18 out of 19 people found this review helpful.
A surreal yet readable journal of 'Middle America'
Date of Review: Dec 27, 1999
One of the more curious things about Woman's World is that the influence of the British press is rather evident -- there are near-identical publications in most commonwealth countries, and the UK is littered with publications that, as Punch once put it, "like to be nice to people."
WW is extremely formulaic -- not necessarily a bad thing, since you have to appreciate somebody who finds what they do best and sticks with it. In this case, it is
* weight-loss tips (usually in the form of 1200 calories a day, and ideally with some celebrity connexion, no matter how tenuous)
* hearty, filling recipes for the whole (presumably large) family
* cute items: baby pictures, funny things children say, and part of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" franchise
* tragic items: a child's medical drama, an adult's accident drama, and part of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" franchise
* benign fashion and beauty tips: this week at T.J. Maxx; indifferent 'make-over'
* quotations ad nauseum, country-type crafts, household hints, grotesque sugar-bomb candy-cake recipes, and other assorted filler including love and mystery ultra-short stories
...all neatly packaged in readily digestible supermarket weekly format. There is an overt Christian and middle-lower-middle-class flavour to WW; the tragedy/miracle stories frequently involve God in the ER, and it is taken for granted that your family loves meat but cannot afford steak on a regular basis -- this is entirely written for the Heartland, not the urban domestic scientist.
That said, it is something of a relief to find recipes that are not entirely "How to Remove Fat From All Foods and Render Them Useless"; there are many good household hints, and the low price of the magazine might well be recouped if you followed its economizing tips -- the "what's on sale this week" part is particularly useful. The stories are somewhat heartening, and the language is simple and the entire publication is PG, making it suitable to pass along to children for a read-through, should they be interested.
The problem with all this is the Punch one; WW seems to exist solely to be nice to people. It is so bland and attitude-free that you're left wondering if the target audience is supposed to be aware of a world outside subdivision and the Piggly-Wiggly or Overwaitea's[*].
For those of you unfamiliar with those parts of the continent, those are two bona-fide names of supermarket chains. The latter is indeed correctly pronounced "over-weighty's."
