GLOSSY FACT
Women are more likely to be victimized by someone they know than by a stranger.
—U.S. Deptartment of Justice
By the time we are women, fear is as familiar to us as air. It is our element. We live in it, we inhale it, we exhale it, and most of the time we do not even notice it.
—Andrea Dworkin, American feminist and writer
It’s human nature to be drawn to upsetting and fear-inducing information. All magazines know this, which is why they craft distressing cover headlines using huge colorful fonts and exclamation points. Take recent cover lines from Cosmopolitan, MORE, and Glamour: “Women and Danger: How This Decision Could Cost You Your Life,” “The Migraine Addiction Link: What Your MD Might Be Doing Wrong,” and “The Hidden Things Messing Up Your Health: Protect Yourself from the Scary Toxins You Touch Every Day.”
Like a mangled car on the freeway or the missing child on a milk carton, we can’t look away. Articles that elicit our deepest fears captivate us with crime, terror, danger, disease, toxins, scams, bad doctors, bullies, cyber stalkers, and countless other scary things going on around us. Even if the danger is slight, trumped up, or practically nonexistent, fear sells women’s magazines. But at what cost? Are we so fearful of what’s printed in the women’s magazines that we buy into the printed hype without stopping to consider whether we’re being played.
Women’s magazine articles (of the lowest common denominator) fall into two categories, occasionally intersecting: the fluffy and the fear-mongering. The former content appears in magazines like InStyle, Lucky, and Glamour, which fill their pages with articles on the best mascara, Marc Jacob’s newest handbags, and gushing reviews of celebrity fashion styles and ecofriendly dog beds. It’s generally mindless light reading, hence “fluff,” a vapid guilty pleasure. Not so the latter type, which appears in magazines like Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and Self. Their pages are filled with features and first-person pieces on everything from infidelity and infertility to the overblown risks of cell phone use and the likelihood of death by natural disaster. Let’s not forget toxic mold and the hidden dangers of the office workplace. Truly scary stuff, and totally compelling reads, which editors know.
The problem is, women’s magazines aren’t reporting news. Not breaking news, anyway. Yet readers assume that these slick glossies are educating and informing them in the same way that our television, newspaper, and online news feeds are. What most of us don’t realize, however, is that the writers and editors of these magazines shape, congeal, and generally concoct articles, selecting the facts to include or omit to fit their agenda, which is to sell magazines. Thus, stories are often designed to stoke our fears—even pique our morbid curiosity, which is a form of entertainment in itself—not report the news as it happens, or even to report stories and ideas that are trending.
That’s not to say the stories are untrue. Most of them contain excellent, factual information and nuggets of truth, or they’re things that do happen to some people. But by and by, they may be largely exaggerated, if not intentionally crafted, to sell just the right brand of fearfulness.
Sure there are rare diseases and entire towns that have become a wasteland of poisonous chemicals, but the fear factor is played up more than necessary to draw the reader in and keep her reading. If this happened to that woman, to that family, to that town, couldn’t your basement be filled with toxic mold too? Couldn’t your doctor’s office harbor infectious MRSA bacteria? Couldn’t your town be a cancer cluster? Couldn’t your very life or that of your spouse or children’s be in danger right this minute? It’s a slippery slope, for sure, but it’s one that magazines intentionally push you down.
In one mid-1990s Media Research Center study of thirteen women’s magazines, hundreds of features touched on scary social issues, including topics on health and the environment.1 Deodorant causes breast cancer and too many CAT scans are killing you, endometriosis should be on your radar, as well as the undiagnosed illnesses that kill women across the country. Don’t forget doctor misdiagnosis and surgical mistakes!
Women’s magazine articles on beating stress, losing weight, medical problems du jour, and violence against women run amok, despite the fact that mortality rates have decreased for women and we’re healthier than any other time in history. But women’s magazines are ripe for hitting the panic button since women tend to take their stories with a dose of trustfulness and a lion’s heart of emotional vulnerability. And because we are generally the gatekeepers of our family’s health and well-being, we worry more. In fact, women task themselves with the burden of worrying enough for the whole family.
