Essence, number 6 on the A-List, hosts an annual Essence Music Festival. As Larry Dobrow writes for AdAge,

In a year when consumers' travel dollars were tight, a jaw-dropping 428,000 people attended the festival over the July Fourth weekend, up from 270,000 the year before.

It helps that artists performing at the festival included Beyoncé, Maxwell, Ne-Yo, Robin Thicke, John Legend and Al Green. But Essence has "the pulse of the community," says Neil Golden, the chief marketing officer of McDonald's (a major sponsor of the EMF, along with Coca-Cola, Ford, Pantene and WalMart). "It's a proven, successful way to engage African-American consumers where they are most receptive." You may think of Essence as a "black magazine," but Dobrow cautions:

Some observers, in fact, think that those who label Essence as a niche title don't give it enough credit. "It's a crime to place Essence only in the African-American bucket — which is what has happened traditionally but is changing," said George Janson, managing partner-director of print at GroupM. "I can think of few other titles that have such a high degree of loyalty and engagement across demographic groups."

As for Cosmo — number 9 on the A-List — Dobrow calls it a "powerful" and ubiquitous" brand which uses TV, Facebook and Twitter to connect with readers (Dobrow writes that the mag Tweets "to thousands of followers with the verve of Courtney Love on an all-nighter.") Cosmopolitan senior VP-Publishing Director Donna Lagani explains why the brand is doing well: "When clients' business gets tough, they turn back to strong brands they can count on. When choices are being made by consumers to buy fewer magazines, they continue to buy Cosmo — and at a premium price." It's true: With Cosmo, you know what you're getting. In addition, the magazine stays creative with events and partnerships; Revlon sponsored this year's Fun Fearless Male Awards, while Maybelline is on board for the upcoming Cosmo Kisses for the Troops and Cosmo teamed up with Nivea on the Cosmo Bikini Bash.

With many magazines folding and struggling, it's interesting to see what works. And since 6 of the 10 publications on the A-List are magazines targeted to women, it's clear that we have power when it comes to the newsstand. Too bad we're getting stories like "Use Your Thong As A Hair Tie."

The A-List — Magazines, Essence Is No. 6 On Ad Age's Magazine A-List, Cosmopolitan Is No. 9 On Ad Age's Magazine A-List [AdAge]
Earlier: Cosmo: Wear Your Dirty Panties Around Your Ponytail

This isn't Tina's first time on a women's magazine. She was on the cover of Marie Claire in 2008 to promote Baby Mama — pre-SNL Sarah Palin impression, and before Feynaticism had reached critical mass. At the time, it was a little surprising to see her dressed up on the cover of a magazine since she'd mostly been seen in blazers on Weekend Update and frumpy writer's attire on 30 Rock. In retrospect, she wasn't actually that glammed up in Marie Claire. Sure, her infamous scar was Photoshopped out of every shot, but she's wearing a simple trench coat Liz Lemon might wear, without the diamond earrings and popped collar, and perhaps with a few more mustard stains.

Inside Marie Claire, Tina was pictured with her signature glasses, sitting at a typewriter. She's cute, but she's a writer, not some starlet famous solely for showing up on the red carpet and appearing on magazine covers.

In the new Harper's Bazaar, the tools of Tina's trade are nowhere to be found. Rather than slaving away over a 30 Rock script, she's actually posing.

Of course, Bazaar is generally more focused on fashion than Marie Claire, but the Marie Claire shoot was totally about what Tina does, not what she was wearing. The only notes about her clothes are written in fine print along the magazine's spine, after the hair and makeup credits.

The description of this photo in Bazaar is:

Great style is a cinch. Dress, $1,495, and belt, $1,295, Michael Kors. 212-452-4665. Earrings, $175, Alexis Bittar. alexisbittar.com. Cuff, $14,500, Frank Gehry for Tiffany & Co. 800-526-0649. Shoes, $860, Manolo Blahnik. Barneys New York, NYC; 212-826-6900.

Great style isn't even "easier than putting lipstick on a pitt bull," it's just "a cinch," the same as it would be if Lauren Conrad were wearing that $1,495 Michael Kors dress.

But when Tina stares off into space in Marie Claire, you can tell she's using her "mind grapes" to come up with more ways for Tracy to annoy Jenna.

Tina took her first steps toward a sexier image on the cover of Vanity Fair in January 2009. Much of Maureen Dowd's profile was devoted to the weight loss and makeover that took Tina from "very mousy" to everyone's favorite "brainy glamour-puss." At this point Dowd still need to qualify that she's brainy albeit a glamour-puss.

Despite the irritating emphasis on her figure, the description of Tina's clothing is just as hard to find in Vanity Fair as it was in Marie Claire. Though she isn't actually wearing her glasses anymore, they're still in her hand.

Or in her mouth.

She finally loses the glasses in this shot from Vanity Fair, but it seems Annie Leibovitz still wanted to emphasize her personality rather than the little black dress she's dancing in.

