Activism Is Part of Fashion Magazine’s Makeup

Imagine a woman sitting in her corner office. Neat stacks of magazines and windows over Broadway form a backdrop. A mane of long blond highlights frames her large brown eyes that grow even larger as she leans forward to stab a finger at a headline in the latest issue of her magazine. Under the heading “What Women Want,” red and black type asks: “Why Are These Mass Murderers and Rapists Still Free?” A box on the page appeals to readers to sponsor a survivor of war in the Balkans or in Rwanda, or to write the White House to insist the Bush administration cooperate with war crimes tribunals. The page even lists Web sites for related activist organizations.

The woman in this office could only be Gloria Steinem. Except she isn’t. She’s Lesley Jane Seymour, the editor of the top-tier fashion magazine Marie Claire. Perhaps against all odds, Marie Claire is the title that women’s rights activists often mention when they talk about what publication has done the most to interest women in feminist causes over the past few years. However, the magazine never publishes the f-word. “I use it personally, but I would never put the word ‘feminism’ in the magazine,” says Seymour, a self-described feminist in a tight white skirt and pink patent leather sandals with sky-high heels.

Earlier this month in New York, Seymour chaired the anniversary celebration for Equality Now, an international women’s rights organization, which marked its 10 years of activism with an evening of feminist performance and speaking. It’s unlikely to see a fashion editor’s name printed in a program above ones like Eve Ensler and Rose Styron, especially one with Seymour’s resume. Her career has bounded through the editorial offices of publications many feminists view as pinnacles of stiletto-hawking woman-hating --magazines like Glamour and Vogue.

And indeed, Marie Claire looks no different from any of the lip-glossy women’s titles. But if you scan the cover of each issue, skimming down the current issue’s pitch for articles such as “Men Confess: What Makes Him Commit--or Not” and the usual “sexy swimsuit” roundup, you’ll find a cover line that seems out of place. It’s a Day-Glo green banner that reads, in color-me-radical language “World Campaign: Stop War Criminals From Walking Free,” a tease for the page Seymour now turns, exposing an ad for pills that purport to “Increase Breast Size ... Guaranteed!”

It’s just this duality that is the secret of Marie Claire’s success, both as a publication and as a tool for women’s rights activism. Jessica Neuwirth, the president of Equality Now, says that Marie Claire has brought in more new members over time than any other source. “Every time they list us as a way for people to take action, we get a huge response from people who stay with us. And, importantly, in many cases these are people who weren’t previously aware of those issues.”

Because Marie Claire is read by many women who aren’t exactly on Ms. magazine’s subscription list, women who buy the magazine for their seven-year horoscope end up learning about the sex slave trade in China just by flipping idly past a few cosmetic ads.

“Most of our calls came from high school girls or women who wanted us to speak at their sorority lunches, women who specifically said they had read about us in Marie Claire,” says Masuda Sultan, a board member of Women for Afghan Women, one of several groups that saw a spike in interest after they were listed alongside an April story about young Afghans prostituting themselves to survive.

Marie Claire has been running this sort of international story in each issue since its American launch six years ago. After Sept. 11, scores of readers wrote in that they were the only women they knew who were well-versed about the Taliban, thanks to the magazine’s previous coverage. And since the fall, when Seymour took over the editorship from industry iconoclast Glenda Bailey, the magazine now features a national “reportage” story alongside each international one.

Seymour is hardly attempting to turn her title into a Ms. competitor. “We’re trying to avoid the taint of old feminism, the feeling that you have to be on the feminist bus or off it,” she says. And Seymour, who reads e-mail that her readers send her directly, says they’re not exactly looking for a movement rag, just a smarter beauty magazine. “They’re saying, ‘Don’t throw it in my face--I don’t want to look like an intellectual egghead freak,’” Seymour says. And yet, in reader polls, it’s the news stories that rank highest among features.

This phenomenon breaks all rules in the magazine industry. While other women’s titles sometimes run some tough stories--especially since Sept. 11, as has been often noted--Marie Claire is the only member of the fashionista pack to include monthly international reporting about something other than, say, Milan’s Prada show. It’s certainly the only one with an activist thread that runs though each issue, from the front-of-the-book “You Need to Know” page that regularly features political letter-writing campaigns, to the “how to participate” box alongside each issue story. But the real phenomenon is this: They’re making a fortune doing it.

