Does it make you cross?

Picking up women's magazines is a "must" when you're sitting in a doctors consulting rooms, or the hairdressers, or wherever while you're waiting for your appointment time. Most of us in this group anyway no longer personally purchase women's magazines - they're far too expensive and even if there is an article or two that takes our interest, the rest is usually of no interest whatsoever. We don't suppose the publishers would like to hear that, but it's true.

So with six of the more "popular" magazines on our communal table this morning while we were enjoying our early morning "getting ready to start work" cuppa, we started flipping through the pages. Now we're all ages so you'd think we'd find something that relates to each and every one of us within the pages of these national and international magazines.

But that's not so.

It was the youngest one in our group Melissa, who actually voiced what we were all thinking. "Why don't they ever show real women of all ages, rather than very young and quite honestly anorexic teens?" This really impressed us, not that she'd said outright something we've been thinking for a long time, but that as a young woman she "saw" something inappropriate by the magazines' attitudes. In her 20s she went on to say how confused she becomes when trying to relate the real world with what is dished up week after week in the women's magazines.

This is something of a pet peeve as far as we're concerned. Surely women's magazines are written and published for all women? Surely that means women of all ages, all colours, all shapes and all sizes, all colours, and so on? Yet all we see are so-called "celebrities" (journalists don't even know the meaning of the word!) who are constantly undergoing change. Cosmetic surgery; excessive and extreme dieting; wearing the latest and most expensive fashion; changing partners/lovers as often as they change their hair shampoo; or else sensationalised stories that go out of their way to beat the realms of common sense. The value and worth and standards of women's magazines have sunk very low as far as we're concerned. And in so doing they've relegated women (who they're supposed to inspire or motivate) even lower in their own feelings of self worth.

There are absolutely stunningly beautiful women out there - even in your town or city - of a certain age (40,50,60 and older), who wear and use fashion to express themselves and their personalities in such a way as to inspire women of all ages to copy or to adapt to suit themselves. There are just as many women of size who are flamboyant and expressive and who take your breath away with their confidence and beauty. But these women never grace the pages of women's magazines. Why? Because as an editor - male - of the leading magazine here in Australia told us - "we don't want to offend our readers." What arrogance. What hypocrisy. What he, and others, don't realise is that he is perpetuating the thought that age and size is offensive! What century are these people living in?

When an editor of a woman's magazine is fired (happened here in Australia) because she had the audacity of putting a lovely young and internationally applauded size 16 woman on the cover of her magazine, well you know something is really wrong with society and it's attitudes.