Mag Hags, podcast
Roll back the years and women’s glossy magazines were so much more than waiting room fodder in the dental surgery.
The internet has done for a lot of them – circulations have dropped and online is where it’s at.
Enter Lucy Douglas and Franki Cookney, who take us on a fun romp through the good old days when magazines like More and Honey and Cosmopolitan inspired them to become journalists.
Mag Hags – a podcast – is two young women taking a smart and funny look at women’s magazines.
Magazines set the agenda back in the day with features on health care, sexual freedom and equal pay.
“Who could forget More?” said one of our mag hags. That would be me... I have no memory of it.
“RIP ‘Position of the Fortnight’,” she joked. Obviously More had a lot going for it.
There were the freebies too – it was the golden era of free lipstick or nail polish or sticky lipgloss sellotaped to the magazine cover.
The idea is that each week, Mag Hags looks at a different magazine. In this case it was Cosmopolitan of October 1982.
Bladerunner was on at the pictures – first time round – while ET would come out at Christmas and people were into Culture Club and gigantic cardigans.
One headline read “Sex, society and the strapless top”… what? Another proclaimed “A woman’s place is in the House”, as in Parliament.
The focus turned to a feature asking why women are unhappy with the contraceptive pill. Were they?
The thing is that it was written by a man – a features assistant at the magazine – and quoted male experts. There were no case studies of these unhappy women either.
It also featured the tale of a woman who washed down her pill with a glass of pond river and soon found herself three months stagnant. Cue rolling of the eyes.
“A little self indulgent,” said our mag hags.
This prompted an appreciation of how far women have come and how much we have reclaimed, even without the strapless tops.
But funny how the brain holds on to things. A slot on Cosmo 1982 ads included one where a woman is in the shower and a vintage car has just crashed through the wall. This was a tampon ad?
Never mind “Position of the Month”, it’s just plain bizarre.
It was the golden era of free lipstick or nail polish or sticky lipgloss sellotaped to the magazine cover