molly mary o'brien

more lady mag criticism

Reading Glamour or Vogue or InStyle around the holidays is surreal; decoding the editorial choices of certain lady magazines reveals a stunning difference between the imagined average reader between January and November and that same woman in December.  January-November Woman is a balancing act, a careerist who might want or already have children, who wants to be single and have great sex with strangers or else have great sex with a significant other, who wants reasonably priced gold eyeshadow and an insomnia cure that doesn’t involve lavender and meditation.  January-November Woman wants things, but not too badly.  She needs advice, but she won’t mind if the advice is a bit tongue-in-cheek.

December Woman, on the other hand, is a mess.  She’s afraid of eating too much and drinking too much.  She’s afraid her boyfriend is going to break up with her on December 23rd, and she’s afraid that last year’s cocktail dress won’t suffice for this year’s office party.  She’s nearly penniless after someone suckered her into a deceptively expensive laser hair removal treatment.  She cries at Zales commercials.  She has a rocky relationship with hors-d’oeuvres.  December Woman is a human cyclone of sartorial, psychological, financial, nutritional and interpersonal issues, and the magazines are there to help.  

(And if the magazines happen to create the very problems they seek to solve for the December Woman, well, I have to commend them for their capacity to create pure fiction.  ’S hard to do.)