I always read the letters to the editor in magazines, even if I’ve never read the magazine before. Why? I’m not sure, except that I guess I want to know what other people think of the magazines as a good indication of how interesting the magazine might be. Recently, I was reading one of the letters sent in to Popular Mechanics magazine (a magazine that I read each month for the very interesting articles an products), and it shocked me.
In a past issue of the magazine, the cover story was “The Top 100 Skills Every Man Should Know” and included things like making a fire, chopping wood, and driving in snow. My husband and I read through the list, noting all the things that he already knew how to do and commenting on other less-useful items (like driving off-road). He mentioned at the time that most men would know how to do these things on the list and I remember thinking that the list was sort of fluff material, maybe a slow month for the magazine? However, it should be said that many of the things that a man should know how to do were things that I didn’t know how to do, and it never crossed my mind that I should learn. (You can take the quiz online right here to see how you match up.)
Back to the letter to the editor. It was from a woman who was insulted that there was no mention of skills that a woman should know. What shocked me though was the answer from the editor. It stated essentially that the magazine is aimed at men and that there is a sister magazine called “Good Housekeeping” that is aimed at women and so the quiz was geared to its readers……men. It had just never occurred to me until that moment that Popular Mechanics was a men’s magazine! You’re probably laughing at me now, but really, I just thought of it as a general interest magazine. Sure, I often skip over content in it about cars or how to build home items, but I thought it was just because there are always topics in magazines that are of no interest to me. We don’t have to read every article in a magazine to like it, do we?
Magazines often have specific readers in mind. Good Housekeeping is obviously not something a man is going to reach for in a waiting room, and most women will avoid GQ Magazine simply because of the name (Gentleman’s Quarterly, if you weren’t aware). But why is a magazine like Popular Mechanics strictly for men? Does that mean that women aren’t interested in mechanics, science or technology? Should we avoid reading PC World and Discover Magazine as well? Will reading such magazines offend our ladylike sensibilities? NO!
My husband suggested that maybe this is another way society steers women away from the world of science and math, as it seems to do for our young girls. It is like the world doesn’t want us to think about anything other than makeup, fashion and cooking. I would like to think that these technical magazines are not strictly aimed at the male gender but rather are more general interest magazines. I won’t stop reading them, but I will think about how the content is directed the next time I pick one up.
