If You're Getting Your Financial Advice From Cosmo, Just Stop.

The latest issue of Bitch (No. 40, the Genesis issue) carries a piece by Latoya Peterson on the difference in the financial advice doled out by mainstream men's magazines as compared with mainstream women's mags. The article isn't online yet, you'll have to check it out yourself at the bookstore or library.

Peterson observes that women's mags assume their readers just haaaate thinking about money. I mean, ew! right? Instead, they focus on things women can buy with their money. Maybe on bargains, maybe on designer splurges, but Marie Claire seems to think the purpose of money is to spend it clothing and accessories for yourself, and not for longterm stability or goal attainment. Maxim, juvenile as it may be in other respects, interviews financial authors, provides investment (rather than merely saving-and-spending) advice, and career development insights.

There are bright spots out there. Peterson mentions emerging publications aimed at female entrepreneurs like Pink and BeE, and established Black-targeted magazines like Essence, which do a better job addressing money matters by assuming that women have financial needs that go beyond mere retail. But we can put "does a crap job at financial education" on my list of issues with mainstream women's mags.