Every month, 50 million women read women’s magazines that serve up a steady diet of leftwing politics sandwiched between ads for products that promise to make their beleaguered audience hipper, happier, and hassle-free. As editor-in-chief of Ladies ‘ Home Journal for over 20 years, Myrna Blyth was a sibling in good standing of the smug spin sisters whose glossy pages relentlessly peddle dissatisfaction and Democratic drivel to American women. In this terrific tell-all book, Blyth has left the clique of the powerful popular girls to tell the rest of us that they are as manipulative, incestuous, and condescending as we might have expected.
In addition to strollers, spas, and the latest shoes, these magazines promote an idea: modern feminism in all its fragile self-centeredness. With the conviction that “stress sells,” the spin sisters wildly exaggerate the pressures of daily life owing to the unreasonable demands of work and family—and they hysterically warn of the dangers lurking in everything from manicures and mattresses to mold and mercury. Stress sells self-indulgence, which keeps the advertisers happy; and what the $470 million aromatherapy market can’t fix is up to the government to handle.
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