It's a far cry from this shot in Bazaar, in which all Tina's saying is, "Hey, check out my $1,995 Yves Saint Laurent cotton-twill bustier dress!"

Now certainly, Tina is smart and talented whether she's holding nerdy accoutrement or not. But are her new fashion-focused photos in Bazaar a step in the right direction? Previously, magazines pushed the image of the smart girl who suddenly looks hot when she whips off her glasses; now Tina is just hot. On the one hand Bazaar is featuring a cover girl who isn't considered conventionally attractive (even though she does have an attractive face and a tiny body) but is famous for her work. On the other hand, why have a celebrity who admits she knows nothing about fashion and compares herself to Tootsie in the cover profile model clothing? Though it's great to see a woman of substance on the cover of magazine aimed at women, we're still more interested in what Tina does, not how she looks in Manolos.

Tina Fey's profile and cover shoot are available online and in the November issue of Harper's Bazaar, on newsstands October 20.

Tina Fey's Cover Shoot [Harper's Bazaar]
Tina Fey Rocks! [Harper's Bazaar]

Earlier: Why Do Women's Magazines Pick Cover Girls Who "Don't Work"?
Vanity Fair: Tina Fey Drops 30 Pounds, Is Scarred For Life

Katie Holmes, Emily Blunt, Julianne Moore, Renee Zellweger and Zoe Saldana all look amazing — although poor Emily is… obstructed in her pretty shot. But instead of famous-for-being-famous ladies like the Kardashians, these are women who are using their talents: Katie just finished shooting The Extra Man and Don't Be Afraid Of the Dark; Emily is filming The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon and just wrapped Gulliver's Travels — plus she's in The Wolfman; Julianne has four films coming out in 2010; Renée has a flick called Case 39 coming later this year and two more in production (including the Bridget Jones sequel; Zoe Saldana has six movies scheduled for 2009/2010.

While it's great that Elle picked some stunning, impressive ladies to feature, why do all of these women have to share the month of November? Couldn't each have had a month of their own? Because if Elle has, as the saying goes, blown their load, then next month we might get stuck with Jessica Simpson wearing plaid. Again. As in, for the third time.

Women in Hollywood [Elle]
5 Covers For Elle's Women In Hollywood Issue [ONTD]

Earlier: Why Do Women's Magazines Pick Cover Girls Who "Don't Work?"
Jessica Simpson's Elle Cover: Waist Not, Want Not

Christian complains that, "every time I go to CVS or a bookstore and look at the magazines, I wonder what makes the cover girls so special," and that "even stars who work only occasionally like Jessica Biel and Halle Berry make it onto the covers of prestige magazines like Bazaar, Elle, and Cosmopolitan and, the worst offenders, gossip zines like US Weekly, People, and Star." He continues,

On the rare occasion I do see a working actress featured on a magazine cover, I ask myself: does she have a movie or TV show coming out? Is she producing or directing anything of note? I check IMDB. Sometimes I find a project here or there, many times I don't. Instead, they are reality stars leading dull lives and somehow getting recognized for it. Or they are actresses who haven't made a decent movie or TV show in a long time and get covers because women simply like them.

Of course, it's a little strange to fault magazines for choosing their cover subjects "because women simply like them," or because they are "relateable" — they are, after all, trying to appeal to readers. But are celebs like Jessica Simpson — who does, let's be honest, seem to be on every cover ever without doing much of anything — actually more relateable than, say, Julianna Margulies? Or do they just have better publicists?

Christian writes, "exceptional people who get glamorous coverage from a widely-circulated magazine should be models for how women can be, not models who don't really do anything at all, and are only skilled at doing just that: nothing special." Which seems like some Candide-level media naïveté, until you consider the rapidly dropping revenues of women's magazines. Presumably magazine editors choose their covers at least in part with regard to what women will buy, but women may be getting tired of the endless parade of relatively idle stars. Still, magazines seem pretty much locked into a system of giving free advertising to celebrities' neverending clothing and accessory lines (cf. Gwen Stefani's products prominently positioned in this month's Glamour), and offering them coverage for doing very little. Publicists and magazines seem to think they are in a mutually beneficial relationship, but the magazines (at least the mainstream women's titles — this is perhaps less applicable to tabloids) seem to be getting the short end of the stick.

Of course, the real losers are readers. Christian may offend some stay-at-home moms with his generalizations about women who "don't work" (and he does apologize for this), but most moms, employed or not, probably work harder than Kim Kardashian. And most readers are probably more interesting than Jessica Simpson, at least as she comes across in her heavily-circumscribed magazine interviews. There's probably a market for a magazine that would print real, personal observations by celebrities about work and life, rather than sanitized promotions of their latest products. Unfortunately, such a magazine would threaten the current tried-and-false formula of celebrity cover + softball questions = easy publicity, so we probably won't be seeing it anytime soon.

