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• 
  Anne Townsend
  July 21st, 2012 @19:56 #
   
  
  

  How can anybody take Jane Raphaely seriously? This is a woman who claims to be a feminist, who gets angry when women do not receive fair treatment and yet who was associated for decades with women's magazines like Cosmopolitan and Fair Lady?

  
  
• 
  Helen
  July 22nd, 2012 @14:24 #
   
  
  

  Twenty years ago, when I could count the feminists I knew on both hands, I did a women-only fun-run, and Jane made a little speech at the end. "This is what we want to see!" she cried. "Men on the sidelines! Men left holding the baby! Men running behind the women for a change!" Folk who knew my politics swivelled to look at me, and one said "You must be excited, such a public figure also calling herself a feminist". Meanwhile I was trying to melt through a crack in the sidewalk... I still think she's an interesting figure. It was because of her column in Fair Lady that I discovered, age ten, that under SA tax law, working women were considered their husband's chattels. Even back then, this worried me.

  
  
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  Ben - Editor
  July 22nd, 2012 @14:55 #
   
  
  

  She can certainly be taken seriously as a formidable businessperson.

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 23rd, 2012 @13:05 #
   
  
  

  My ex-colleague, Eve Bertelsen, used to give brilliant lectures about Jane Raphaely, the ideology of women's magazines and the shaping of (self)perceptions thereby... I'm pretty sure she published them, but I can't remember where. Anybody know?

  
  
• 
  Anne Townsend
  July 23rd, 2012 @14:28 #
   
  
  

  I remember Eve Bertelsen from my years in the Eng Dept in the eighties. My sister used to say plaintively: 'Eve calls herself a feminist but she wears perfume!' which I found it bit irrational....(the comment not the perfume)

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 23rd, 2012 @20:35 #
   
  
  

  I'd be very keen to read Bertelsen's piece, but can't find it. The only link that conjoins Bertelesen and Raphaely is one where the relationship is incidental:

  https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod%3D14&q=cache:uc36O0iF23YJ:http://www3.telus.net/index100/rjr%2Bto+well+known+figures+like+Cosmopolitan+editor+Jane+Raphaely,+Professor+Eve+Bertelsen+of+the+University+of+Cape+Town&hl=en&ct=clnk

  
  
• 
  margie
  July 24th, 2012 @01:28 #
   
  
  

  Jane Raphaely is an astute businesswoman - and has created a business that employs a great number of women. That is a fine contribution to the world. Women, feminism, money, business and sense of self is complex and varied - 50 Shades etc, the compulsory mention. So yes, Cosmo might be silly, but it sells and sells well - and feminism and capitalism can bed each other as much as socialism and feminism can - they just spawn different types of babies. One of them is Jane's

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 24th, 2012 @17:00 #
   
  
  

  I'm sorry, Margie, but you seem to be smudging stuff here. But you do hit one nail on the head - a form of feminism can bed (?) with capitalism. But then, that leaves a lot of issues to discuss outside of the feminism, doesn't it? - doesn't it also mean that there are different kinds of feminism, only partly compatible with each other? And that there are other issues at work - social, political, whatever - outside of one's 'sense of self', no matter what gender one is talking about?

  You probably can guess to which mast my colours are nailed. IMO, if being an 'astute' capitalist is per se a good thing, one could argue that all capitalists should model themselves on their epitome - the bankers. And we all know what the bankers have been up to in the last two decades....

  there was a face-to-face debate once, at UCT, between Eve Bertelsen and Jane Raphaely. I wish I could remember when. Again, in my humble opinion, Eve won by an innings and twelve runs.

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 24th, 2012 @18:21 #
   
  
  

  By the way, Ben - I have a suspicion nudging that there might be an article about this, either by Eve or someone else, in a magazine called 'Speak' that was produced in Cape Town in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

  I may be entirely wrong - but I have some copies somewhere in my office; I'll dig round and see if I can locate them (more difficult than it sounds - you should see my office.....).

  
  
• 
  Anne Townsend
  July 24th, 2012 @21:17 #
   
  
  

  I wasn't going to read her autobiography, but looking at these comments I've decided to read it with A Very Open Mind in the hope that she addresses some of these issues.

