Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness --- And Liberalism --- To the Women of America

by Myrna Blyth

Book Overview

Blowing the whistle on a job she herself did for over ten years at Ladies Home Journal as editor-in-chief, Blyth reveals the almost institutionalized selling of a liberal/do-gooders message to women through chararacterizing women themselves as victims. Playing on women's compassion and ability to be hooked into "uplifting" stories with a moral or happy ending, American media has convinced the most well-educated, rich and healthy audience in history...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312312873
• ISBN13: 9780312312879
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 342 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A fun gossipy read with info ever woman needs......

Blyth puts words to why I quit reading most Women's magazines some years ago. And, yes, she affirms our very strong opinions that the Katies, and the Dianes, and the ones whose names we don't know in magazines are all Liberal and spin like crazy....not that most of us hadn't already suspected that. All you have to do is take a look at the New York Social Diary web site and see them all schmooze with the Liberal elite of NY including Hillary Clinton. Read how they make heros of the certain Liberal women but generally ignore those on the other side of the political spectrum.I still read "More Magazine" (but may soon stop if Hillary's on the cover again); Blyth started More but is no long involved apparently. However, Blyth was for many years editor of Ladies Home Journal and admits to some of the same offenses she finds in others, except she is not a Liberal.She also points out how they paint women as stress-filled and proceed to tell stories guaranteed to make you lose sleep, even though the examples given are less likely to happen to most of us than an alien spacecraft landing on our roof. There are many, many revealing instances here of how they sucker women into their programs, and their magazines with bad news, scary stories. Perhaps you've noticed how Barbara Walters likes to make people cry; how many magazine shows get in close on personal stories of loss or illness...some have admitted they want to make you care and to care enough to keep tuning in. And they will make into a mountain a molehill tidbit from the Health mavens, but then wonder why you are "stressed". (Oh no. This child was poisoned by a potato!....etc.) You'll enjoy reading about the lunch crowd at Michael's in New York...the sisterhood gets the best tables and pig out on their Cobb salads after sessions with their $750 dollar workouts.....How much Katie pays for hair dos, their million-dollar apartments, their homes "in the Hamptons" and just how "like the average woman" they aren't. Which would be okay, except Blyth makes the case that they want us to think the opposite.Read it, Ladies, and enjoy a good gossipy, informative read, and then start questioning the stuff you read in the rags and see on the [television].

Spin Sisters

What a great book! It's funny and fun to read, but also tells women the truth about what really goes on at women's magazines and in television designed for women. The models on the covers may be pretty but the picture Myrna Blyth paints sure isn't. The book is part expose about how women's media tries to manipulate us, scare us, and shame us into buying products. And part political, showing the subtle liberal slant that impacts women's media, but it's not a stodgy old conservative policy book, either. I laughed out loud more than once at the stories she tells, and I've already emailed my sisters to go buy this book. It's about time somebody blew the whistle.

Finally - the truth about women's mags!

Loved it! And thanks to Myrna for validating my feelings about women's magazines. After so many years of reading these things, women start to feel as if they never measure up to the celebrities on the cover (whose lives are usually a mess behind the scenes, anyway). These magazines are driven by product advertising, ladies, and the more we remind ourselves of this fact, the less we'll be sucked in by their trends and the not-so-subtle message that we need to be "fixed" and made over! Thank you, thank you for this book!

Great book

It's nice to finally have someone give a voice to women who don't want to be blind followers of the liberal viewpoints they're bombarded with by the media. The inside stories of magazines are really interesting--especially when you find out how magazines get celebrities to appear on their covers.