The Death Of The Working Woman? [SpliceToday]

Jones has been both a producer and a consumer of women's magazines — she has a stockpile of Vogue issues dating back to 1975, and in the early 2000s she was the editor of Marie Claire UK. But her early love of ladymags has turned to hate, and the reasons will not surprise you:

• They're dumb. As an example (like we need it) Jones quotes a recent article in British magazine Easy Living: "As an alternative to wine, I'd like to drink beer, but I haven't tried it since I was a teen! Where do I start?" She also mentions a British Vogue feature on "new ways" to carry your handbag (in your mouth? Up your butt?). Jones writes, "We have had The Female Eunuch, The Beauty Myth, the Equal Pay Act, and this is the sort of twaddle that is still being fed to us?" Um, yes.

• They push expensive shit. Jones describes a shoot in Kerala, India for the June issue of British Vogue: "in a region where most people live on less than $1 a day, there is Daria Werbowy in a £3,690 cotton dress by Yohji Yamamoto and a silk/linen ballgown by Ralph Lauren costing £9,500 - the little children used as obscene accessories." While this kind of excess will come as no surprise to ladymag readers, Jones does explain the motivation behind it. She writes,

The reason all the magazines, no matter the demographic of their readers, feature expensive brands is simple: it is not about inspiration or aspiration, it's about survival.

Unless a label is featured editorially, preferably on a cover and worn by a top model or celebrity (or, if not, on a whole page inside), a magazine does not stand a hope in hell of attracting a fraction of that brand's advertising budget.

This means that during the recession, when ad revenues are down, magazines have an even greater need to hawk expensive clothes.

• They're sizeist, ageist, and racist. In her Marie Claire days, Jones learned that she couldn't get designers to dress a cover girl unless the girl was skinny, hyper-famous, young, and white. She writes, "I once tried to put the singer Sade on the cover: beautiful, black, in her 40s. I was told by my publishing director that Sade was far too ancient." When she asked Giorgio Armani to dress another black prospective cover girl, she got the response, "Have you tried getting Natalie Portman?"

Jones doesn't make as much as she might of women's magazines' effect on body image. She mentions in passing that "I remember a photo of model Sandra Dickinson in Vogue eating a watermelon; it prompted me to eat nothing but difficult fruit for a year," but doesn't draw an explicit connection between her own ladymag reading and her much-publicized anorexia. She does say, "I think the glossies' days are numbered. Last month, media buying company Group M predicted dozens of magazines were under a 'lethal threat'." Are women's magazines just another casualty of the recession, or are women actually getting tired of page after page of advertorial content that makes "us feel dissatisfied with ourselves and what we own?" And if women really are finally sick of this shit, what will they read instead? Jones says ladymags "are being usurped by sharp, super-critical online sites and blogs that are not afraid to stand up to be counted." Thanks for the mention, Liz! Now, back to usurping.

Patronising, Fake, And Pointless — Why I've Given Up On The Glossy [Daily Mail]

While you might not think that any publisher would gravitate towards a title that manages to evoke both narcissism and the cardiovascular system, in fact there are two: the quarterly "that combines the innocence of art with the modernity of the world," and this one.

The ladymag Vain is aimed at women ages 18 to 38, seeks to provide smart and socially-conscious content, and will launch in print this fall. It also seems to have been conceived by a team of White House press secretaries skilled in saying a lot while revealing nothing. Can it succeed where Jane and Missbehave foundered and in a time when established print mags go deeper into the red every day? Well, it's hard to say. Clearly, they're hoping to capture the ethos in a different way - not by being the cool girls on the block, but by mixing traditional content with a more empowering (and certainly more earnest) bent...and by baffling its readers. Its description is infuriatingly vague - "VAIN Magazine debuts as the premiere source for the everyday woman" - but even having said this, a few things confused us even more. Take, for instance, this sentence: "Catering to issues all about you, this magazine for ages 18-38 is the place for empowerment, inspiration, venting and tips that will guide you on your path toward perfection." Wait, what? What happened to "flawed?" I guess it's about fixing rather than celebrating? Maybe the next sentence will clear things up! Oh, wait. "The magazine highlights celebrities, career professionals, the latest trends in beauty, fashion, lifestyle, and delivers expert advice on everything the VAIN woman desires to know."

Founder Rachelle Gauthier has an extensive publishing and fashion background. Here's what she told MediaBistro: "VAIN, the women's magazine all about you, takes pride in versatility of our readers...She may be an artist, a sports enthusiast, an educator, a philanthropist, an entrepreneur, or even an emerging designer. And despite her desires or struggles, VAIN will fill her with images and words that will keep her striving for more." Said images and words, according to their website, include interviews with M.I.A. and Lindsay Robinson, videos, liquor talk, and, technology reviews. There's an emphasis on woman-centric activism, but no shortage of beauty-and-fashion - although as yet, "your man" has not made an appearance. For their launch, the mag is rolling out a bunch of events designed, as their publicist explained it to MediaBistro, "to encourage individuals to start taking pride not only in their appearance, but also their community...Partnering with foundations is a way for the VAIN reader to find balance and invest time and money in things/projects outside herself." All this is very well - but still pretty vague. "Explains" the publisher in the press release, "I wanted to create a publication that celebrated uncelebrated women and provide a platform for young females to find inspiration...We're all VAIN in some capacity. We take pride in our appearance, profession, education, health, community and environment, and we invest time and money."

