I love reading GQ and Esquire b/c in addition to snappy fashion advice, they also publish meaningful articles - for example, this article about the
Deepwater Horizon disaster. There was an article about Roger Ebert recently that was moving and interesting and, you know, a consideration of a culturally important person. The most creepily absorbing fiction story I ever read was in an Esquire.
Cosmo and Glamour just publish the same few articles about (straight) sex and clothes and shopping. Wait, I guess they do dedicate a page now to career advice. (Illustrated w/ cartoons. Ugh.) Marie Claire has a token article every month about how much harder women in some other part of the world have it. Vogue and Elle can be counted on for cutting edge updates on... what women with lots of money are doing to their faces to look young forever. Oh, and maybe something about infertility. I do like Bitch and Bust and Curve but find them kind of parochial (and Curve is weirdly affectless and what's the point of putting so many straight women on the cover? I will take 6 covers a year of Margaret Cho, thanks.)
I like clothes. I like frivolity. I like clever and self-confident dating advice. And I like incisive reporting on politics and current events and culture. I'm perfectly happy to get these things from men's magazines if women's magazines won't step it up - but I can't help but feel disappointed every time I see a Cosmo in the supermarket with the same neon shrieking blazed across the cover - most women I know are perfectly capable of thinking 'Oh, I kind of like that purple eyeshadow' AND 'Ugh, what a human tragedy, maybe Congressman Cao needs another phone call from a constituent' WITH THE SAME BRAIN. Come on, women's magazines - cater to the whole woman!