  Kelvin, I was at UCT from 1981 - 1985, and the debate was during that time. I didn't attend, but I remember it caused a ruckus. At that stage I thought women's magazines were full of great role models, and I spent any spare cash on make up, perfume, bikinis and slimming pills. Then I went through a stage of finding these magazines merely 'silly' but I have thankfully reached the stage where they don't enter my home in any shape or form. And how much happier I am as a result.

  
  
• 
  margie
  July 25th, 2012 @01:50 #
   
  
  

  Socialism has not been great shakes for women either, come to think of it.

  
  
• 
  Helen
  July 25th, 2012 @02:47 #
   
  
  

  I remember those lectures of Eve's! Very interesting, I remember her once pointing out that for white middle-class female academics with tenure and housing subsidies and sabbaticals to get holier than thou about white middle-class female businesswomen/magazine editors was pretty hypocritical, as they ALL swam around in a sea of protected privilege... It was when Margaret Gardiner came to campus and said she didn't feel exploited because she got such nice prizes for winning beauty competitions.

  
  
• 
  Anne Townsend
  July 25th, 2012 @08:09 #
   
  
  

  In the absence of Eve Bertelsen, let me rather quote from 'Bodies' by Susie Orbach:
  "The marketing of the beauty and style industries is ingenious. Editorial pages in magazines and style sections in newspapers name problems that hitherto didn't exist. Adroitly, or should we say craftily, the very problems the style industries diagnose are the same ones the beauty industry purports to fix. They are handmaidens in the process of deconstructing and reconstructing our bodies. The solutions entice us. We do not see ourselves as victims of an industry bent on exploiting us. In fact, we are excited to engage with and reframe the problem: there is something wrong with me that with effort - exercise, cash and vigilance- I can repair. I can make my offending body part (s) right. This psychological transaction of making a part of oneself the site of wrongness and then pursuing perfectibility, is similar to the phenomenon I described in relation to a baby whose needs are consistently not being met by its care-giver. The same psychological mechanism is at work here. We reject the idea of being under 'assault' from the beauty industry as offensive to our intelligence. We believe that we can be critical of the negative practices of this persuasivce industry and simply enjoy fashion and beauty, and yet the constant exhortation to change gets under our skin. "

  I am embarrassed to say that it was relatively late in life that the penny dropped for me regarding women's magazines. And then I got angry for all the years I'd been under their spell.

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 25th, 2012 @09:42 #
   
  
  

  I've triangulated (as social scientists would say) with other old fogeys, and apparently said debate was in 1982 or 1983 at UCT, and was entitled: 'Fair Lady - the Woman You Want To Be'. I'm not sure if there was a full stop or a question mark at the end.

  Certainly, state socialism hasn't been good re feminism and, even more so, re sexual choices. But the early marxist feminists are still worth reading, because they are doing something very different to what happens later - Alexandra Kollontai, Clara Zetkin etc.

  IMO the strong 'false/true consciousness' divisions of the 1970s and 1980s are questionable re feminism as well as a number of other issues. There were all sorts of issues around women's choices and consciousness that they- marxists, BC, etc - ruled dogmatically on, and were pretty wrong about. However, it seems to me that there's still something that needs to be discussed here ... can I claim that what I do is 'feminism', just because I say so? That could be quite an interesting argument, myns insiens.

  By the way - IMO, well said, Anne.

  
  
• 
  Anne Townsend
  July 25th, 2012 @13:55 #
   
  
  

  Thanks, Kelwyn. I regret my opening comment on this thread as it appears shrill and aggressive, and I regret not having simply raised my concerns (and anger) about women's magazines 'in general' without referring to any particular public figure, in this case one I have never met.

  There is considerable skill involved in discussing such an emotive topic without blame and judgement, and other writers do it far more skilfully than I do. So I'll end off with this piece from Eve Ensler's 'Writings to Stop Violence Against Women and Girls' with an extract from:

  Monologue (by Jyllian Gunther):

  "My stomach turns when I watch women scan the pages of fashion magazines, something I willfully rarely do. How their eyes dart about, taking in each detail with a yearning fused with incredible determination. For one, I don't want that kind of futile information in my head, but more than that, I'll admit, I don't know how to process that kind of information in any other way but to feel that somewhere inside me, I want to look like a cover girl. The dichotomy is mildly crippling."