Is there a place for a smart fashion magazine today? Definitely. And could it be Vain? Depending on what the hell they're talking about, we shall see.

Indulge Yourself With The Launch Of Vain -A New Chic Magazine All About You [FPR]
Vain (The Women's Magazine)
Vain (The Arts Quarterly)
VAIN, A Magazine For Women, Launches [MediaBistro]

In her article in (where else) the Daily Mail, she talks mainly about publications like Closer, That's Life!, and Take A Break — magazines that probably have more in common with the National Enquirer than Marie Claire. And she chalks up their emphasis on violence, incest, and gross things coming of people's butts to a bad climate for magazines in general:

Perhaps magazines no longer feel they can compete, so they flail around desperately for the lowest, most lurid and degrading stories they can find - attempting to shock and titillate readers into buying their publications.

This shock and titillation is damaging, she argues:

[W]hen Pick Me Up runs the coverline 'Stabbed 32 times cos of cruel girly gossip', the words are illustrated with a shiny kitchen knife, giving the story as much gloss as gore. We talk about the threat of knife culture, but in their sell, the magazines glamorise the weapons more than condemn them.

Here in the gun-happy US of A, "the rise of knife culture" actually sounds like a welcome change. Less so is Kelsey's prediction that "women themselves, by buying these toe-curling weeklies, are colluding in the view of themselves as worthless." If reading crap makes you worthless, anyone with Internet access is pretty well screwed. And when Kelsey offers an alternative to "Incest Couple - Sex With My Brother Feels So Natural" and "I had sex with my car," it's not Chekhov and the Economist. It's… more women's magazines. She writes:

I am deeply troubled at the loss of women's magazines as what I used to think of as a safe haven for women. The idea of a magazine as a girl's best friend, an entertaining pick-me-up, an aspirational forum for advice on how to look and feel your best, get the job you want - and, yes OK, with a few sex tips thrown in for good measure - seems to have disappeared [...]

My hunch - or rather hope - is that as the recession bites, people will want to know once more what to do with their leftovers, and that knitting needles will be put to use in turning a ball of wool into a sweater, rather than for stabbing your best friend's eyes out and living to tell the tale in a tawdry magazine.

A steady diet of stab and sob stories is probably bad for the soul, but the "aspirational forum" Kelsey remembers is no "safe haven" either. We'd rather read "'What was sticking out of his bum?" than "8 Things in Your Closet That Make You Look Chunky" (Cosmo Feb. '09) — at least some guy's horrible butt problems aren't going to make us insecure about our bodies or convince us we have to buy expensive shit. It's probably more worthless to spend all your time thinking about your appearance and man-pleasing abilities than it is to fill your head with incest — at least the latter makes a good story. And to be honest, Cosmo sometimes makes us want to stab our own eyes out.

Degrading, disgusting, and demeaning: I'm ashamed of modern women's magazines says a former Cosmo editor [Daily Mail]

According to a new tell-all, Jennifer Scanlon's Bad Girls Go Everywhere, Hearst bigwigs had long been eager to get the famously thin editor, who took Cosmo from a genteel ladies' mag to the Man-ual we know and love-hate, out of the head chair after her numbers slipped. When they finally forced the issue in '96, it was due to the following:

When asked if sexual harassment existed at Cosmo in the wake of Anita Hill's testimony that Supreme Court pick Clarence Thomas had harassed her for years, Brown cheekily responded: "I certainly hope so. The problem is that we don't have enough men to go around for harassing."

-She referred to Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood, accused by 10 women of making unwanted sexual advances, as "poor old Senator Packwood," and scolded one journo, "My darling, would you please remember that he was one of the congressmen who supported legal abortion. He was one of us, so we have to forgive him for being a jerk."

-She ran a piece titled "Reassuring News About AIDS" reporting that women whose lovers were neither homosexual, bisexual or intravenous drug users faced little risk. Brown said, "We spent such a long time getting sexual equality for women, and just when we're beginning to enjoy ourselves, somebody's got to come along and say sex kills."

Although the sting was lessened by a raft of cards, flowers and checks, it's still got to have been a humiliation for a woman who made her name on a sassiness that eventually spelled her end. Helen Gurley Brown revolutionized women's magazines with a frank, flirty attitude towards female sexuality; the kittenish bachelorette persona made her genuinely progressive positions much easier for the general public to swallow. Yet as the feminist movement progressed and evolved, Cosmopolitan stayed the same — an almost-quaint reminder of early-women's lib that celebrates a nominal "liberation" on very old-fashioned terms, and has become a feminist bete noire.