Researchers at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania found that women spend ninety minutes more than men each week worrying, which is more than double the forty minutes a week women spent being unhappier than men at the close of the 1950s.2 In the 1970s, a brief radical shift occurred, where women’s happiness surpassed even that of men—probably in part because the women’s movement flourished in the 1970s and ’80s. Unfortunately, today’s women are back to being unhappy worrywarts—more so even than our mothers. It’s not a stretch to point to our media-saturated culture, one that depends on hyped-up headlines and provocative content to draw readers’ attention, with women’s magazines being right at the front of the fear chain.
So what’s the big deal, you might ask, about reading a few alarmist health stories now and then? Certainly, a smart woman gleans from these fear-mongering pieces what is relevant to her and her family, regardless of how alarmist and riveting they are, right? Absolutely. And therein lies the problem. According to a 2009 Missouri School of Journalism study, popular women’s magazines tend to focus on what women can do as individuals to better their health, yet they largely ignore collective or institutional actions that are needed to address problems in health and healthcare.3 Researchers suggested that health journalism focusing solely on the individual’s role in her health may do a disservice because it turns attention away from government responsibilities and existing inequalities.
“This focus on the individual doesn’t leave room for institutional or environmental causes for health problems,” says journalism professor Amanda Hinnant, who authored the study. “If the individual has total control, that means the individual has total responsibility for both the cause and the outcome.”4
Which means women start to worry, because they have to shoulder all that responsibility.
The study looked at 148 health articles and cover lines in the nine best-selling women’s magazines for March 2004: Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Woman’s Day, Ladies’ Home Journal, Cosmo, Glamour, Redbook, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Most articles framed seeking better health as a way of taking control of your life, yet Hinnant suggested this was merely the illusion of control.
“Mood, stress, and energy are frequently substituted as symbols for health. Maintaining good health means constantly patrolling the borders for a bad mood, high stress, and low energy,” she wrote. “What materializes is the notion that the pursuit of wellness will result in a life in control, when in fact it is a life that is controlled by the tyranny of constant surveillance.”
As if women didn’t have enough to worry about, women’s magazines expect us to patrol our health in a constant state of vigilance for what we could be doing wrong, what mistakes we’re making, what unknown dangers could trip us up, what little-known scan we missed, or what food we forgot to include or omit in our diet for better health. Yet paging through the women’s magazines to locate the hidden morsel of danger we’ve overlooked pretty much defeats the pleasure purpose of the glossy reads.
It’s not a stretch to think that even well-meaning campaigns against breast cancer, osteoporosis, and heart disease are designed to fear-monger as well—at least in the way they’re sometimes presented in the pages of our magazines. Half their purpose is to educate and inform the reader, while the other is to scare women into thinking that these issues could be just a magazine article away from their lives. Thus, it’s incumbent on them to do something about it themselves, and often that means buying into a product or service that, conveniently enough, is advertised in those very same pages.
Readers Respond
“I’ve got decision fatigue and have stopped buying women’s magazines because each month I learn all the new ways that I don’t stack up in situations that weren’t problems until someone wrote an article about them. For example: I do not pitch my eye makeup after three or six months. Gasp! I can’t afford to replace it every year, let alone several times a year. I don’t get up and go to bed at exactly the same time each day. My schedule won’t allow it, but now I can lie awake wondering how much harm this erratic sleep pattern is causing. My face cream doesn’t have SPF because I’m trying to avoid chemicals, but does the cost of avoiding parabens mean skin cancer? Great. Another thing to ponder while I lie awake worrying about my erratic [sleep] schedule.”
—Charmian, writer
Take osteoporosis. Articles on this bone-sapping disease appear in every woman’s magazine, regardless of demographic, alerting women to a disease that emerged from obscurity only two decades before to become one of women’s top health concerns. Yet in truth, women are more at risk of a dozen other diseases than having their bones shatter during a tennis match.
Nonetheless, advertising campaigns, brochures, and wall charts in medical exam rooms and pharmacies continually warn women of the dangers of disappearing bone mass. While statistics show that one woman in two over the age of sixty is at risk of osteoporosis, the message we get instead is that once we pass the sixty mark, we’re all but likely to crumble from an osteoporotic fracture. Further, we’re told that the incidences of hip fractures exceed that of cancer of the breast, cervix, and uterus combined.5
These “informative” health articles, which run every few months in women’s magazines—like “Bone Up: Strengthen Your Bones and Prevent Osteoporosis” in the March 2012 issue of Women’s Health—further warn us that 16 percent of patients who suffer a hip fracture will die within six months, and 50 percent will require long-term care. But a study reported in The American Journal of Health Behavior looked at osteoporosis articles in women’s magazines from 1998 to 2001 and found risk factors and preventive measures were outlined in most articles; however, a lot of the information presented was ambiguous and incomplete.6 The study concluded that the reporting of osteoporosis in women’s magazines and newspapers is not entirely balanced and that future coverage should provide greater detail.
