When I was younger, I immensely enjoyed reading nature magazines that were directed for children’s use, as they engaged me on multiple levels. Their stories were interesting and they fostered a love of nature that had grown from watching the Discovery Channel. Until entering high school, I would read most every magazine that was available to me and that sparked my interest. These children’s magazines were intended for children of all genders and when I read them, I rarely encountered specifically gendered messages.
Now, when I look at magazines, no matter the topic, I always sense ulterior motives, gendered stereotypes that are being embedded in the content which they produce. I find myself repulsed by ‘women’s’ magazines more often than I might think normal, simply because their method of gaining readers is so obvious to me. I appreciate content which is more topic driven, as it seeks to hook in readers based on general interests and less on gender-driven ones.
Yes, there are topics which straddle multiple genders and are not specifically for one or the other, but the trend that Ladies’ Home Journal follows is one that turns me away from reading it in the first place. Sure, other women might engage with it because it has useful information, but for me, that information is overshadowed by the norms that it often tries so hard to emulate.
I do agree with your practice of ignoring readings that you know has ulterior motives. I follow the same practice in my leisure reading. I would love to read something that has a differing or new opinion, but ulterior motives are just scummy in my eyes. There are really no benefits from reading literature with ulterior motives as the writing is just a product made to gain something out of it’s readers, which I would argue should not be made at all. For instance, much of articles made from publications such as BuzzFeed have the ulterior motive of making articles simply for views. Publications like these use hyperbolic “clickbait” titles to get the click for the article just to get the ad revenue for each click. Which prompts me to ask, why write the article anyways if it’s going to be poorly written and be nothing alike the title that drew readers in. It’s difficult in today’s age to avoid readings that have ulterior motives, but I hope most people strive to read a minimal amount of them.