In today's HuffPo, however, Betsy Perry, a former Cosmo staffer, defends Brown as a strong, warm woman who may have been of an earlier generation but had the sense to know it:

There wasn't a staff member who didn't adore her and while we did question some of her stands on relevant issues, her take on them was always with a twist. Because of my television background, she knew enough to ask me to do some of the tougher talk shows, on subjects where her judgment might be questioned — date rape, AIDS, silicone implants. There was always her side to the story too and try as she would, she just didn't understand why a guy wouldn't take no for an answer....but we pitched in to help out in those sticky times...Helen loves men and she made me love and like them too; she taught us how to get one IF we wanted one. I learned to soften the tough side of me; the art of flirting, deflecting sexual harassment comments with humor, exercising - which she did every day with her little dumb bells, and learning to listen without passing judgment. Fun had come back into my life thanks to her.

"Fun" of course, is the operative word: is it enough? As Perry finishes, as breezily as her mentor might, "Who cares about the incidental boo boos along the way? You'll never find a Cosmo girl who hasn't learned to get what she wants using a few tricks learned between the pages of her bible." But, as a self-styles icon of female empowerment, albeit an early version thereof, did Brown have that luxury? Or, in the age she'd helped usher in, was this kind of irresponsibility unacceptable? And what, ultimately, is her legacy: an open attitude towards sexuality or a bunch of college girls putting rouge on their nipples — or are they the same thing? Helen Gurley Brown, to the end, has held to the gospels of "skinny is God" and while we don't see that Cosmo has changed much in the years since her ouster, it's easy to see why that level of evangelism would be problematic in an increasingly secular society.

HOW COSMO QUEEN GOT BOOTED [New York Post]
A Former Cosmo Girl Defends Her Beloved Mentor Helen Gurley Brown [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Helen Gurley Brown Still Alive & Kicking; Still Hates Her Muffin-Top

Okay, confession time: my cup does not runneth over, my breasts are an average size on a good day and they are pretty easily ignored, most of the time. I thought I was pretty comfortable with my boobage until I made a trip to Agent Provocateur.

While attempting to try on one pretty little bra, a saleswoman jumped into the fitting room with me and explained that Agent Provocateur sizes are not like "American bras" and that I should consider trying on different sizes. Okay, sizes are (frustratingly) different everywhere, so I tried to keep an open mind about it.

I awkwardly tried on my regular 34B while the saleswoman stood there ("Hey...uh...oh, you're not leaving? Okay....) and emitted an exasperated sigh. "Let's talk about bra sizing," she said. Great, I'm a female failure, I don't even know my proper bra size. She then ran out of the fitting room and came back with bigger bras. "You're a 32D," she said flatly.

What?

Me? A D-cup!? For small-to-average boob-havers out there, D is a magical-sounding size. That's the size that curvy movie stars and Joan Holloway probably have, right? D-cups fill out a sweater and fill up a hand. D-cups make even a t-shirt look feminine. Instead of regular coffee cups, I felt like I was holding cafe au lait bowls. I had, you know, breasts.

Naturally this made me a little excited, I felt like a 14-year-old who had just gotten sized at Victoria's Secret. Suddenly, I had to buy as many bras as I could, or else I might lose the magical-sounding D-cup. When I got home and looked at my receipt, I suddenly felt played. Just because I was a D-cup in Agent Provocateur sizes didn't mean I was a 34B in every other bra I owned. And, hey, there are a lot of women out there with larger breasts than me, how are they supposed to squeeze into these cute bras if they cut smaller?

But was I really getting tricked? Maybe I was caught up in the re-sized afterglow, but everyone is a different size in different brands of clothing. I've worked retail and I know there is a lot of vanity-sizing out there so it causes sizes to jump up and down. I have no problem trying on several sizes of dresses when I go to a new store, so why should I assume that I am always going to be the same size in my bra? It isn't Agent Provocateur's fault that I naively expected all bras to fit the same way and put up with some ill-fitting bras because I was lazy. Could women's magazines and morning talk shows be right, at least a little bit, about being open to wearing different bra sizes in different bras?

Earlier: Bra Science: Hope For Those Whose Cup Runneth Over
Wearing The Wrong Bra Can 'Damage' Breasts—So What?

(Models were counted as being "ambiguous/mixed race" if we weren't sure what race they are (like the Kate Spade ads where the model was covered up), they were obviously of mixed race (Kimora Lee Simmons—still starring in her own ads!), or a non-European Hispanic woman.)

