Savvy Women…
I’m not sure if they read The Seattle Times on Sunday, but they probably spent the day throwing up if they do.
The Seattle Times has launched GENDER: F. There’s a little box with a red check mark that I can’t replicate here, and it’s ever so edgy. I couldn’t bring myself to crack open the magazine-style section but “The Savvy Northwest Woman’s Guide to Doing, Making, Looking, Feeling Good” isn’t meant for GENDER: Ms like me anyway. But the cover text left me all agog. “THE GREAT AMERICAN BREAST: Amazing Facts, Better Bras,” “GROWN-UP GIRLFRIENDS: Nurturing Our Relationships.” “YOUR HEALTH: Five Things to Know.” “FINDING BALANCE: Powerful Seattle Women Share Their Life Lessons.”
GENDER: F, in other words, appears to serve up the same patronizing crap that most women’s magazines dish up every monthyou know, the kind of magazines that truly savvy women don’t need to read and/or wouldn’t be caught dead reading. (Love to hear some comments from any actual women who actually read the thing.)
GENDER: F reminds me of another recent Seattle Times effort: NEXT. Launched in 2003, NEXT was a full page of opinion pieces by childrenexcuse me, NEXT was a “youth-oriented opinion page… by writers in the 17-25 age group”that was supposed to draw youngsters into the Seattle Times. NEXT was a pathetic joke, and it limped along for a few years before someone at Seattle Times HQ had the good sense to take it out behind 13 Coins and kill it. I predict the same future for GENDER: F. It’s patronizing and pointless, it’ll limp along for a couple of years, and then its body will be found in a dumpster behind 13 Coins.
Yeah, yeah: What do I know? I didn’t read GENDER: F’s profile of Jean Enerson, and I skipped the big breast expose. But I was right when I predicted that NEXT would fail before it even started running. Sometimes you just know, you know?
Did they mention the RUMORS about Jean Enerson? That would have been truly edgy.