  
  
• 
  Helen
  July 25th, 2012 @17:07 #
   
  
  

  Interesting debate. I haven't read mags in decades, but after reading Caitlyn Moran's How To Be A Woman (which every single so-called "post"-feminist needs to read), I was worried, and went off to do some research (i.e. read one copy each of Cosmo and Glamour). I was near-hyperventilating with anxiety at the end -- one thing that's changed for this old fogey is something Moran is worried about -- the impact of internet porn on consumer culture for the under 30s. This now informs so much of the advice-anxiety-vicious circle Anne mentions. And the other horror is the hyper-vigilant creation of problems where there none exist, a kind of ruthless self-consciousness and policing: there was an article on (I kid you not) how long a gal should wait before returning a text from a guy ("twice as long as he waits to text you is a good rule"). Whaaaaaat?

  I love being a "girl". Somehow I got to silly heels and sillier earrings through fairly subversive routes (hippy movement, feminism, environmental movements -- most of my clothes are second-hand), so I haven't had to think about these issues in decades. Thanks, everybody, for the prompt. And read Moran -- fun AND furious. Her chapters on motherhood and abortion kick ass.

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 26th, 2012 @10:18 #
   
  
  

  There's a further question you bring up, Helen. That's re the privilege of academics. My thought is that one can't read off the 1970s/80s as the same as today.

  I can't speak from experience, because I only became an academic late, in the late 1980s. But I'm pretty sure there were some academics at that stage in SA who were doing clandestine, and therefore dangerous, work.

  It was only when I became an academic that I realised that there was a difference between the words 'academic' and 'intellectual'. If one broadens this to the field of intellectuals, there were quite a lot of people involved at grassroots level, or came from embattled communities (remember the term 'organic intellectual'?). Certainly, many student intellectuals - both while and after university, both white and black - were involved in this way by the mid-1980s. All I can do these days is admire their bravery; the generation immediately after mine had to grow up pretty quickly. I find I cannot simply dismiss them as 'privileged'.

  One also has to admire people like Jeremy Cronin (even though I have issues with him today). After he came out of prison he was at times detained, or on the run, but he managed to write criticism and poetry - including a crucial 1985 article debunking the 'formalist critic' vs 'sociological critic' dichotomy in vogue at the time.

  
  
• 
  Rustum Kozain
  July 26th, 2012 @14:07 #
   
  
  

  If one takes gender out of the equation for the moment, one also has to consider magazines of this order in terms of how the magazine's engine operates by exploiting the same psychological matrix that advertising exploits: create and sell an ideal image so far removed from the reader, exploit the vulnerability opened up by the distance between that ideal image and the secret, guilty, momentarily fantastical aspirations of the reader, and deliver your reader to the advertiser and their client's products.

  Then, bringing back gender, the relatively recent rise of the 'men's magazine' (those new ones that do for men what Cosmo etc. does for women, and not the 'traditional' magazine that simply assumed its reader was male), a similar phantasmagoria exists. Well, at least for me and my male friends of a certain age: the young Adonises in fast cars or flashing their ridiculously expensive watches while drinking expensive cocktails, a Cosmo 'girl' on the arm.

  It's the same machine, but gendered for different markets. Or, to put it yet another way, its an instance where the operation of capitalist endeavour is veiled by gender.

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 26th, 2012 @15:09 #
   
  
  

  Dammit, Rustum, you should have criticised this earlier: not after I've just spent all that money on a new coupe and toupe....

  
  
• 
  Rustum Kozain
  July 26th, 2012 @15:17 #
   
  
  

  Keep the top down!

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 26th, 2012 @16:40 #
   
  
  

  While I agree with some of the thoughts expressed here, having met and interviewed Jane, and also interned at, and published numerous articles with her publishing house, the doom and gloom scenarios expounded in this thread are not what I got out of the magazine experience. Yes they're aspirational for the most part, and the beauty and fashion industries have a lot to answer for, in my honest and humble opinion, but - there is another side to the publication of women's magazines. There are conversations to be had there, on the part of writers and readers, that did not exist at the time magazines dominated the media landscape.

  The advent of the internet has changed the dynamic, to be sure, but these earlier magazines gave women the template and in fact the chutpah to go out and say what needed to be said in other formats.

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 26th, 2012 @16:51 #
   
  
  

  Correction:

  *that did not exist before the time magazines dominated

  A prime example is Cosmo - it exhorted women to go out and have fun, love being women, take delight in their sexuality and demand more from relationships. To me this is a feminist statement. Not many publications did or do that even now. I may not buy magazines any more, and I write mostly for online publications, but these print magazines have been a great education for me as a writer, and also for someone who is curious about the human condition. Instead of bashing it completely, women have learned, then gone out to create their own connections and conversations. So I am grateful there are things we can learn, maybe even improve on, and have real conversations about. Dissertation topics, campaigns - these are the places that are filled with topics of every size and hue.