Here are the results:

Lucky:
Advertisements:
• Total Asian models: 2 (2 celebrity/non-models)
• Total Black models: 16 (4 celebrity/non-models)
• Total White models: 109 (11 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 16 (4 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 143
TOTAL ADS: 151

Fashion Spreads:
• Total Black models: 0
• Total White models: 5
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 1

TOTAL MODELS: 6
TOTAL FASHION SPREADS: 3

Cosmopolitan:
Advertisements:
• Total Asian models: 0
• Total Black models: 15 (7 celebrity/non-models)
• Total White models: 80 (12 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 9 (2 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 104
TOTAL ADS: 109

Fashion Spreads:
• Total Asian models: 0
• Total Black models: 0
• Total White models: 2 (1 celebrity/non-model)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 0

TOTAL MODELS: 2
TOTAL FASHION SPREADS: 2

Glamour:
Advertisements:
• Total Asian models: 2 (1 celebrity/non-model)
• Total Black models: 14 (4 celebrity/non-models)
• Total White models: 91 (12 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 10 (2 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 117
TOTAL ADS: 115

Fashion Spreads:
• Total Asian models: 0
• Total Black models: 0
• Total White models: 4 (2 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 1

TOTAL MODELS: 5
TOTAL FASHION SPREADS: 4

Allure:
Advertisements:
• Total Asian models: 0
• Total Black models: 15 (3 celebrity/non-models)
• Total White models: 69 (9 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 12 (3 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 96
TOTAL ADS: 81

Fashion Spreads:
• Total Asian models: 0
• Total Black models: 0
• Total White models: 4
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 1

TOTAL MODELS: 5
TOTAL FASHION SPREADS: 5

Teen Vogue:
Advertisements:
• Total Asian models: 3
• Total Black models: 14 (4 celebrity/non-models)
• Total White models: 83 (13 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 7 (3 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 74
TOTAL ADS: 94

Fashion Spreads:
• Total Asian models: 1
• Total Black models: 0
• Total White models: 2
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 1 (1 celebrity/non-model)

TOTAL MODELS: 4
TOTAL FASHION SPREADS: 4

Marie Claire:
Advertisements:
• Total Asian models: 3 (1 celebrity/non-model)
• Total Black models: 8 (1 celebrity/non-model)
• Total White models: 70 (7 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 13 (7 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 94
TOTAL ADS: 102

Fashion Spreads:
• Total Asian models: 0
• Total Black models: 0
• Total White models: 3
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 1 (1 celebrity/non-model)

TOTAL MODELS: 4
TOTAL FASHION SPREADS: 5

Harper's Bazaar:
Advertisements:
• Total Asian models: 3 (1 celebrity/non-model)
• Total Black models: 6 (1 celebrity/ non-model)
• Total White models: 140 (13 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 14 (5 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 163
TOTAL ADS: 152

Fashion Spreads:
• Total Asian models: 2
• Total Black models: 3
• Total White models: 14
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 0

TOTAL MODELS: 19
TOTAL FASHION SPREADS: 12

Elle:
Advertisements:
• Total Asian models: 4
• Total Black models: 14 (6 celebrity/non-models)
• Total White models: 187 (12 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 16 (4 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 221
TOTAL ADS: 205

Fashion Spreads:
• Total Asian models: 0
• Total Black models: 1
• Total White models: 9 (2 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 1 (1 celebrity/non-model)

TOTAL MODELS: 11
TOTAL FASHION SPREADS: 9

Vogue:
Advertisements:
• Total Asian models: 7 (2 celebrity/non-models)
• Total Black models: 9 (1 celebrity/non-model)
• Total White models: 236 (14 celebrity non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 9 (3 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 261
TOTAL ADS: 214

Fashion Spreads:
• Total Asian models: 0
• Total Black models: 0
• Total White models: 9 (1 celebrity/non-model)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 0

TOTAL MODELS: 9
TOTAL FASHION SPREADS: 7

Overall Totals:
Advertisements:
• Total Asian models: 24 (7 celebrity/non-models)
• Total Black models: 111 (31 celebrity/non-models)
• Total White models: 1,065 (93 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 106 (33 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 1,273
TOTAL ADS: 1,223

Fashion Spreads:
• Total Asian models: 3
• Total Black models: 4
• Total White models: 38 (6 celebrity/non-models)
• Total ambiguous race/mixed race models: 6 (3 celebrity/non-models)

TOTAL MODELS: 65
TOTAL FASHION SPREADS: 51

This means that in advertising, out of 1,273 ads, if 24 Asian models were used, that is 1.8% Asian. And 111 black models might seem like a lot, but that's actually 8.7% black. 1,065 white models out of 1,273 ads means the ads were 83% white.

As for the fashion spreads, 3 Asian models out of 65 means 4.6% Asian representation. And despite the efforts of Bazaar, the models were only 6% black.

Related:
Italian Vogue's Black Issue: A Guided Tour [Jezebel]
Fashion Week Runways Are Almost A Total Whitewash [Jezebel]

Probably the former. Yes, families where both parents are present in the children's lives are more stable and ultimately create a better environment for children, but Grove is implying that parents need to not only be married for children to thrive, but the man needs to be working and providing ("responsibility") for his young while the woman stays home and cares for them. Why not promote a society where single mothers can provide for their children on their own? Grove says that the Conservative government will provide a maternity nurse service for families who need help during the first days after childbirth, but there is no mention of this service being available to single mothers (or fathers) who have a newborn. An emphasis is placed on the relationship between the father and mother, implying that they are together.

