Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1993 | Page 18
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Popular Culture Review
appearance, "LEAR'S magazine," as the subscription insert in the
March 1992 issue declares, "is much more than just fashion and
cosmetics. In fact, we designed this magazine with you, the complete
woman, in mind." The needs of the complete woman are met in the
magazine's several more or less regular, although not rigidly distinct,
departments: "Features," which are articles of general interest, often
including a personal profile of the person pictured on the cover, or
short fiction by such writers as Doris Lessing, Joyce Carol Oates, and
Kate Braverman; "Style," articles on beauty and fashion; "Money &
Worth," articles on business and personal finance; "Self Center,"
articles on health and personal development; "Addiction," articles on
dependencies of every description; "Editorial," commonly written by
Lear; "Visiting Space," a guest editorial; and, every month, "Lunch,"
an interview by Lear; "Celestial Fine-Tuning," an astrology column;
"Letters," from readers; and "A Woman for Lear’s,” a personal
profile, commonly a post-divorce, financial success story.
Lear’s has the look and the feel of a fashion magazine after the
pattern of Vogue, Elle, and Mademoiselle, but it offers substantially
more copy and, after the pattern of Mirabella, is generally very well
written. While the Lear’s staples are photo-illustrated "style"
pieces and personal profiles of successful women over 40, the articles
also routinely address, in a very serious manner, personal, political,
and social issues. Conspicuously absent are articles on the
preparation and consumption of food and drink, as are pieces on small
children; motherhood is infrequently dealt with, and almost
exclusively with reference to adult children. Lear’s, as a consequence,
is also a magazine directed toward working women, principally
professionals and business people or those aspiring to that status.
Unlike Working Woman, however, Lear’s stakes a specific claim to
the older woman of stylishly sophisticated and unabashedly
expensive tastes. "Mature," not incidentally, is a term conspicuous by
its absence in the columns of L ear’s, perhaps lest there be any
confusion with Modern Maturity, the organ of the American
Association of Retired Persons which is donainated by the themes of a
thirty-million member political lobby and the practical realties of
women and men who weren't bom the day before yesterday. And
unlike Cosmopolitan, Lear’s seeks to take a (not the) high road with
respect to feminism without becoming a "feminist" magazine after the
pattern established by Ms.