  Also, when I think of Jane Raphaely I think of a woman who used books and education to escape poverty. Her fine mind and education got her where she needed to go, and I think she succeeded even beyond her own dreams. She knew where she wanted to go, things she wanted to achieve, and she took other women there with her. I cannot discount a woman like that.

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 26th, 2012 @16:54 #
   
  
  

  *chutzpah

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 26th, 2012 @18:20 #
   
  
  

  This implies that any media controlled and utilized by a distinct group to promote their series of messages and beliefs can be used for free and equal conversations between participants; on equal terms. I'm not so sure.

  But what I find most weird in this discussion is the use of a distinctly 17th - 18th century notion of the capitalist - i.e. the small-scale, individual (wo)man who can make good by hard work, accumulation, attention to detail etc etc - to describe how the business world works. There are surely (wo)men who can still do this, and good luck to them; but their range and effectiveness are so curtailed these days as to make this very dicey as a model. It can't be used to justify the principles of the ugly megalith that calls itself capitalism whereby we live. (I don't need to enumerate the problems of inequality that it brings, and the misery, to women as much as men).

  I am sure Fair Lady may have helped conversations and confidence: but I would hazard a guess that this is always overdetermined by the urge to create new consumers; and, too often (especially in the late 20th century), the urge to tell women that they are not good enough as they are. 'The woman you want to be'?

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 27th, 2012 @08:11 #
   
  
  

  Luso, I find your arguments as compelling as the macro-economic ones presented in this thread. I'm also unable to discount Jane, as problematic as I find her magazines at times. There's a living-organism aspect to her company that a lot of smart, dynamic people - including many book people - thrive on. Nicely written.

  
  
• 
  Anne Townsend
  July 27th, 2012 @08:37 #
   
  
  

  I am intrigued by how few women will openly admit to buying and reading women's magazines. Helen hasn't 'read mags in decades' but read two in the name of research, I boast about not allowing them in my front door, and Luso says 'I may not buy magazines any more.' So who is proud to be buying and reading them because I so often hear women say 'Oh, I was just glancing at an old Fair Lady in the doctor's waiting room' or 'I wouldn't be caught dead with a Cosmo but my daughter brought one home and I had a look.'

  So who is keeping the magazines going? Luso, what demographic were you aiming at during your internship at Cosmo?

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 27th, 2012 @09:32 #
   
  
  

  Oh well, that's all right then, Ben.

  
  
• 
  Lindsay
  July 27th, 2012 @09:37 #
   
  
  

  I openly read women's magazines, Marie-Claire and Fair Lady often have really well-written, interesting features.

  There are aspects of women's magazines that I take issue with but there are also things in other media that are problematic for a variety of reasons - it doesn't mean I'm going to stop reading them.

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 27th, 2012 @10:12 #
   
  
  

  Lindsay, I think you're taking us in a different direction, and IMO it's the best place to go unless one wants to get stuck in a 'yes, she is / no, she isn't' loop re JR.

  To say that we do these things even when we know they are problematic but compulsive is a very different argument from trying to convince people that these things are good for us when it's clear they aren't. ('things here = women's magazines, but there's lots of other items on this particular agenda). It means we can start asking 'why is there an attraction?', instead of, 'is there an attraction?'

  I'd be really interested to see what the arguments would be....

  Ben, you can't suggest that a system works on the micro but not in the macro: that's not only logically impossible, but economically impractical/impossible as well. And if 'living organism' personalities were a plus factor, then we'd start having to admire the mesmeric personalities in history, many of whom were really nasty - Hitler, Henry VIII, etc etc.

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 27th, 2012 @10:22 #
   
  
  

  Kelwyn, right on time:

  http://bit.ly/GodwinsLaw

  
  
• 
  Sophy
  July 27th, 2012 @10:54 #
   
  
  

  Hold the reins, Godwin - no-one's yet resorted to Reductio ad Hitlerum (if only the Führer had been a feminist). I think the distinction Kelwyn makes is an important one, perhaps the most important one, it's the difference between the seller and the consumer. Us and Them, if you will. Raphaely's job was/is to convince her consumer (The Woman) that the package she is selling (Woman's magazines - with all their good & bad [and there is plenty of both]) is something they want - whether she believes this or not. And this, dear friends, is fundamentally at odds with any kind of feminism - though, in my honest opinion, there is only really one kind. Whether or not Raphaely is good person or a successful businesswoman is irrelevant.

