I have read Ladies Home Journal since I was a child, eagerly awaiting the magical arrival of my mother’s magazines. Young people today can’t imagine how exciting “magazine days” were in lower-middle class homes like ours: the glossy covers, the fresh advice, and the articles that expanded women’s horizons, particular women like my mom who had so little opportunity for education or travel in her life.
Maybe that’s why I still look at magazine covers with a searching eye. Of course, so many covers are plastered with mind-dulling titles promising to produce a model’s body in six weeks, deliver Olympian sex skills, or bash someone’s private life. Still, I pay attention to them, especially those I subscribe to.
Thus, I nearly fell over when I received my October 2008 Ladies Home Journal. On the right-hand side, right below the journal’s title, I read: “Election 2008—How to Vote with your Heart.” What was Editor Diane Salvatore thinking? Why was she placing such a backwards-moving statement on her journal’s cover? Did she forget momentarily that women were denied the vote throughout history in large part because of an assumption they would use their emotions rather than their reasoning as a basis for voting?
Since these magazines sit at checkout counters, millions of people glance at this cover and see Ladies Home Journal espousing that we women use volatile and fallible emotions [a.k.a heart] to make our voting decisions. No matter what the ensuing article contained (and it took a different tack), the cover caption is damaging.
Ironically, Ladies Home Journal has been celebrating its 125th Anniversary by showcasing just how consciously the magazine has encouraged women’s achievements and “liberation.” Maybe the cover editors and the feature writers should have some latte and sort these things out in advance?
Or maybe, since Salvatore appears to be such an ardent supporter of Barack Obama,
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