The statistics, the most reliable from The Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health, say that over twenty million Americans have osteoporosis, and that annually, approximately 1.3 million of them will suffer a bone fracture as a result.7 But it’s important to put these statistics into perspective. While it is true that death occurs in men and women who have hip fractures, these people are usually elderly and frail—not at all the demographic of the chick-slick reader. And while tragic, these deaths occur in people who are often suffering from a host of other age-related health disorders.
Yet flip to the health section of any women’s magazine and this isn’t the takeaway that readers receive. Here, the message is more often what you can do to avoid this fate, offering preventative advice like increasing your calcium intake, pursuing estrogen replacement therapy, and dosing yourself with osteoporosis drugs. Ironic that these three “cures” are often full-page product advertisements in these very magazines, no? But the truth is that your bone density and calcium stores are pretty much set by age thirty, so advice suggesting that loading up on, say, Tums, an antacid tablet touted for its calcium content, will stave off frail bones, is erroneous at best for most women over thirty. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, “Achieving adequate calcium intake and maximizing bone stores during the time when bone is rapidly deposited (up to age thirty) provides an important foundation for the future.”8 Yet we rarely read that our bone density is set by age thirty, and that past that point, we are simply on a path to maintaining our bone health, which most women, save for genetic predisposition and really poor lifestyles, do fairly well. So sure, taking care of your body will pay off as better health in the future (and that’s the “informative” half of the article equation mentioned above), but the hyped-up message that women, especially postmenopausal women, will inevitably fall victim to broken bones and crumpled postures is misleading. It implies that you, the reader—regardless of your age, diet, and lifestyle—better take action now to protect yourself, and how better to do that than via the products advertised in that very same magazine?
Of course, other articles are downright blatant in their fear-mongering, like the story that appeared in the October 2011 issue of Good Housekeeping. The magazine pulled out all the scare stops in its health feature titled “Why Your Food Isn’t Safe: All of These People Died Because of Something They Ate: How the Safety Net Failed Them—and How to Protect your Family.”
Scary, right? Food isn’t safe. People died. Here’s how to protect your family. Who wouldn’t read that?
On the first page of the glossy spread, GH lists the tragic food-related deaths of twenty people, complete with their photos, birth and death years, and the food that killed them. Eleven of the twenty victims are kids. The other nine are elderly. This, of course, is the demographic hit hardest by food-related illness and death—young children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems, but the eleven-page spread doesn’t bother to mention that. Nor are those the demographics of Good Housekeeping.
Instead, the feature opens with the tragic story of one Iowa teen’s horrific ten-day battle with an illness that ends in death via food-borne bacteria, the culprit of which her family has yet to identify. One day she’s a normal, healthy kid getting her driver’s license and ten days later she’s dead, the story points out dramatically.
Who wouldn’t be moved and frightened by such a story, particularly as a parent? As moms, women turn to these stories with hearts beating through their chest at the unfairness and devastation of any parent losing their child. It’s a mother’s worst nightmare, and here it is on the page for your commiseration.
The article uses the teen’s story as a launching point to then inform readers about food-contaminated E.coli infections that lead to hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a devastating complication that occurs when E.coli bacteria from contaminated food lodge in the digestive tract and churn out toxins that shred red blood cells, clogging vessels in the kidneys and shutting them down, sometimes fatally.
The piece goes on to list sketchy stats, like those purporting that one in six Americans get sick from something they ate. Seems plausible, yet it doesn’t elaborate on the degree of illness. Lots of people get “food poisoning,” but after a night spent hugging the toilet (thereby getting rid of the offending source), they’re pretty much good to go within twenty-four hours. Not all people—in fact, very few—actually die from food-borne illnesses. And while the article does tell us that three thousand children and adults do die of food-related bacteria, it fails to mention the timetable, whether it’s an annual statistic, or if it reflects total deaths since reporting of such cases first began. (A little research revealed that, in fact, most annual deaths occur in adults over age fifty, but the piece fails to mention that.)
