Lifestyle in the supermarket

I have tweeted about this before, as have numerous people that I follow, it really isn't anything new. When you walk into the supermarket next time check out the magazines.

Many magazine stands seem to have slipped through a timewarp and are stuck in the 1950s. My most recent trip to a large supermarket (this morning - and shall remain nameless) showed 'men's lifestyle' and 'women's lifestyle'.

Men's lifestyle contained:

• magazines with naked women, examples such as Loaded
• magazines about science, examples such as New Scientist
• magazines about political satire and current affairs, examples such as Private Eye

The women's lifestyle section contained:

• Baby magazines, no examples I'm afraid as in my outrage I didn't pay enough attention!
• House and home type maagzines
• Bridal and wedding magazines
• Cooking magazines
• Fashion and gossip magazines have a whole other section!

I'm not suggesting that women can not stray into the men's lifestyle section to buy a magazine, that is not the issue. There isn't a barrier checking to see if you are male or not before your hand is allowed to browse the shelf. It is the fact that hobbies and interests are being clearly divided along gender lines. In the 21st century is there really any need to split these magazines down gender lines? Is the human race that clear cut? Whilst I imagine that the target market for many baby and pregnancy magazines is the female market, that does not mean a husband, partner, brother, father etc might not want to know what is going on!

The other issue is that as a woman if you want to buy New Scientist or the Private Eye for example is that you have to stand amongst the magazines that have semi-naked women on the cover. You might not feel comfortable in standing in front of a large sign that says Men's Lifestyle and trying to glance between the breasts to find what you want!

So, to conclude what became a much longer rant than I expected, no-one is saying you can not buy from either section it might just be nice to remove the gendered lines. Not all women are interested in babies and good housekeeping, just as not all men want to buy magazines with semi-naked women. Magazines should be shelved simply along the lines of common interest: babies and housekeeping, cooking, sports, Science, the economy and politics and so on. Not such a huge ask is it?