An Open Letter to Wired Magazine

Dear Wired:
I feel like I’m in an abusive relationship with you. I love you. You’re charming, attractive and smart, everything I could ever want in a magazine. My heart skips a beat when I see a new issue in my mailbox. Most of the time, you’re harmless, and I tell everyone I know how awesome you are. But every now and then, you slip, and you make me feel very bad, make me question my judgment.

When I noticed this month’s issue in my mailbox, I approached it with the same breathless anticipation that I do every month. I didn’t even mind the naked picture of Jennifer Aniston on the GQ subscription insert. I mean, it’s just advertising. You’ve got to make a living, right? Then, I turned you over to see what fascinating topics I would be delighted by this month. Boobs. Right there on the cover. A pair of breasts, no head, no rest of body… just boobs. Sure it accompanied a story on tissue re-engineering, so what other possible way might you visually represent that, but with a pair of breasts? No other possible way?

This isn’t the first time. We’ve been through this before. Your covers aren’t all that friendly to women on a regular basis, and that makes me sad. There was naked Pam from The Office in 2008 (you thought you were so clever with that acetate overlay – I mean, how else would you depict transparency?). In 2003, you had the nice lady covered in synthetic diamonds. There were the sexy manga ladies and LonelyGirl15 and Julia Allison with their come-hither looks. And Uma Thurman, she’s a lady, and she was on the cover… But wait, that was for a character she was playing in a film based on a Philip K. Dick novel.

Come to think of it, the last time that a woman was featured on your cover, because she was being featured in the magazine for an actual accomplishment, was way back in 1996 when it was Sherry Turkle, the academic and author. And, the only other time was in 1994, when musician/author Laurie Anderson was featured. Because since then, I guess no women have done anything notable in technology unless it had to do with their bodies? Really?

Martha Stewart in 2007 doesn’t count, and neither does Sarah Silverman in 2008, because those were both just jokey, thematic covers.

It’s not like we haven’t talked about this. In the 1996 book Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyberspace by Lynn Cherny and Elizabeth Reba Weise, the author Paulina Borsook details the woman problem in Wired in “The Memoirs of a Token: An Aging Berkeley Feminist Examines Wired.” That was 14 years ago! In 2005, I met one of your female editors, Rebecca Hurd, at SXSW. We had a nice chat, and she politely said that if I had any ideas about women that should be featured in Wired, I should send them to her. I went to the Web to solicit some input, and subsequently sent her an 11-page document of women doing interesting things with technology. I don’t think one of those ideas came to fruition on the pages of Wired.

Things were looking up a couple months ago when you published that great article on Caterina Fake of Flickr and Hunch fame. That could have been a cover… Instead you went with Will Ferrell… If you don’t believe me, see for yourself. Go back through your covers over the years. How exactly are young women supposed to feel about their role in technology by looking at your magazine?

You can say that if I have a problem with your covers, then I probably shouldn’t read GQ, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Cosmo, Glamour or Rolling Stone or just about any other magazine on the planet. Well, I don’t read those magazines, and I don’t recommend those publications to my students, many of whom are female, as an important source of technology knowledge regarding trends and culture. You’re better than this. You don’t need to treat women in this light to sell magazines. You have the power to influence the ways that women envision their roles with technology. Instead, you’re not helping. Like Jon Stewart said (stealing his quote criticizing the now defunct TV show Crossfire), “You’re hurting America.”

So, I’m breaking up with you. As much as it pains me, really, deeply pains me, I can no longer stick around for this abuse. Had this been an isolated incident, a clever and provocative way to introduce an article, I might be able to forgive you and move on. But how many chances do I have to give you before you grow up? Or before I wise up? I’ve got the kids to think about…I’m doing this for them.

I still love you. I think I need you, and I’m not sure I can live without you. But you left me with no choice.

In sadness,
Cindy

Update 11/11/10: Chris Anderson, Editor of Wired, has taken the time to respond to this post. See his comments and my response in the Comments section. Now, we have taken the conversation to email, in which he has graciously offered to listen to ideas for improving the coverage of women in Wired. I am encouraged by his prompt response and this offer. If you have any suggestions for ways in which women can be more favorably covered in the pages of Wired, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email clroyal [at] gmail.com. Let’s use this as an opportunity to influence positive change.

11/11/10: BTW, I am approving comments on this post to keep things civil. So for the record, so far, I have approved all comments except for three, because of inappropriate language (like really mean name calling) or overt stupidity. It’s fine if you don’t agree with me, but I won’t be responding to most individual points. I appreciate the discourse that has been created around this topic.

