Steinem rues the advertiser's power over her magazine. She regrets the use of a feminist magazine to sell products that are bad for women, but explains the financial necessity for doing so. Cigarette and alcohol ads provide a disproportionate amount of advertising support and can't be forfeited without threatening the survival of the magazine. In fact, ads themselves begin to compete with content for space, changing the content to ad ration from 60/40 to 50/50. The following statement by Steinen reflects her degree of despair:

There is hardly a night when I don't wake up with sweaty palms and pounding heart, scared that we won't be able to pay the printer or the post office; scared most of all that closing our doors will hurt the women's movement." (Steinem, 1990).

Steinem asserts that women's media is more subjected to "institutionalized" control than other publications. A long history of tradition involving sexual discrimination is very difficult to change. Certain women's magazines have had some success, but by towing the line of tradition by keeping fashion, beauty and entertaining articles and tacking on career articles as a secondary feature. This, according to Steinem, has created artificial stereotypes of women to conform to an artificial...

Today, advertisers have an institutionalized formula that regulates ad placement and criteria for judging success. This institutionalization has even been extended to the way women are supposed to look and act and permeates all forms of media, even the New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair.
Despite Steinem's damning condemnation of the advertising industry on women's magazines and the media in general, she does manage to conclude on a more positive note. Ultimately, the woman is a consumer with increased control over money. For Steinem, this implies a certain degree of power if women know how to use it. Steinem advises that women need to speak their minds to editors and advertisers and to place their support behind those magazines and products that respect women as readers and consumers. Her final question, "I ask you: Can't we do better than this," (Steinem, 1990) deserves a yes answer from women around the world. Certainly, a media freer of advertising control and manipulation is well worth the effort.

Bibliography

Steinem, Gloria. "Sex, Lies & Advertising." MS Magazine Jul./Aug. 1990. Available:

http://www.publishingbiz.com/html/articlebysteinem.html (Accessed 6 Jun 2005).