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 27th, 2012 @11:46 #
   
  
  

  Godwin's Law states:

  "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

  Kelwyn's comment involves Hitler and feints at comparison, so I say it meets the requirement!

  There are, no doubt, patent dictatorial and mercenary qualities about women's magazines. I find, however, that I can't call their production fundamentally at odds with feminism because, I suppose, (a) it's worse to tell women that they're wrong to read what they like and (b) nothing is pure.

  
  
• 
  Sophy
  July 27th, 2012 @12:15 #
   
  
  

  Godwin's Law is in effect, yes, but no-one has yet reduced the argument to that comparison or made senseless claims or pathetic analogies involving Hitler/Nazis. And that's the difference. I also hope I haven't implied that women are wrong to read what they like.

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 27th, 2012 @12:34 #
   
  
  

  Stop reading my comments, Sophy.

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 27th, 2012 @12:34 #
   
  
  

  Ag man, stop reading *into* my comments :)

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 27th, 2012 @12:47 #
   
  
  

  It's attack Sophy time - Sophy hold up! There are different kinds of feminism just as there are different kinds of women. The Crunk Feminists would agree that one-size fits all feminism just aint gonna cut the mustard, or the moutarde, depending on where you're from.

  Regard: http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/about/

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 27th, 2012 @13:17 #
   
  
  

  Socialists take note! Crunk Feminism is better than State Feminism:

  http://bit.ly/StateFeminism

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 27th, 2012 @14:15 #
   
  
  

  Please read again - I was not comparing JR to Hitler, which would be ridiculous. I was suggesting that an argument of this nature ('living organism' personality is a good thing, and is enough to deflect criticism), if taken to its logical conclusion, ends up in a reductio ad absurdum. So it's your argument that's blancmanging around, Ben, not mine.

  To add:
  Dean's* first law states
  - as blog conversations get longer, they are more inclined to end in snark.
  The second law states
  - the person first forced to use snark is the person who is worried that he/she is losing the argument.

  (* you can't find this on wikipaedia, I'm afraid - have to dig deeper).

  And I have just come across a line from Martin Espada's book 'The Republic of Poetry' :
  "South Africa knows. Never tell a poet: 'Don't say that'".

  Can we get back to the topic now, please, which is really interesting?

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 27th, 2012 @14:28 #
   
  
  

  Kelwyn I was not referring to 'the business world' as such, but to Jane's ambition, drive and humble beginnings. I am inspired by that, and other women are too. While to you it's a "17th - 18th century notion of the capitalist" I talked about her in terms of being an inspiration to other women, which was how this entire thread initially started, with a question about whether or not she can be taken "seriously". I left men out of the equation entirely because in the 21st century it is still men who dominate business and politics, and other spheres of influence. It is not about luck - it is about patriarchy. What I find interesting in her personal story is how she managed to get into a male-dominated arena and make them listen to her, on her own terms.

  Yes she's a capitalist, that is the way of the world right now. Alternatives haven't worked, and we're at the stage where the new alternative(s) must be instituted.

  If there are very few examples of female media/business moguls in this country, I would hardly call it irrelevant to the feminist agenda. Feminism of any kind surely is about seeing women succeed and/or have agency. For themselves, not for what we think they should be, do, read or buy. We're all in the business of selling, we're all consumers. The question is are we going to be better consumers, and are we going to sell better ideas?

  
  
• 
  Sophy
  July 27th, 2012 @14:36 #
   
  
  

  Off the topic, I know, but I wonder how crunk feminists feel about Ke$ha's use of the word in her song Tik Tok. That is, "I'm talkin' bout everybody getting crunk, crunk / Boys tryin'a touch my junk, junk".

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 27th, 2012 @14:42 #
   
  
  

  Hahaha! Sophy crunk means 'getting drunk' there's also a style of music which emanates from the same place the feminists do - the American South. Ke$ha is just another in a long line of pop products that cater to the watered-down version of specific (usually black) cultures of the US. They make money by selling to the unsuspecting (pre-teen and teen) (white) masses who think it's new and that Ke$ha invented it, rather than recognising that Ke$ha herself is an invention. Did we not post Princeton's version of a Ke$ha song? That ish was hilaar yo! See, I am also appropriating.

