Just to confirm that this is a Rant so ignore if you wish.
I have been reading Good Housekeeping for years. Its title is really anachronistic these days but it would be difficult to change the title, much though the editorial team might like to, as it is such a well known brand. It has changed and moved on with the times but I have to say that over the last year or so I have begun to find it rather irritating.
The latest edition really got me cross. First of all, the woman on the cover was Fiona Bruce. Now this is purely a personal thing - many of my regular readers know that this woman drives me mad. The BBC use her for anything they can lay their hands on - a few years back she did a series of historical progs on the Beeb, none of which she was qualified for, and she is the perennial host on Antiques Roadshow and now, gawd help us, she fronts Question Time. She also pops up on the news. It seems she is multi talented....
But as I said this is a personal thing and merely started me off feeling twitchy. So I read on. The usual reader's letters, beauty products, suggested gifts for Christmas, nothing to get worked up about all pretty inoffensive.
Then we come to the Trail Blazers. Woman who have Made their Mark. Well what is wrong with this Elaine I hear you cry? Well, nothing at all. Merely that I am getting fed up with reading about them. We have the Managing Director of Penguin, then a Doctor of science who wants to make science more accessible to girls and women, then the female CEO of Citroen. Nothing wrong with this at all. All high powered, all guaranteed to make the rest of us feel totally inadequate.
Further on we come across Women who have all had to Reinvent themselves for various reasons. One woman raised a family then decided to become a student and take a degree in social work (most of these woman seem to manage the financial side of it all - perhaps having a husband working helps). Another was a high flyer in corporate life who got sick of it all and gave it up when her child was ill - very good and understandable reason (she makes it clear that her husband was able to support them). So she spots an market opportunity and starts making 'bees wax wraps'. Don't ask. Needless to say she is successful and now works harder than she did in her earlier marketing job. Rather defeats the object methinks. Another woman was deserted by her husband but she picked herself up, started a web site marketing housekeeping, cleaning etc and then branched into catering and cooks meals for parties etc.
So what is wrong with all of this? well nothing but honestly I am getting So Tired of Inspirational Woman full of Empowerment. One month we had women off climbing up Mount Kilimanjaro or swimming the Zambesi or deep sea diving or setting up a charity in the middle of the Sahara (ok I made that last one up but you get my drift).
I am sure all the magazine wants to do is inspire us. Well some of us do not want to be inspired. We have enough to do already with working, raising a family, holding down a job (which is probably boring and repetitive but has to be done) without reading about these Superwoman who, incidentally, have obviously been made up to look totally glam for the magazine photoshoot. Do we ever see a woman who is knackered and shattered who has been up all night with a baby or exhausted from the commute home?
OK I am on a roll.
I come to an article on the MENOPAUSE. Another one full of all the suffering and angst this can cause. I DON'T WANT TO KNOW. I AM NOT INTERESTED.
Flick over the page. An article on a mother coping with her son who wants to be a woman. Then an article on how to overhaul your life and beome creative and transform your health and improve your mental wellbeing. By now I am feeling exhausted.
Now I come to the finance pages. How to be MINDFUL of your money. Yes Mindful. I read on and find that if you take a mindful attitude you will feel happier and less stressed and we must identify our bad habits - seems many of us have unhelpful beliefs about money relating to our childhood - there I knew my mum making me put pennies in my money box would come back to haunt me.
So we have a guide to Managing Money Mindfully. I have to practice money visualisation. We have to concentrate on making our debt get smaller. Apparently our brain then gets the message that this must be done. Note: only money visualisation I do is to plan how to spend it when I win the Lottery. Every month we have to have a Money Cleanse. No not money laundering but a Cleanse. After reading this section what it boils down to is checking your bank balance.....
Bear with me gentle readers, I am nearly finished.
The back page of this mag always has a "Celebrity" asking questions about their life and making us all feel a bit pig sick. It bears no relation to real life at all. Imagine asking Benedict Cumberbatch when he puts the bins out - that sort of thing.
This time it was an Actress, I refuse to call her an actor and she tells us that she would rather not cook for friends but eat out (wouldn't we all deary?) Asked what food she could not live without she anwers, perfectly reasonably, chocolate. But not a Yorkie or a bar of Dairy MIlk is good enough. No it has to be "good dark chocolate, preferably a single origin bean" A Single Origin Bean??
Of course her kitchen cupborad must-haves are cloves, garlic, chamomile and spearmint tea, almond milk, sea salt and blackpepper, chickpeas and tasty bread. (Mine are tinned tomatoes, pasta and baked beans just for the record)
And then the final touch that made me throw the magazine across the room. Apparently she is now into "simple, fresh vegetarian food" and do you know what her signature dish is - this fresh simple food? Roasted beetroot and baked feta cooked with lemon thyme, served with blood oranges and chickpeas in a rich shallot and fresh flat leaf parsley and mint herb dressing.
FFS. No I am not going to just leave the initials. For fuck's sake.
This magazine is for women. And most women just get on with it. We don't do mavellous inspiring things. We live our lives. We raise our children. We hold down jobs. We cook, yes we do. We also clean. We shop. We look after our families, aged parents. Now I left a marriage when I was 52. I had to remake my life, my social life and deal with the fall out I had created by my departure. It was hard it was miserable but I bloody well got on with it. I do not think I have done a wonderful thing. I do not think I am inspirational. I just wake up each morning and do what has to be done. I have not gone walking along the Great Wall of China for charity, I have not scaled Mount Everest. I have not written a novel nor have I started an online business. I just live my life like millions of ordinary women.
Now I appreciate this is a personal rant and many of you may love reading about Woman who are Empowered etc etc and that is fine, but I honestly feel when reading articles like this that it can make you feel that you have achieved very little in life and become dissatisfied. It does not affect me this way, as you will have gathered by now if you have read this far. I just get pissed off with it all.
So tonight I will be sitting eating my ready meal from a well known chain store, in my nightie, watching Strictly Come Dancing and feeling perfectly content with my lot.
I sometimes long for the days of Women's magazines when you got a few short stories, a serial, a few recipes and a knitting pattern....
