like technology. It's not such a rarity. And no, I don't read "women's mags", and spent my teens reading various Linux and technology magazines.
- philwelch 13y agoIf you're still reading print magazines in the year 2013, you must not be that interested in technology.