The article even points out that the incidents of E.coli have decreased in the United States, but that the biggest decrease was from 1996 to 2000 and there has been little change since. The reader is also reminded of every major food attack and recall in recent history. Sprouts in Germany and France killed forty-seven, ground turkey from Cargill company sickened dozens, romaine lettuce from Freshway Foods caused as many as thirty-three cases of food poisoning, the Jack in the Box restaurant outbreak sickened seven hundred and killed four, and the Country Cottage restaurant occurrence in Locust Grove, Oklahoma, killed one. Death by peanut butter is remembered, as well as the Veggie Booty snack recall that left dozens of mostly young children ill in twenty-three states.
But stop for a minute and put this in perspective. It’s estimated that two thousand people worldwide get hit by lightning annually, and we don’t exactly consider that a run-of-the-mill occurrence. Yet this article implies we are all just a cheeseburger away from food poisoning, and a cheese curl away from death.
From here, readers of the article learn that the FDA only inspects a mere two percent of imported produce from around the world—like tomatoes, onions, and cantaloupes–suggesting that the bulk of these imported fruits and veggies are loaded with undetected diseases and bacteria just waiting to sicken us. Yet no one mentions that lettuce purchased from your local farmer’s market or roadside fruit stand may also be laden with bacteria.
Most of these “alarming” examples of risk are bolstered by tragic stories of victims who either died as a result, suffered serious illness, or were left with permanent poor health and a lengthy list of chronic health problems, such as lethargy, weakness, high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease, and more.
We learn about the six major strains of E.coli, some more deadly today than ever before, and how bureaucracy keeps the government from taking the action to make sure these contaminants don’t end up in our beef, cheese, and produce while more people die.
The article then quickly turns to the question of why the government has not been able to eliminate E.coli from the food supply. We’re told food regulation is haphazard at best, liable at worst, and held together by a patchwork of inspections and investigations from different agencies—the entire system filled with holes, making the infrastructure weak—much like the fragile bones of a late-stage osteoporosis patient.
“The USDA is responsible for overseeing the cows, while the FDA is in charge of the milk,” the article states. Pepperoni on pizza? That’s the USDA’s oversight. But cheese pizza is regulated by the FDA—and so on.
The numbers are dizzying. Not only is money at the root of the problem, naturally, with many figures provided, but the number of staff at both organizations is too lean. We hear about the number of food manufacturers, warehouses, slaughterhouses, and processing plants in this country. Then we’re shown the pathetically low number of staff assigned from each of the agency’s available pool of regulators to inspect and investigate each of these entities, and our eyes cross. What the heck number corresponds with what the heck entity being discussed? It’s hard to discern! All we know is it’s bad, very bad. It’s scary. Very scary.
Is this story the truth? Hell yes, it’s true. By and large. Have innocent people been sickened and killed? Of course. Is it heart-wrenching and terrifying that any of us can be taken out after eating a fucking salad, or giving a healthy puffed rice snack to our toddler? Ugh, absolutely. And women’s magazines must know this because these stories are often crafted in a way that scares the shit out of readers, in this case to make women think twice about every burger they’re yet to wolf down, or bean sprouts they’re yet to buy at the grocery store. And the bottom line, yet again, the article asks, is whose fault is it? And how can we, the reader, ever fix this horrid situation? Here, the writers help us along, raising the alarm further by calling for a grassroots movement (because, as the article pointed out, our federal agencies are inept to protect us), and then, just to really hammer it home, the story offers up more scary details in sidebars and pullout boxes, listing the “top eleven foods that can hurt you” along the bottom of one page. The problem is that nearly every food listed is something people eat on a regular basis, (beef, dairy, fruit, fish, beans) ones they probably wouldn’t eliminate from their family’s diet. And the whole thing is packaged up properly, telling readers what they “need to know.” It omits what doesn’t work for the story, like how rare it truly is to be killed eating a hamburger, leading readers into thinking that one out of every handful of people could be killed today via a fast food meal—or a tomato! Hell, by nearly any food, really. Yet the statistics aren’t that far off lightning strikes, and we don’t generally obsess about protecting ourselves from outdoor electrocution.
“Yeah, magazines definitely play off our fears, but honestly, that’s sometimes why I’ll pick one up in the check-out line. Total morbid fascination. But occasionally, I’m surprised by what I do learn. For instance, I read a short article once about the signs of drowning, and I was shocked at how little I knew. I always thought people thrashed around and yelled if they were in trouble. Instead, drowning is usually a quiet, almost indiscernible moment. It still gives me chills thinking about how wrong I’ve been all these years. I’m so much more vigilant of my family now.”
