Ditto my visit earlier today to the magazine stand. Besides "More" (have you even heard of it?)and "Oprah", what publication even includes let alone targets us?
So, here's the deal. One of the reason that there isn't mainstream media to address our issues and concerns, show us living our lives or starring in sit-coms in any role other than the ditzy, marginalized mother or grandmother, is that advertising brand managers (who tend to be in their thirties, if that) haven't figured out that we're the demographic with the most money.
In the absence of advertising-supported media, we don't get to read about each other in the waiting room, share tips through the daily newspaper, have role models flitting in and out of consciousness as we listen to the radio and watch television, in the normal course of our days. As a result, we have the impression that when it comes to mainstream society, not only do our needs/interests not matter enough to publicly address, but that we are invisible.
Obviously, this is not true. But without formal means of communication, it is all too easy to become isolated from one another--to not know that the issues you are facing as an individual are being experienced by the larger community of women of our generation around the country/the world...
In this disconnected community, there are many who have great perspective, empathy, solutions, wisdom, discoveries to share--but unless you happen to attend "Menopause the Musical" or get a lucky well-timed e-mail, have lunch with one of your two best friends, or pay to see a "life coach", you're pretty much left to your own devices, forced to reinvent the wheel for yourself issue by issue.
And so, the lack of advertising and respectful media portrayals directed to our generation of women should be more than just an irritant, something we take as "the way things are." Click! I would like to propose that this is, in fact, our generation's next great cause! Viva L'Marketers!
Carol Orsborn