Women readers need more than just beauty, fashion

Women readers need more than just beauty, fashion

Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Stop by a newsstand, browse through women's magazines, and
what will you find?

A series of glossy magazines that are more or less the same:
Focusing on fashion, beauty and lifestyle. A certain franchised
monthly magazine even serves as, like a noted American author
once pointed out, a harrowingly explicit sex manual.

Compared to the 1980s when there were few women's magazines,
there is certainly an increase in the number of such magazines
now. With once only local Femina and Kartini, now the market is
inundated with franchised magazines like Cosmopolitan Indonesia,
Singaporean's Herworld, Female, Lisa, Good Housekeeping and
Harper's Bazaar Indonesia, although the latter is more of a
fashion magazine.

However, content-wise, there is not much difference between
the magazines.

"As most of them are franchised, some of the articles are just
plain translations instead of adaptations. So, they are not
applicable anyway," said Fitri, 31.

Moreover, the content of the magazines still deals with
typical women's issues, such as beauty, cooking and housekeeping.

"They also contribute to keeping the beauty stereotype, like
beauty is good, and beautiful women are those who are skinny,
have fair skin, and long, straight hair," said Fitri, who prefers
to buy foreign women's magazines.

Aside from the mainstream magazines, also emerging now are
Islam-based magazines like Noor, which serves a particular
segment and also focuses more on domestic issues.

What is left then is the feminist journal Jurnal Perempuan,
which is too heavy and academic.

Why are the choices of local women's magazines so limited?

Sari Narulita, chief editor of local Herworld said their
publication differed from mainstream women's magazines, although
she did not deny that the focus was still fashion and beauty.

"It seems that we're focusing on beauty and fashion, but we
still feature articles on career, environmental issues, or the
tsunami disaster. And from letters sent us by the readers, they
said they were helped by the articles," said Sari, formerly the
chief editor of Cosmopolitan Indonesia.

However, she said, research conducted by the magazine shows
that women still favor magazines with a major section given to
fashion and beauty.

"It's the market demand. Let's face it, 'serious' magazines
like (now defunct) literature journal Horison don't sell. So, to
be able to sell, the package has to attract the readers, and that
is fashion and beauty," said Sari, adding that Indonesian
Herworld now has a circulation of 65,000.

A former senior editor of one of the leading women's magazines
once told The Jakarta Post that there had been a drop in sales
when the magazine included articles on heavy topics like domestic
violence.

"At the end of each year, the magazine's owners would show us
which issue sold less, and apparently they are the ones with such
topics. That's why we rarely cover them anymore," she said.

According to Lia, 31, the head of an advertising agency, the
case of women's magazines versus advertising was a chicken or the
egg issue.

"Ad agencies are opportunist, so they won't focus on skin
whitening, for instance, if people don't want the product.

"However, it's different with women's magazines. It's not
clear who's stirring whose taste. Sometimes it's the readers who
demand that the magazines focus on something, but other times
it's the magazine itself which wants to concentrate solely on
things that clearly sell, like fashion," Lia said.

Whether it's the chicken first or the egg, women readers here
deserve better options to what's already in the market.