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 27th, 2012 @14:44 #
   
  
  

  For your viewing pleasure, Discussions in Contemporary Poetry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaHjNUORHpU

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 27th, 2012 @14:46 #
   
  
  

  *cater to those who love the watered-down version

  
  
• 
  Rustum Kozain
  July 27th, 2012 @15:01 #
   
  
  

  Crunk = Chronic + Drunk.

  
  
• 
  Rustum Kozain
  July 27th, 2012 @15:19 #
   
  
  

  Er, sorry. For those who, er, were born before Gagarin's orbit, or who do not follow the tempestuous seas of music categorisation, etc., chronic = marijuana.

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 27th, 2012 @15:54 #
   
  
  

  Clearly, I favour a more liberal interpretation of Godwin's law than you do, Kelwyn - all you gotta do is put the H-word forward and you're pretty much busted. Equally clear is that my views on State Feminism are much less nuanced.

  Further, neither I nor my arguments have ever done anything like what you suggest above, though I confess to a grudging respect at your ability to take the conversation even further off-topic than my initial (and very good, I thought) snark could manage.

  That's seriously deep in the jungle, man.

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 27th, 2012 @16:33 #
   
  
  

  Hi Luso - yes, of course. I think the point I was trying to make (are you listening, Ben?) is that the small, self-made capitalist is an anomaly in the 21st century world of MNCs - it is very small, left-over spaces this kind of capitalist is allowed to squeeze into. And good luck - as I again have said - to women, and even to men, who manage to stake out a space for themselves, and succeed.

  However, this notion of 'making it on one's own' (dependent though it is on the Protestant ideology in the English Revolution, and later on the capitalist ideologues of the 18th century) is VERY important to capitalism's ideology and self-image - just go anywhere near an economics class - and was taken up full throttle in SA after 1994. It offers much but, I suspect, delivers a lot less than it offers to most of the individuals who set out and try to get somewhere according to its edicts. This is a general point: it is not saying that anyone with guts and determination enough to make it in these terms shouldn't succeed, or that we should get all sniffy about them. As you say, we are in a world of global capitalism.

  It is not this about JR that worries me - it's the fact that she, as editor of FL, was an image moulder (molder?): and the jury is out on whether the 'self-images' that are suggested to women by magazines such as hers are a form of liberation or a further form of bondage. Perhaps they are both. It's worth arguing about.

  Ben - sigh. What can I say to you? Seeing as how, in this forum, you are the owner of the means of production as it were (resulting in an unequal distribution of power) it's hard to get anywhere. I wasn't saying anything about Godwin's Law, or anything else googlable - I was saying your reading skills and logic were faulty. In this one instance. No big deal: happens to all of us, at times.

  But it may be a good idea to go and read people like Zetkin and Kollontai, before dismissing them as 'State Feminists'. IMO I see a space for discussion of feminist issues, there, old as their viewss are, that could perhaps be far more liberatory than looking at magazines.
  It was precisely their views which were betrayed by what you call 'State Feminism' - there was a book just pre-1990 about the lives of women in the USSR which is one of the scariest things I have read: so, no argument from me there.

  However: I am a tough old goat, so please realise that I can't be laughed off, or put down. This debate seemed to be going along fine, without snark or grumpiness between the people in conversation - even though it is an area and subject matter that creates a lot of heat and passion - until you stepped in. What's at stake? Surely bookslive should thrive on argument and debate?

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 27th, 2012 @16:41 #
   
  
  

  Thanks Rustum. Was the first recorded use of the term 'chronic' to denote marijuana around the time of Vostok's orbit? Or is that more of a 90s thing, what with the release of Dr. Dre's The Chronic? I'm an AG kid, After Gagarin. or WWAG. Way way after Gagarin.

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 27th, 2012 @16:46 #
   
  
  

  Luso, of the two different ways to laugh at that video, I'm embarassed to admit that I'm in the camp of the minor ironists, not that of the greater ironists. Very funny!

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 27th, 2012 @17:11 #
   
  
  

  Kelwyn, comrade, take heart. Books LIVE indeed thrives on argument and debate - but light fun, where the opportunity to have it arises, must not be discounted either. It's Friday, mate.