And, one final point of clarification. By “breaking up” with Wired, my intent was to not renew my subscription and severely curtail my enthusiastic endorsement of Wired to students and others who attend presentations or just ask in general. Sometimes I describe my love/hate relationship with Wired to students, and I shouldn’t have to do that. When you describe a relationship with a person as love/hate, it is typically dysfunctional, and I have no room for that in my life.

11/12/10 Update: I did a Poynter chat on the topic today, joined by Nancy Miller the editor who worked on the tissue engineering image and story, and Rachel Sklar, editor at Mediaite. Click the link to replay the chat.

This post has now been reprinted at MsMagazine.com and Mediaite, with coverage and/or links to it on the Washington Post Blog, Nieman Journalism Lab, Huffington Post, All Things D and Slash Gear. And it was included as Ad Age’s Best Writing of the Week. The post received overwhelmingly favorable response, and even those who dissented were mostly civil, except for the comments on Huffington Post, which makes me wonder if those readers actually clicked through to read the entire article. I am extremely grateful for the discourse created around this topic.

283 thoughts on “An Open Letter to Wired Magazine

  1. Anton says:

    Hey everyone, relax! What’s the big deal about it? Wise up.

    OK, I realize you don’t like the coverpic because theoretically it’s been put there to pleasure men for whom the appearance is more important than what’s inside. But wait, don’t you step into the same puddle by judging Wired by its cover?

  2. AJ says:

    great post, really nicely done.

  3. Wei Wang says:

    A generally well-edited magazine may feel unfair towards fans’ abandonement: “I made so much good and you break up with me over one thing?” As you explained well that it was not one time but many times, and these many times already reflected enough the lack of imagination and independent opinion – somethings a creative industrial should have or learn. It’s not good enough if you just take the conventional, at the very least, try to distinguish bad taste conventional from good. There are ways presenting just female body with no face, more interetingly, in better taste and give real contribution to the title. I epecially salute to your “Well, I don’t read those magazines, and I don’t recommend those publications to my students”, I mean there are not enough acknowledgement – these magazines are money driven opportunists, feed the public with what they think the public wants which is not even what they want. It’s ok if they drain off their own heart in months after months of fashion changes, but they are making a huge impact on the quality of women’s lives. China, where I live, it only takes us 15 years to catch up that fashion train(biggest luxury consumption in the world),while all the other real good values of the west are all remain unheard of. To criticize the magazine, is to remind the people working and living their lives there, what it means to be in journalism, in fahion, in creativity, in technology-advancement? I agree, I would say just the same to Wired:” You are better than this.”

  4. Valentin says:

    Really? Why are we driven to sexually charged images in every aspect of our life? Role of women in tech and their portrayal on the cover of Wired magazine. Form of Wired cover vs. thought provoking content.

    And THIS was the deal-breaker for you? Here is the news flash for you- our own existence and evolution of only ALL species of animals (except protozoa) is driven by sex. Is it really so surprising for a smart person like you to notice that the fundamentals of our behavior are more or less explicitly shaped by sex drive? Learn some biology, combine with psychology and sociology, throw in some anthropology and you WILL see how absurd is your rant… Grow up and brush up on your science for change!

    Wired IS cutting edge, intelligent and worth respect for what they do in these times, including the choice and quality of the covers.

  5. Cindy Royal says:

    Chris,

    Thank you for responding to my post. I am a great admirer of your work and discuss Free and The Long Tail as regular parts of my courses. Until now, I regularly recommended Wired as an important source of technology information to my students, as well as in other presentations that I am asked to give. Basically, “Reading Wired” has been the first point on just about any of my presentations on the slide titled “Keeping Up with Technology Trends.”

    As a professor in a journalism program, I certainly understand your challenges in selling magazines. However, it’s the pattern that has emerged that’s troublesome to me. Any one of the items I mentioned in isolation wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t say that when you put women on the cover, it should ONLY be for serious profiles. But it would be nice if you dealt seriously with women occasionally. And, while I know it is difficult to find women in tech for covers or other coverage, you don’t have to objectify them or use them humorously almost every time you do manage to figure out a way to cover them.

    The article on tissue engineering took the breast reconstruction angle, which was an important part. But it wasn’t just about breast augmentation. It was also about the general health benefits that might be advanced from this research, according to the quote on the cover that probably no one read, “enhance the future of medicine.” You knew when you put a zoomed-in, headless pair of breasts on the cover you were going to get attention (both negative and positive). You made that particular choice knowing the magazine’s history with depicting women on the cover and inside the magazine, and you did it anyway.

    Your covers say a lot about what’s inside your magazine. And the pattern that I see that has emerged is that women are only valuable in tech as sex objects. If I didn’t think Wired was an important source of information about the culture of technology, I wouldn’t be bothered with this criticism. I wouldn’t care. But, as I said, I feel that you have the power to influence that culture, and you don’t seem interested in helping in this area.