—Michelle, communications consultant
Nor is fear relegated only to health issues. It lurks in plenty of lifestyle stories. In the October 2011 issue of Women’s Health, an article titled “The Maybe Baby Mindset,” subtitled “ When It Comes to Getting Pregnant, More Women Are Letting Fate Decide, But Experts Say That Kind of Ambivalence Might Put You—and Your Potential Offspring—in Harm’s Way,” sums up the mild hysteria we see packaged month in and month out in women’s glossies.
The gist of this particular story is that many women aren’t actively trying to get pregnant, but they also aren’t really preventing it. Women with this “maybe I’ll have a baby” attitude have now outnumbered those actively trying to get preggers, says a “new study.” It’s important to note that “studies” are gold in any article because they lend credibility to stories, but the reader is rarely given the context or the study parameters, many of which can be flawed, narrow, or totally biased. Healthy skepticism goes a long way. Worse, the article goes on to showcase how this laissez-faire attitude can wreak havoc on you and your future progeny’s very health and happiness. The piece goes so far as to imply that women are actually scared of making the decision to get pregnant, so this newfangled take-it-or-leave-it attitude about whether they’ll roll the dice on parenthood is a fear-based move. “Choosing not to choose allows women to skirt the nerve-wracking ‘Am I ready for kids?’ question and emotional process of trying to conceive,” the piece asserts. It’s not clear how the writer came to that conclusion, however. It’s the magazine’s interpretation of the study material, and pure conjecture, backed up by no real women examples who claim they’re afraid of making the parenting decision.
The article waxes on about how women with unplanned pregnancies are less likely to receive early prenatal care, thereby putting their baby’s health in jeopardy. It even suggests that women who have a blasé attitude about motherhood may also be tempting the prenatal gods: Since they’re likely not aware they’re pregnant right away, they may eat, drink, and engage in some degree of bad-for-pregnancy habits (soft cheese, downhill skiing, Long Island Iced Tea?), like one woman in the story who spent the first months of her “undecided” pregnancy hoping she hadn’t harmed her little half-planned baby by indulging in too much vino on vacay before she knew she had conceived.
The issue with stories like these is that they skew the statistics of a perfectly good study to fit the alarmist angle they’re trying to sell you. When in fact, the study is taken totally out of context to support this “maybe I’ll get pregnant” attitude the whole piece is about. In this case, they took a study of four thousand women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five years old, of which 71 percent reported they were not trying to get knocked up, 6 percent reported they were trying, and 23 percent swore they were okay either way. The study only gives us the numbers. But the article purposefully crafts those numbers into a “one in four women are pretty much wishy-washy and/or afraid of making a decision about pregnancy” statistic, which the author uses to showcase this group of women—this one in four stat—making the leap that their future babies could very well be at risk of inadequate prenatal care. After all, she did say she was okay either way, which implies that to her, being a mom is a half-hearted ideal at best. And if it’s not a big deal to these women, the conclusion is that she and her offspring may actually be in real peril. And who is responsible? She is, yet again.
Dating and relationship topics are fodder for fear mongering as well. In the October 2011 issue of Marie Claire, a relationship piece on what men won’t reveal until the third date scares the shit out of single women by proffering up six men who all reveal the magazine’s version of a relationship deal-breaking secret. The men in the piece admit to things like “I am a recovering alcoholic” and “I did time in the clink.” Sobering candor, to be sure. The type that implies a woman’s dating pool is filled with men who tell lies and hidden half truths that will undermine her chances at love. Talk about discouraging.
But this is nothing compared to the terror-inducing stories of true crimes against women.
In the November 2011 issue of Cosmo, there’s a feature titled “How Serial Killers Choose Their Victims.” Great. The ubiquitous rapist hiding in every bush has now been usurped by a new villain in town: the serial killer. Of course you have to read it. Who wouldn’t, because the title implies that you, dear reader, are his next victim. And then the piece supports this suggestion by offering up “safety tips” on how you can avoid being vulnerable to a serial killer, as if he’s a spring virus waiting to catch you with your guard down. Worse, this terrorfest is accompanied by grisly facts and details about real cases of women who’ve fallen prey to a serial murderer. Tragic and horrifying, to be sure, but will most readers ever encounter a serial killer? Unlikely. The FBI reports that “serial murder is a relatively rare event, estimated to comprise less than 1 percent of all murders committed in any given year. However, there is a macabre interest in the topic that far exceeds its scope and has generated countless articles, books, and movies.”9 That includes the women’s mags that prey on women’s fear of such horrific crimes.