  I ought to point out that I'm no longer the owner of the means of production - a certain media behemoth called Avusa is. Associated Magazines, eat your heart out!

  And who's to say that I haven't read Zetkin and Kollontai (albeit with faulty logic and reading skills - plus a tin ear)? Cosmopolites themselves, I'll bet they would have devoured космополитический.

  Those who would advise women what, and what not to read, with whatever cautious-cautious hedging and equivocation for salt, are still serving up sobachya radost.

  What I don't accept for one second, meanwhile, you sneaky troll, is the proposition that you did NOT intend the readers of this thread to associate my Book CHAT meanderings with - how can one put it delicately? Eish, one can't. I am humbled.

  
  
• 
  Rustum Kozain
  July 27th, 2012 @17:22 #
   
  
  

  Luso, I first heard the word early 21st century in an OutKast song and, given their southern aesthetic etc., kind of 'felt' what could only have been the crunk. Urban Dictionary gives an etymology which that mixes various c-drugs in:

  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=crunk

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 27th, 2012 @17:51 #
   
  
  

  Rustum, thanks - this is one of those pop culture references that makes me miss the US so much! Dirty South! I am a complete nerd so I was never in with the hottest crews (I realise I can't even name them properly, as usual - pretty much a Carlton and Hartnabrigg for all time), but observing them from afar, or going to parties in the deep South made me appreciate Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik and the illest of the ilk a great deal. When you actually see it and hear it live, and get to know the people within the culture, it's like nothing else.

  
  
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  Helen
  July 27th, 2012 @19:16 #
   
  
  

  I love it that there are now two entirely separate discussions going on here. Feminism: I can't go there, not this week, I will just start shrieking and raging about the fact that the government refuses to provide funding to keep Rape Crisis operational ("because it must take its turn with all the other 2400-odd NGOs in the Western Cape" and "the private sector must come to the party"), DON'T START ME. JUST DON'T.

  But on a much lighter note (plus it gives me a chance to tell an ANECDOTE -- am v. lazy debater, storytelling much more fun), I read women's mags (altho I didn't buy them, that's what libraries were for) until I went to sub for a few weeks at Cosmo in my mid-30s. And got to see the inner workings of a women's mag. Which basically consisted (15 yrs ago, mind) of the following rules: every story repeats, endlessly. "We haven't done how to style long hair in 11 months, time to make it a beauty feature"); the sponsors/shareholders have extraordinary power -- not only Cosmo, but an entire stable of magazines in which a tobacco empire had a stake were not allowed to state, ever, that smoking was bad, in their beauty and health advice; and the understanding of the market was crudely pragmatic: I was crisply told to present white, not black men as objects of sexual fantasy, or risk alienating consumers (thank Goddess THAT's changed).

  Bottom line is that once you've read a mag for 12 months, you need never read another one, the only changes are cosmetic (ha), and updating the schlebs. I remember the occasional interesting and enlightening feature, but mostly formula. So I think we stop reading them out of boredom.

  Still think Betty Friedan's analysis of how and why women's mags operate (in The Feminine Mystique) can't be topped, even if she wrote it 50 years ago...

  
  
• 
  Anne Townsend
  July 27th, 2012 @20:39 #
   
  
  

  You do make me laugh, Helen. What a GREAT piece. Yes, boredom and in my case a growing indignation at being patronized.

  On a less frivolous note, I'm going to quote from Eve Ensler's introduction to "Writings to stop Violence against Women and Girls":

  "Words crack open numbness and denial and disassociation and distance and deception. We need writers in these terrible times of deception and manipulation and sound bites and half-investigated truths. We don't have many real leaders, we don't have many politicians we can trust. But we can trust writers. Rather than selling us something, they are exploring something; rather than dominating us, they are opening us; rather than winning or having a position, they are inviting us to ask questions.

  We need each and every writer, each and every artist, to tell the truth the way she or he sees it, the way it comes through her or him."

  I wonder how many writers who are associated with women's magazines have chosen not to take part in this debate for fear of reprisal of some sort.

  
  
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  Kelwyn Sole
  July 29th, 2012 @13:17 #
   
  
  

  Ben - I have never been called a sneaky troll before. Think I'm going to take it up as a title. Kelwyn Sole, the Sneaky Troll....LOVE it!