    I’ll be happy to make some recommendations for women you should cover, but I did that in 2005, with 0 result. I don’t have time to do busy work for your organization, if it’s going to be ignored. It’s your job to seek out balanced coverage if you think it’s important to the topics you are covering. At least that’s what we teach in J-school.

    My interest in influencing the culture of technology comes from more than a decade teaching Web design and other online media courses, in classes that have a strong female representation. I see how women respond to and eventually love using technology and move into tech fields, when it is presented to them in a way that is meaningful and in a communications context. I just can’t continue to, in good conscience, recommend Wired to my students, when you continue to reinforce the stereotypes that I am trying to refute.

    I have received mostly positive responses to the article, on Twitter, Facebook and in comments on the post, and I appreciate anyone that has taken the time to make their views known on this topic.

    Cindy Royal

  6. Josh Romero says:

    I actually take greater issue with the art-direction of the article itself. One small graphic illustration, but 2 full pages devoted to a nude model who presumably hasn’t had her tissue engineered. The cover is so stylized and oddly cropped, it looks more like a but from the distance- but I think Wired would argue they were being bold and brave. Also take note that the breasts feature was the only one this month written by a female writer.

  7. Jess says:

    Hi Chris,

    I can think of a few.

    Helen Greiner, iRobot
    Limor Fried, Adafruit electronics
    Robin Chase, Zipcar
    Shafrira Goldwasser, RSA
    Shari Steele, EFF
    Natalie Jeremijenko, social robotics
    Mary Lou Jepsen, OLPC and Pixel Qi

    Thanks, Jess

  8. Cindy: What message are women sending now? it’s more complicated than just one, and it evolves every decade. We do know when something diminishes our value, sidelines us from tech and creative power, and reverts to a 1960 – 70s sex object power. This cover reminds us that Wired isn’t catering to women. I wonder about the demographic mix of the readership? and if Wired thinks that a primarily all-men POV is desirable, healthy, balanced, or sustainable?

    Chris Anderson says rather defensely (Martha didn’t sell well, no good women) he wants help. Since the Wired magazine seems to be entirely run by men, let half of the magazine covers be selected by all-women juries. and see who’s covers sell more or if it changes the demographics of the readership. ok, maybe Chris doesnt really want help? it could be he thinks its just fine as it is. the only way to become more balanced and open is to be more balanced and open.

    Or maybe we expected too much, and thought Wired shone a bright light on the future when at least culturally, they are strictly rearview mirror.

    thanks for the excellent commentary, Cindy. here’s a slidedeck that echoes your thinking.
    Why Wired Loves the Ladies http://slidesha.re/bVgqX0

    best,
    Cindy @urbanverse

  9. Larisa says:

    Very well put and thoughtful response. I too was put off by this cover.

    Most of those disagreeing here are rehashing arguments so much that it seems like they haven’t read your piece but are responding to some fantasy stereotyped response.

    As you say, clearly, the issue is that the vast majority of women on the cover appear to be there solely because of their bodies (or conformity with stereotypes of women). It’s not that no men ever appear on the cover with “come-hither” expressions (or naked/in sexualized images, though I can’t remember many of those), but that men do so among a variety of men on the cover for other reasons.

    the “sex sells” argument is especially silly. First, if market logic is the only thing going on, then if there is another kind of magazine that sells more than Wired, maybe Wired should stop being a tech mag and start being that kind of magazine. But no, Wired has to make decisions about what’s part of Wired all the time, and they can’t be only market decisions otherwise the content wouldn’t matter at all. So if Wired has to make decisions anyway, they might as well include what kind of audience and what kind of message they want to send.

    And the response from Wired appears well-meaning but also pretty standard in putting the responsibility away from themselves. Putting their money where their mouth is and hiring someone whose job it is do this, or assigning writers & editors to the task, would make more sense.

  10. Kevin says:

    I’ve been a Wired subscriber almost from the first issue — I generally read it cover to cover — and I found the cover kind of embarrassing. When I put the this issue down, I tend to place it face-down. Bummer.

    The bigger issue, though, is that you send your students to Wired to get tech news. Wired is pretty much Popular Science with better layout. Every story is a puff-piece about how this company solving this problem is going to completely change the world[*], and there’s pretty much never any followup. Ever.

    Wired has predicted 97 of the last 11 big things. No, make that five big things.

    Now, I obviously think that Wired is an amusing part of a balanced diet of tech publications, but I sure wouldn’t send folks there first as an introduction. They’d end up with whiplash — “But wait, last month you said that crowdsourcing was the most important idea of the last century, and this month it’s applications instead of the web!?”