GLOSSY FACT
Women are more likely to be victimized by someone they know than by a stranger.
—U.S. Deptartment of Justice
Of course, the piece recounts dozens of instances where women were brutalized and murdered by serial killers, including the Baton Rouge Serial Killer, the Cabbie Killer, BTK (bind, torture, kill), the Bike Path Killer, and the Truck Stop Murderer. These horrific nicknames aren’t lost on readers either, making each one loom larger. Underlying it all and weaved throughout the article is the advice portion, where women are schooled on how a serial killer may scope his victims, including casing her home, following her from work, learning her routine, hoping she’ll ignore instincts and gut feelings, flattering her, and offering to make her a model or an actress. One serial killer, it goes on to say, even set a trap on a victim’s street by putting tire-popping spikes on the road so he could ambush her while she changed her tire. Though we’re not sure how any woman can prevent that occurrence, the true advice would be to stay in your locked vehicle and call for immediate assistance, but the piece ironically skips sharing that tidbit. The three-page spread is complete with photos of both victims and killers, a diagram of the box route you should drive if you suspect you’re being followed (three consecutive right turns), as well as a sidebar on signs that you may be dealing with a psychopath (excellent advice for any woman).
However, the entire piece gives you the feeling that you’re one abduction shy of being stalked by a serial killer. Is there any real value here? It doesn’t seem so, since we know—from the story—that serial killings make up less than one percent of murders. Wouldn’t a straight-up story on how to protect yourself from crime, in general, be more useful? But where’s the shock value in that?
Insider Input
“Women’s magazines approach crime stories like it’s Armageddon and they’re the first ones to find out about it. Sure, there are things women should know about crime and how to protect themselves, but in general, magazines are not interested in conveying information. Instead, their primary concern is to sell magazines, and if it takes scaremongering and/or blaming the victim to do that, then most magazines are fine with it. . . . Marie Claire is where you go to walk off the weight, not learn how to save your ass if you’re assaulted.”
—Carole Moore, author of The Last Place You’d Look: True Stories of Missing Persons and the People Who Search for Them
In another questionable Cosmo article in the February 2012 issue, the story titled “How Smart Women Put Themselves at Risk” is even more terror-inducing because it highlights the cases of several assaults, abductions, and murders and tells us what each of the female victims possibly did wrong. It’s written by a former sex-crimes prosecutor turned novelist, which may explain the tone—more murder-mayhem material than serious safety advice. The article tells us there’s been a number of women disappearing in the headlines, many of whom are later found in shallow graves or dumpsters, and others who are never located. It then goes on to outline the possible missteps each of the victims might have made, which ended her life. Mistakes like ditching your friends while out, not struggling with an abductor, and having a public altercation with your partner, leaving you vulnerable to a nearby predator.
Not only does the piece seem to blame the victim by suggesting she wouldn’t have fallen prey if she’d behaved differently, but the thinly veiled advice is hidden within the story. Unfortunately, these types of “articles” do more harm than any possible good for women.
One Florida State University study confirms this. Researchers looked at how TV coverage of the sexual assault and murder of two teenage girls in Houston affected viewers’ fear of crime, gathering their data in the immediate aftermath of the media frenzy about violent crime, gang violence, and related topics. The study showed that the only demographic that experienced an elevated fear of crime after watching these news stories was middle-aged white women. Nonwhite women and all men, despite being statistically more likely to be victimized, did not become more fearful.10 The researchers suggested that Caucasian women substitute media coverage for direct experience of victimization, meaning that a person’s prior experience with crime—even just knowledge of a victim—is a strong predictor of their fear of becoming a victim. Seems white women who watch the news see a disproportionate number of white female victims, leading to a perception that white women are in much more danger than they actually are. This phenomenon has been dubbed Missing White Woman Syndrome.11
GLOSSY FACT
Between 1990 and 1998, the murder rate in the United States decreased by 20 percent. During that same period, the number of stories about murder on network newscasts increased by 600 percent. Frequent viewers of evening newscasts were unlikely to have the impression that the crime rate was dropping.12
—U.S. Department of Justice
The message is that TV and print media stories can influence our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us. And since white female victims are deemed the most newsworthy (clearly the only newsworthy crime victims in women’s magazines), this media coverage can only skew our perceptions of how risky our lives are, and who exactly needs increased protection from criminals.
