A letter to the Editor

Dear Glamour Magazine,

I used to like you. Although some of my friends judged, and called me vain and warned me of sub-par content and subject matter, I really liked reading you. I liked your stories about women starting their own stuff up and your fashion pages, how they weren’t full of silly feathered, bejeweled frocks just aimed at middle class women. I liked how the School of Everything somehow managed to get on your Blogroll. But today is the last day I ever pay for, or even flip through your glossy, celebrity donning magazine ever again.

Why? My answer is very simple. I was grossly offended by ‘Your world cup survival guide’. Ok, fine you came up with a way of playing up on the fact that less women than men will be keen on the world cup. Fine- sterotypical, but fine. But then, you go on to suggest ways of ‘Escaping the football this summer with our clever, stylish 90-minute must-dos’ as alternatives to a 90-minute match (see bottom of post for this)

These must dos are: (this isn’t a joke, by the way, this is completely real)

– ‘Watch Sex and the City 2’

– ‘Shop till you’re ready to drop’

– ‘ Try wine tasting’

– ‘Have a picnic in the park’

– ‘Have a bake off’

Oh, and since its also a promotional piece featuring Rosemont White Wine, ‘Give football the Yellow card: win a girl’s shopping trip to New York’. No Glamour I won’t. You get a RED card for being so offensive, sexist and uninspiring. Have a bake off? Honestly? This is not a clever, or stylish ‘must-do’. It’s dated and perpetuating an age old stereotype. You should have included knitting, look after your children or braiding each others hair if that’s theme you’re rolling with. On page 105 you’re telling women ‘yes, you can do anything’ and not 5 pages later, you’re telling us to have a bake off. Lovely.

Here is MY World Cup Survival Guide:

– Don’t read Glamour

– Watch a match- or all of them. If you don’t like football, the best matches to watch will be the later games, like quarter and semi finals. They’ll (hopefully) be the most exciting. Also the prospect of North Korea having to face South Korea for a match is insanely exciting- it’s historical.

– Drink juice. Or beer. Or cider. Drink anything- except Rosemont Sauvingnon Blanc. (Any company that allowed that ad to endorse them must be crazy, or even worse any company that came up with that ad is just completely out to lunch)

– Pretend you support a team. Since Canada isn’t in the World Cup, I’ve decided to support Spain. And Argentina. And Holland. And Italy because I drew Italy in my work’s football lottery. Then when one team gets knocked out, switch and support another. It drives some people crazy, but when you have no actual allegiance to a team, it’s quite fun. Fairweather supporting. Try it.

– Carry on with life like normal?

I’m so disappointed- partly because I won’t ever read the magazine again but mostly because I used to defend my Glamour reading, and now I’m just embarrassed that I actually thought that it wasn’t a horrible resource for women.

(PS-I have sent this to Glamour. If you too are annoyed, send something to them: letters@glamourmagazine.co.uk)