You'll Find Almost No Mention Of Technology In Most Women's Magazines
"Women's magazines do a dismal job of covering technology - forgive me if that earth-shattering revelation has caused you to spill your beverage or caused momentary disorientation," Belinda Parmar of The Guardian writes. "This fact will come as a surprise to almost nobody."
Parmar is the CEO of Lady Geek, a campaigning agency in the UK which inspires women to change the world through technology.
Lady Geek did an analysis of this month's issues of certain women's magazines (including ones we read in the U.S.: Glamour, Elle, and Marie Claire), and found very limited traces of technology topics or gadgets.
In fact, Parmar found that fewer than 2% of pages refer to anything tech-related, and not a single page in November's editions has an article primarily about technology.
These findings do not coincide with a recent study by TrendSight, which suggests women spend more on smartphones and other gadgets than men do. Women also influence 57% of new technology purchases.
Parmar says when she presented her findings to one of the UK's leading magazine editors she responded that her publication "did indeed cover technology seriously."
And then she pointed Parmar to a one-paragraph review of an espresso-maker.
Parmar states that out of all of the magazines she put to test, Glamour came out on top, with 6.3% of its advertising coming from tech companies.
Now that the idea of wearable technology is becoming more and more tangible (Samsung Galaxy Gear went on sale earlier this fall and Apple is in talks to launch the iWatch in the next year or so), the lines of fashion and technology now become more blurred than ever before.
The publisher, in this case, needs to find away to get ahead of the trend. As of now, glossy women's magazines have yet to acknowledge that women are involved technology consumers.