Women have always gravitated to stories about other women’s problems. It’s a complex psychological lure, and it’s been a staple of magazine journalism from the beginning. Reading the plight of women victims—whether they have been demoralized by the system or sickened by a rare illness—stokes our empathy and allows us to put ourselves in her shoes. There but for the grace of God go I! we think. We’re suddenly more fastidious about hand washing, what we eat, who we date, how we drive, even how we live.
Yet readers tend to see the messages of these fear stories as an endless loop circling them, and while often the facts are intact, the bottom line is that most articles are driven by the end goal of providing a market for advertisers. The resulting scare stories are partly intentional, because once readers feel the fear, they’re motivated to reduce it, often by buying the products advertised in the surrounding pages, or even just by turning to next month’s issue for more information about the latest fear factor coming down the pike. There’s a level of self-satisfaction we receive in being able to control our world by informing ourselves; we’re protecting our loved ones and staying on top of the issues. It’s a never-ending cycle of fear-induced loyalty to these publications: if we stop reading them, what might we miss out on?
Yet while most people avoid situations in life where there is real risk of actual injury, we enjoy the experience of being scared in a seemingly safe environment, like visiting a haunted house—or riding a thrilling roller coaster. That’s all well and good. Who doesn’t like to be entertained when we know we’ll come out safe at the other end? The issue becomes more complex when we, as readers, empathize deeply, and then react to the material (either living in a heightened state of fear or buying/subscribing to products or services we probably don’t need).
To illustrate, consider the following experiment, conducted by Harvard University and University of Chicago: law students were asked what they would be willing to pay to avoid a one-in-a-million cancer risk. They could check off $0, $25, $50, $100, $200, $400, or $800 or more. One set of students was asked the question in a direct, unemotional way, while the other was given a substantially more vivid description of how gruesome and devastating cancer can be, and then they were asked to report the value they would pay to avoid it. The unemotional group averaged about $ 60 to avoid a one-in-a-million risk of cancer, while the emotional group averaged $210, nearly four times as much.13 The study, published in the journal of Environmental and Resource Economics, found that much of the time, most people will focus on the emotionally perceived severity of the outcome, rather than on its likelihood.
The study suggests that when it comes to actual injury or harm, vivid images and concrete pictures of disaster can “crowd out” the cognitive activity required to consider that the probability of disaster is really quite small.
Women’s magazines are pros at capitalizing on this “crowding out” phenomenon. For every article on a rare or seemingly innocuous topic, there are vivid descriptions and heart-wrenching or fear-inducing photos accompanying it. The message to readers is clear: this could happen to you. Aren’t you afraid?
So, are we victims or victors? Well, we’re both. We feel victorious to be informed against risk, even touting our knowledge to friends, feeling self-satisfied and responsible for doing something about it (like buying unnecessary products and supplements; or taking unnecessary preventive actions, like eliminating perfectly good spinach from our family’s diet, or ditching our daily morning run in the park).
Yet the overriding mission of women’s magazines is not really to educate and inform; it’s to sell more magazines (which is the “victim” part of the equation here). To really learn about breast cancer or food-related E.coli bacteria, readers wouldn’t crack open Good Housekeeping or Glamour to get such information, especially when the topic is alarming or fear-producing. There’s also nothing wrong with holding women’s magazines accountable when article content focuses on thinly veiled infomercials, rare disorders, or fear-factor oddities that likely won’t happen to most of us. Are many single women going to encounter a date who has worked as a male prostitute, Marie Claire? Probably not.
But don’t hold your breath that it will change anytime soon. Magazines know what they are striving for, and fear sells much more effectively to women than we might think. Ultimately, it’s up to us (yes, once again, we’re the controllers of our fate) to decide if we’ll buy into fear-mongering stories, or if we approach them with a healthy dose of skepticism, sussing out the grains of truth and wisdom in between the lines of hype and hyperbole, and refuse to succumb to the fear. Refusing to be a victim is the only way we’ll outsmart fear-mongering in the pages of women’s glossies.