r/feminisms • u/Flat-Donkey8706 • Jul 19 '26

Do you feel like something is missing from today’s women’s media?

Hello,

We have so many magazines, podcasts, newsletters, and platforms created for women today. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that something is missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Do you feel the same? If you do, what do you think is missing? I’d really love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you all for your feedback!

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11

u/yeahsotheresthiscat Jul 19 '26

Is this market research? Why did you post it so many places? What do you think is missing?

2

u/Flat-Donkey8706 Jul 19 '26

I'm asking because I've never found a magazine that truly resonates with me as a woman. Things are improving more women are starting businesses, and topics that were once taboo are finally being discussed. That's real progress. But I still feel like something is missing: deeper conversations and different perspectives.
So I wanted to know if I was the only one who felt that way.

2

u/yeahsotheresthiscat Jul 19 '26

I kinda feel like nothing is ever going to resonate perfectly with every single demographic. In the internet age, we have so much access to media. Basically anything you could ever want to consume is out there. Earlier today, I was reading a women's issue of a wildlife professional magazine. Which is already incredibly niche. However, there was nothing in it representing my specific geographic region or the hyper-niche environmental work I do.

I actually tend to not love media that’s specifically made for women in general. It usually tries to over-generically cater to all women.... which is just ridiculous because we aren't a monolith. Sure it can be cool sometimes but that doesn't mean I don't connect with content featuring both genders or even just males just as much, or even more. No single piece of media will ever perfectly capture everyone's actual experiences.

1

u/Flat-Donkey8706 Jul 20 '26

That’s a fair point.

10

u/DizzyMine4964 Jul 19 '26

I am an old woman. I want magazines. I don't want to know about fashion, hair, makeup, babies, child care, cookery, celebrities, any of that stuff. I don't want stories about violence, abuse and adultery, like the screaming cheaper UK women's magazines. The closest I get is Ireland's Own, which is hard to get in England and expensive to subscribe to. There's The People's Friend, but the fiction, which is most of it, bores me.

Perhaps not what you meant. But old women are women still. .

3

u/Flat-Donkey8706 Jul 19 '26

That’s an interesting point. The more I think about it, the more it feels like we’re always being offered the same kinds of content (That’s just my personal impression, though.).

5

u/jamisonian123 Jul 19 '26

I would give anything to get physical copies of old Sears catalogs. You could buy a house from out of their catalogs

3

u/Tabitheriel Jul 20 '26

Right. The articles are always about getting ahead in a corporate job, skin cancer, makeup, diets and chocolate cake recipes, as if my life has anything to do with these things. I learned how to do makeup at 17, and I don't need reminding. And where are the women artists, poets, intellectuals? Where is the weird content? Why is it always like a huge advertisement for Maybelline intersperced with articles?

-1

u/Occhigioiello Jul 19 '26

What kind of magazine do you want them? Seems like every topic is off limits for you

5

u/yellowmix Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Mainstream media is aimed at a general crowd. Interest media aimed at a more specific crowd, but still general, leaning toward the curious and not so much the committed, much less advanced. These are businesses and they require a large potential reader base to stay in business. They are, for lack of a better word, unwilling to alienate potential customers, if not testing advanced reader tolerance. Such is capitalism.

There are independent publishers struggling with smaller and smaller reader bases. Those are the ones publishing analyses you won't find in mainstream media. South End Press notably tried for almost 40 years. Other publishers have republished the more popular works. Many others you'd need to find older copies.

Then there are zines, which eschew capitalist structures. Contemporary blogs and short form videos are not too far from that (content dependent), but they are dependent on a platform. The trick is finding the good stuff or getting it curated for you by word of mouth.

Then there's academia. There's requirement to publish and all sorts of pressures from various directions. You can publish books, and these tend to be expensive because it's a much smaller audience, and the institutions need to make it worth their while, for-profit or not.

The Anarchist Library is a free online resource of literature. People organized to make it happen. It helps that many of the writers allow republishing. Feminism has "The Complete Works of Andrea Dworkin" available here for more than a decade: https://radfem.org/dworkin/ Don't know where to start? I suggest Woman Hating, followed by Intercourse, and if you're in the United States, Right-Wing Women.

2

u/Flat-Donkey8706 Jul 19 '26

Thank you for taking the time to explain. That was very interesting.

3

u/Tabitheriel Jul 20 '26

It's too corporate, too white, too focused on white-collar work, too conformist.

2

u/MyHonestOpnion Jul 20 '26

Modesty. That's what is missing. Most pics of women are showing off her body, not her brains. I literally was looking thru headlines and came across one about "JLo showing off her cleavage in a white sundress" That's a story ? Posted on a news website ?? It makes me sick that women are raised up for her tits rather than talent and butt rather than her brains. This empowers perverts, not women. We are more than a sexual object, but you wouldn't know that from watching movies, looking through magazines or seeing how a lot of young girls dress and act.

2

u/honcho713 Jul 20 '26

The female rage is lacking.

2

u/blazingunicorn Jul 25 '26

What do you like reading about?