Sunday Life

Sun 21 March 2010 5:23pm by
Filed under: Culture 

Sometime last year one of the magazines that came with The Sunday Age, Sunday Life, changed its formula. I used to find at least something interesting while flicking through it. Since the change, nothing.

I was thinking that it had turned into a women’s magazine. One only has to look at the author names of letters they’ve published over the last four weeks to know it’s almost entirely women who are reading:

Sunday Life letters, last four weeks

(The unisex names were Hilary — almost certainly female I suspect — and Sam.)

But here’s what clinched it: I found the blurb to prospective advertisers:

Sunday Life is a magazine which delivers our readers a distinctive point of difference on Sunday and a fresh approach to a discerning female audience not found in any other newspaper inserted magazine.

and:

Sunday Life knows what women care about.

So… any of you blokes out there — don’t feel guilty for not even glancing at this mag anymore.

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Comments

13 comments on Sunday Life

  1. mikeys on Sun, 21st Mar 2010 5:27 pm

    2. Hilary is a blokes name?! hahah those poor guys!

  2. enno on Sun, 21st Mar 2010 8:12 pm

    3. Obviously not a James Bond fan.

  3. Mike on Sun, 21st Mar 2010 10:01 pm

    4. The Mail On Sunday in the UK gives away 2 magazines, one targetted at men, the other at women. The mens mag has articles on cars, food and drink, interviews with sportsmen, and the tv guide. The womens has lifestyle, cookery, clothes, gardening, that kind of thing. It’s all very stereotyped.
    I usually find something interesting in the ‘womens’ magazine, even if it is just looking at the cake recipes and thinking “that looks tasty”

  4. flerdle on Sun, 21st Mar 2010 10:06 pm

    5. Hilary? Like Evelyn, I guess.

  5. OzSoapbox on Mon, 22nd Mar 2010 4:26 am

    6. If I ever meet a guy called Hilary or Evelyn I’m going to burst into uncontrollable laughter.

  6. roger on Mon, 22nd Mar 2010 8:20 am

    7. Good observations, Daniel.
    The English actress Maggie Smith (who plays Prof. McGonagall in Harry Potter films) was married to a man called Beverley before his death.

  7. Suzie on Mon, 22nd Mar 2010 11:46 am

    8. Good to know, I won’t worry if I don’t see it anymore.

    There was a man who’s name was Hilary and got his job because they thought he was female. It caused much consternation.

  8. Bonnie on Mon, 22nd Mar 2010 5:40 pm

    9. I work with a man called Hilary. Perhaps it seemed slightly strange at first, but not now. It’s just a name.

    If society can cope with men called Kerry, Kelly, Kim, Tracy, Stacey, etc. then I’m sure it can cope with Hilary.

    After all, as far as I know, most or all of these were male names long before they were ever used as female names, along with Evelyn, Beverley and Shirley. The latter three, and Hilary, have simply fallen out of fashion as male names, that’s all. There’s nothing intrinsically feminine about them.

    re: the Sunday Age Life magazine. I’m female (although Bonnie is a nom de plume), but I rarely find anything in it that I’m interested in reading. The “M” magazine isn’t much better. Both The Age and The Sunday Age have been spectacularly dumbed down in recent years. In particular, any bit of advertising fluff in the Sunday Age with “Essentials” in the title goes straight in the bin. They can dress it up like a magazine all they want – it’s still junk.

  9. Donna on Mon, 22nd Mar 2010 9:41 pm

    10. I abhor the Sunday Life magazine. The columnists are boring and I’m not sure whether Mia Freedman’s Fear of Flying (what an original topic) column would really fascinate a “discerning” female audience. Maybe they mean “disconcerting”.

  10. Justine on Tue, 23rd Mar 2010 11:07 am

    11. I not sure about the metric used for measurement Daniel. Are you saying that only women read female writers and only men read male writers? Quick someone tell the world’s authors!

  11. Daniel on Tue, 23rd Mar 2010 12:09 pm

    12. Sorry, the graph is letter writers (eg readers who have written in), not article authors — I could have put that more clearly.

  12. Kath Lockett on Tue, 23rd Mar 2010 1:53 pm

    13. Maybe I’m an honorary bloke then, because I find the Sunday Life magazine is about 50 years too late for me to have to use as toilet paper.

    Mia Freedman tends to make my teeth grind and Sarah Wilson’s ‘journey’ holds about as much depth as a SAO cracker and the fortnightly bloke – Ken Nguyen? – is boring boring boring boring boring!

    But is it the M magazine (good mostly for the telly) that has the wee profile on a fashionista seen in the streets? That column makes me laugh so hard I tend to snuffle up my meusli instead of chew it.

  13. Daniel on Tue, 23rd Mar 2010 9:52 pm

    14. I think Ken Nguyen was in the M magazine (the one with the TV guide).