And what does Grove think of women's magazines? While he condemns lad mags' presentation of a "narrow conception of beauty and a shallow approach towards women," he praises women's magazines (and their publishers) for addressing their readers "in a mature and responsible fashion." So, being obsessed with materialism, being fearful of any beauty "imperfection," and constantly being reminded that the attention of men is necessary to live a happy lifestyle is "mature"? Has this dude ever looked at a women's magazine?

Lad Mags Linked To 'Social Ills' [BBC]
'Lads Mags' Condemned Over Images Of Women [Telegraph]
Poll" Do Lad Mags Make Men Feckless? [Guardian]

Heldman states that self-objectification can lead to all or some of the following in women: depression, low self-esteem, less faith in their own capabilities, which leads to diminished success in life, low political efficacy, disgust and shame about their bodies... the list goes on. (To me, the most interesting side-effect is "low political efficacy", which is just a fancy way of saying that women who objectify themselves do not believe that they can create change, and thus rarely or never get involved with politics.)

Dr. Heldman, bless her soul, tries listing ways to combat self-objectification, but most of them seem fairly implausible, particularly if you're a television and movie lover. A "radical, personal solution is to actively avoid media to self-objectify, which, unfortunately is that vast majority of movies, television programs and women's magazines," Heldman writes. "My research with college age women indicates that the less women consume media, the less they self-objectify, particularly if they avoid fashion magazines. [Emphasis ours.] By shutting out media, girls and women can create mental and emotional space for true self-exploration." I guess the only solution is for women to make our own un-self-objectifying media to combat the other kind. Tina Fey and Diablo Cody? We are looking at you.

Self-Objectification — Seeing Ourselves Through Others Eyes — Impairs Women's Body Image, Mental Health, Motor Skills, And Even Sex Lives [Ms.]

Earlier: Memo To Women's Magazine Editors: White Women Hate Themselves After Reading Your Magazines

Meanwhile, even white women are whitewashed in women's magazines, Alvarez claims:

The gold standard of white beauty is a woman who is thought of as being the least "ethnic" and most "neutral" as possible. Fair skin, fair hair and thin, often lacking in curves that would be considered vulgar or distasteful (or exotic?) the stereotype of corn-fed Midwestern girls or sun-kissed, muscular athletic girls are eschewed for fair, tall, boney girls — often with what is described as a "boyish" figure, one without the tell-tale markers of womanhood — hips, ass. Personality. The ideal: Gwyneth Paltrow.

Model Minority: How Women's Magazines Whitewash Different Ethnicities [Racialicious, via Guanabee]

Earlier: Valentino In Vogue: Models With Ennui Playing Invisible Croquet
Why Don't I Love Shoes? An Exploration In Photos

"What Every Woman Knows By Now", from the "Accent On Living" section of the May 1950 issue of the Atlantic.

It is as much a source of amazement as of income to me that readers of the women's magazines have such an insatiable thirst for reading the same information over and over again, despite the fact that any one year's reading must inevitably give enough information about the technique of being a woman to see one through a lifetime. I have, then, no fear of spoiling the market, either for myself or others. Every subject in this symposium, given a snappy title and an angle that appeals to the editor, will still be worth a substantial fee.

ACCESSORIES
The simplest are in the best taste.
Men like women to be in the best taste.

BROKEN HEARTS
Find a new interest
Time cures all.
Men don't like women to ring them up.

CARE OF FACE
Remove old make-up with cream (dry skins), lotion (oily skins), or superfatted soap (if you must).
Then dab face with an astringent lotion.
Then pat in nourishing cream.
Blackheads are frequently due to internal causes. Drink lots of water.
Men are repelled by pimples.

CHARM
Charm is an indefinable quality.
Men like it.

CLOTHES
Choose the clothes that suit you.
You can be perfectly dressed at every income level.
Little touches of white must be immaculate.
Diagonal stripes are slimming.
Invest your all in one good little black dress (or tweed suit).
Don't go in for clutter but have lots of bits and pieces that will make one outfit do the work of ten.
Men like black satin, well-cut tweeds, floating tulle, utter simplicity, and don't notice what you wear anyway.

CULTURE
Read good books sometimes.
Men don't like cultured women much.

FIGURE
Figure deficiencies are frequently glandular. Consult your doctor.
A good corset can correct many figure faults. Have it fitted by an expert.
Good exercises can correct bad figures. Here are some.
Men like good figures.

FURS
If you can't afford good furs don't have any, but there are some awfully cheap ones in the shops.
Men are impressed by mink — but then, so are you.

HAIR ON THE HEAD
The condition of the hair reflects the general health.
Massage with the finger tips stimulates the scalp.
Brush fifty times a day and wash at least every fortnight.
Choose the hair style that suits you and don't get into a rut.
No moral opprobrium is attached to dye.
Men love those gleaming tresses.