Steinem herself will tell you that the reason magazines shy away from what she calls “progressive, feminist reporting” is that advertisers often refuse to sell lipstick next to stories about African sex slavery or abortion rights activism. Traditionally, they have shied away from placement near any story that might be a downer in these magazines. But if you check out that April feature on Afghan women, you’ll see that Dolce & Gabbana and Miu Miu were happy to be sandwiched between columns about brutality and heartache. “It’s the opposite of everything you learn in publishing. They want their ads here because of this. Where else in the world could I put the word ‘rape’ on the cover? We’d be sunk everywhere else. But this is what sets us apart. Activism is a selling point.”

Seymour says that Marie Claire has become a known quantity for this type of reporting. And, as an institution, it’s always been that way. Marie Claire debuted in France in 1937, in the mission of mixing life’s harsher realities with beauty and fashion coverage. The magazine began to spawn international editions, of which there are now 26, South Africa’s being the most political, listing international stories as the top billboard on each cover. Six years ago, Bailey, then editor of British Marie Claire, brought the title stateside with an insistence on maintaining international reporting in a seemingly unfriendly market. Through Bailey’s famously dogged leadership, Marie Claire quickly carved an identity as a commercial fashion rag that featured a profile of a Somalian woman who had been a victim of female genital mutilation.

The commingling of “serious” stories amid the “what’s hot now” pageantry is a reflection of women’s reality to some people, and an abomination to others. Not surprisingly, the notion that a women’s magazine requires beauty tips to make its own identity is anathema to Andrea Dworkin, author of “Heartbreak: The Political Memoirs of a Feminist Militant.” “Having progressive content is fine, but when I look at the New Republic or I look at the Nation, I don’t see the same concern for men--that they’re worried about their eyebrows being too thick or the jowls under their chin. There’s something about being assimilated by beauty culture that is nothing but hostility to women,” she says. “And I don’t know why they need it.”

For pleasure, answers Seymour, who compares her magazines not to those workhorses of the intelligentsia, but to men’s titles. “For women, the equivalent of sports is beauty, and, just like in men’s magazines, you can still have that equivalent and still be political and smart,” she says. “The thing that drives me nutty is that when it comes to men’s magazines, nobody blinks an eye. But if a women’s magazine has fashion and beauty, then it can’t be serious. Why would we have this tension with women’s magazines and not when it comes to men’s magazines?”

Though some feminists recognize the duality, it doesn’t faze them. “A willing reader can handle reading about women in Afghanistan and still have the quick tips for firming up for before bathing suit season,” says Jennifer Baumgardner, co-author of “Manifesta,” a book about young women and feminism. “That’s the thing,” she says. “We all engage on a lot of levels.” Julie Shah, a founder of the Third Wave Foundation, an organization of young feminists, concurs. But though she’s comfortable with fashion and beauty coverage--”That’s all personal, not political; you should see how I dress”--she’s frustrated with how far Marie Claire’s stories go. “Like, I wouldn’t call this story deep,” she says of the recent Afghan prostitution story, “and it fits into how the media portrays women as victims. And that’s where my ambivalence lies--they may be opening readers’ eyes, but they could be doing it in a smarter way.”

But that’s the price of their enormous readership, says Baumgardner. “Anything they talk about is effective, even if the message is less advanced in terms of theory and politics--I appreciate that they have a much broader audience” than traditional feminist publications, she says.

Raising the quality of the stories is on Seymour’s agenda of gradual change she’d like to make in the magazine, as is slowly inching their presence onto the cover. Not as the lead, she says, but certainly higher up. To try to sell the magazine for its serious content would be isolating, even if it’s what readers say is what they value, she says. And that’s best for activists and advertisers alike, she says. “To reach women, to change the world, you can’t just talk to five women; you need to reach 500,000 women. And Marie Claire is the doorway to those women,” she says. “We give a good dose of fantasy and reality,” she says, flipping past a picture of a rail-thin model in a $300 Gucci bikini. “It’s an incredible car crash of high and low, or serious and light, and it makes no sense--but it’s working.”