  Nothing like a walk in Kirsties to improve one's mood. Gosh, we were starting to rooster away at one another there ... i.e. let's both be humbled. You are still my tovarisch. Eisch; I mean eish. My only remaining worry is: did Eva Braun read women's magazines? (Ok Ok, sorry, couldn't help it...). And before someone outs me: I watch 'Survivor'. There; I've said it.

  
  
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  Kelwyn Sole
  July 29th, 2012 @15:55 #
   
  
  

  I found the answer: she read Very Fair Lady.

  
  
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  Anne Townsend
  July 29th, 2012 @16:14 #
   
  
  

  Fair Lady is a 'dof' title; even JR says so in her book which I've just finished reading after having bought it on Fri aft. I'm exhaaauussted!

  Her talent as a writer took me completely by surprise. The descriptions of her childhood are riveting, as are her descriptions of apartheid SA in the early 60's. As an anthropologist she writes without a trace of condescencion and with great attention to (anthropological) detail.

  But it is her courage in writing about her abusive father, her brother's suicide, and her suspicions of child abuse by an aunt that completely won me over. The endless descriptions of the wheeling and dealing that accompany magazine editing didn't interest me much. It is the theme of denial that flows through this book that is deeply compelling.

  My favourite lines:
  "The journalists rose to the Brandy Alexander like hungry koi and ate a lot of the decor too."
  &
  "Men like my father get higher on audiences, agitation and anxiety than they do on alcohol. By the time I arrived, with Michael in tow, at an unnaturally tidy house, vibrating with tension, my father was plastered in every possible way - physically and emotionally - and ready for his victim."

  
  
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  Anne Townsend
  July 29th, 2012 @16:15 #
   
  
  

  I meant 'condescension' (how do I edit on this forum?)

  
  
• 
  Helen
  July 30th, 2012 @01:35 #
   
  
  

  *laughing at Kelwyn the Sneaky Troll Who Watches Survivor*

  Anne, my goodness, I think I'm going to read JR's bio after that. Which is zigactly where this sort of discussion should lead -- to the pages of a book.

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 30th, 2012 @10:47 #
   
  
  

  Yep, Jane's book is quite a good read, Anne - one of the reasons we're featuring it so heavily at the moment.

  Kelwyn, Kirstenbosch is like church - or how church ought to be, hey? Enjoy Survivor tonight :) I'll be watching the Olympics!

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 30th, 2012 @11:11 #
   
  
  

  I've never been chased by a mole snake in church, Ben.

  
  
• 
  Ben - Editor
  July 30th, 2012 @11:54 #
   
  
  

  I'm always looking for an excuse to send people more info about snakes in church:

  http://holiness-snake-handlers.webs.com/apps/videos/

  
  
• 
  Kelwyn Sole
  July 30th, 2012 @16:13 #
   
  
  

  At the risk of being accused of going off the subject again: highly recommended is Jeremy Seals 'The Snakebite Survivors Club'; starring taipans, indian cobras, black mambas and rattlesnakes. In one chapter a drunken southern pastor tries to murder his wife by using his church's stock of rattlesnakes..there's also the Rajasthan cobra festival, etc etc.

  
  
• 
  Luso
  July 30th, 2012 @16:43 #
   
  
  

  Anne, so glad you read the book. I enjoyed it, and that is why I could talk about her with some knowledge. Also in answer to your earlier question, I interned at House & Leisure and Marie Claire. A great education. I do have my issues with South African magazines - I've written about exactly why in another outlet. But if you still want to know what demographics they aim for, look at magazine spines. Cosmo's payoff line is 'fun, fearless, female' while Marie Claire has changed to 'think smart, look amazing'. I think.

  A number of magazines have tried with 'the thinking woman's magazine' and I presume that distinction goes to Oprah's Magazine. Oprah is for mostly over 40s, and all races. Marie Claire has been predominantly geared to white women aged 25-40 for years, but features black women within its pages as a rule of thumb. Cosmo is an odd mix - it always has the sexiest stars on the cover, local and international, all races. Mostly college-age women buy it. I read it now and again in college but never really 'got' it. In those days I preferred Honey, Essence and sometimes Ebony, as those were the only American magazines that featured and catered to black women, and they had decent articles. The other magazines just didn't bother, in my and my friends' opinion.

  
  
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  Andie Miller
  July 30th, 2012 @22:24 #
   
  
  

  Her interview with Jenny Crwys-Williams is worth a listen.

  http://www.702.co.za/podcast/podcast_jennyinterview.asp

  
  

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