HAIR, SUPERFULOUS
In the armpits remove by depilatory.
On the legs remove by depilatory, wax, sandpaper, or razor; the last will coarsen the new growth.
On the face remove by wax (will weaken growth) or by electrolysis (will kill it).
If the growth is slight, bleach with peroxide-and-ammonia.
Men notice superfluous hair.

HANDS
Before doing rough work smooth a protective cream over your hands.
After washing, smooth a creamy lotion over your hands.
Make your hands flexible by shaking in one way or another.
File your nails to the shape that suits you.
Press back your cuticles after you've had a bath.
Chipped polish looks slovenly.
Men abhor scarlet talons.

JEWELRY
One big good piece is better than a lot of little cheap trinkets.
One big cheap piece is better than a lot of little good ones.
In fact, One Big Piece is Best.
Men are better if they like jewelry.

MAKE-UP
Smooth on foundation cream or lotion, not forgetting neck.
Add rouge where it improves the natural shape of your face.
Add discreet eye-shadow and mascara on the upper lids only.
Paint outline of lips with a brush, fill in with lipstick, blot on a tissue, powder, and add more lipstick.
Press in powder over face and neck; remove surplus.
Men don't like women to be obviously made up.

MANNERS
Be sweet to old people.
Be kind to his mother.
Be nice to other girls — they have brothers.
Don't comb your hair or clean your nails in public.
Don't order direct from the waiter.
Don't swear or drink too much.
Men hate red marks on coffee cups.

MARRIAGE
Enter it joyously and proudly.
Remember you've got to take as well as give.
There are all sorts of compensations.
Men should be encouraged to wash up.

PERFUME
Choose the perfume that suits you.
Spray it onto your body but never onto your clothes.
Test new perfume by trying a drop on the back of your hand.
Have different perfumes for different moods or make one perfume distinctively YOU.
Men are enraptured by perfume.

SHOPPING
Either go with an open mind or with a rigidly-to-be-adhered-to list.
Either enlist the help of the shop assistant or don't let her make up your mind for you.
Either men like shopping or — more usually — they don't.

SHYNESS
Prepare a few conversational remarks to break the ice.
Try to put the other person at his ease.
Instruct yourself in current affairs.
Join a club.
Men like a woman to be a good listener.

SPECIAL OCCASIONS
Cream hands thickly and sleep in gloves the night before.
Try to fit in a facial and a hair-do.
Rest for an hour with your feet up and pads over your eyes.
Make up extra specially carefully.
Oh, men, men, men.

TOP SECRET
Consult your doctor.
Send us a stamped addressed envelope.
Men are beasts.

What Every Woman Knows By Now [The Atlantic, fee required]
Women's Magazines...So Little Changes In 50 Years [Faking Good Breeding]
Marghanita Laski [Wikipedia]

Earlier: The Five Great Lies Of Women's Magazines

Can any mother help me? I live a very lonely life as I have no near neighbours. I cannot afford to buy a wireless. I adore reading, but with no library am very limited with books. I dislike needlework, though I have to do a lot of it! I get so down and depressed after the children are in bed and I am alone in the house. I know it is bad to brood and breed hard thoughts and resentment. Can any reader suggest an occupation that will intrigue me and exclude "thinking" and cost nothing?

According to the article, women from all over the country wrote back expressing similar frustrations. They were intelligent women who found themselves married and confined to their homes, not exactly fulfilled by their roles as housewives and mothers. The solution? They started a private magazine, a place where all of their ideas and opinions could be expressed.

Each woman, writing under a nom de plume, would contribute an article on any subject and post it to the editor, who would assemble the articles. She would mail the completed magazine to the first woman on a pre-arranged list, who had a set amount of time to read it, and who would add her own comments on the pages before sending it on to the next member.

'Can Any Mother Help Me?' The Question That Inspired Britain's First Women's Magazine More Than 70 Years Ago [Daily Mail]

• Vogue: Sienna Miller (blonde)
  
• InStyle: Gwen Stefani (blonde)
  
• W: Gwyneth Paltrow (blonde)
  
• Marie Claire: Ashley Olsen (blonde)
  
• Vanity Fair: Gisele Bundchen (blonde)
  
• Bazaar: Kate Hudson (blonde)
  
• Allure: Britney Spears (trainwreck)

• Elle: Lindsay Lohan (trainwreck)
• Cosmopolitan: Jessica Alba (brunette)
• Redbook: Brooke Shields (brunette)
• Glamour: Claire Danes, Mariska Hargitay, Queen Latifah (a puu-puu platter: something for everyone!)
• Lucky: Sarah Michelle Gellar (brunette)
• Seventeen: Ashlee Simpson (blonde)
• CosmoGirl: Ashley Tisdale/Zac Efron (blonde & a dude)
• Teen Vogue: Anne Hathaway (brunette)