    [*] The only notable exception to this puff-piece policy was the article on craigslist, which is a company that does things in a completely new way, really has changed the way we live, and has had a serious economic impact; for some reason Wired’s writer really seemed to hate on that. That’s a shame ’cause this organization has been more successful than most of the companies that the magazine has so breathlessly (and uncritically) promoted.

  11. Kat says:

    I know how you feel, but in the end Wired is just a business, they know that naked women on a cover will get them moving from the stands. I hope your open letter will get them to reconsider, but they’re not a academic journal, they’re looking to sell ads and get to more readers. Looking sexist probably isn’t much of a concern.

  12. C. Koerner says:

    If students get their tech news from Wired, they’re about 3 months behind everyone else. Teach your students how to grab a few choice RSS feeds and use some comparative analysis to the sources to define what is up-and-coming. Wired is tired.

  13. M. Mosher says:

    I’ve broken up with Wired years ago, over the naked ex porn-star covered in diamonds cover (2nd top left thumbnail). I am sure you could come up with a clever tie-in there too. Advances in synthetic diamond growth = hot blonde with large fake boobs with Swarowski crystals glued on them – right Chris?

    Give us a break, Wired. Soft porn is soft porn, no matter what spin you put on it. That photo does not illustrate breast tissue reconstruction as you are trying to convince us.

  14. Maria says:

    I have to agree with everything Cindy said. Seriously, WHY BOOBS? It’s obviously the old “sex sells” excuse. The way this image is used is offensive.

    When will they start putting beefcake parts on the cover?

  15. Laura says:

    Chris,
    Not sure why you’d take a risk on Martha but not Carol. However, by saying you *did* take a risk with her, you negate some of the argument that you use tests on covers to see what works.
    It is a chicken and egg situation, so why not break that loop with a decision from leadership (you) that you will start including more accomplished women and people of color on your covers that include humans?
    You may not sell as well the initial effort, but I don’t think even you could predict what future issues would sell if Wired became a magazine people know as providing a more balanced depiction of the diversity in tech, reflecting more closely the actual demographics.
    Glad you posted this Cindy, and got the discussion going.
    Laura

  16. Pingback: Wired « Quasi.dot
  17. Jonathan says:

    The Cover: Cindy Royal

    The Story: “Influencing the Culture of Technology: The ways we get heard and the impact of our chosen outlets.”

  18. jane stevens says:

    It’s interesting that “Sex sells” popped up more than once in this thread. Depends on the sex, doesn’t it? So, even “sex sells” defines “sex” as a disembodied female part. Gotta say, to a lot of folks, sex isn’t female breasts. Here’s a funny story that illustrates how so many men are unconscious about the decisions they make on how women are depicted in the media: A Washington Post editor was showing me a drawing he’d asked the graphics department to do to illustrate a science article about prehistoric humans. The drawing pictured a man and a woman. They were outside in an open space, facing each other, and crouching over something (food, a tiny fire?) that lay between them on the ground. The man was bundled up in animal furs. The woman was naked from the waist up. I asked: “Isn’t she cold?” The editor looked at the drawing with new eyes, blushed, and blurted out: “My god, I didn’t notice. I’ll have the artist put some furs on her, too.”

  19. toenolla says:

    Leah Beuchley, cover story. Her work is finding new ways to engage women in DIY tech and, frankly, it’s just kind of rad.

    “Accomplishments in self-promotion”. HORK.

    Doing your own PR is a big deal and I applaud anyone who manages it, but reporting on self-promotion is a major journalistic gray area. Also, applauding women for their self-promotional skills instead of their actual accomplishments is SO beauty pageant.

  20. Chris says:

    The Julia Allison cover & story was what made me stop subscribing to Wired. Not only a terrible cover, but an incredibly boring & navel gazing article that served no real purpose but to promote someone I could not care less about.

    Wired used to be great. Not so much anymore.

  21. Kristi Smith says:

    Cindy- What a great letter! As a student in one of your web design classes I can attest to your support of Wired. You often used it to provide examples in class on how it is done right. As woman now working in the tech industry, I see powerful and intelligent women in leadership and executive roles not just in my company but others throughout the industry. I am also an avid subscriber to Wired based on your recommendation. It make me happy to see the editors responding to you and hopefully they truly take action this time and begin showing women in a positive light more often.

    Thank you for your letter!

  22. tim says:

    While I sympathize with the sentiment of your post, I think there’s a disparity between your expectations of Wired magazine and reality. Wired’s patina of respectability has been wearing thin for a long time. Say what you will about its early days, that magazine no longer exists. The modern Wired is a sensationalist consumer-tech rag with the occasional glimmer of insight and prescience.

    Arguing they’re obligated to hold themselves to your moderately puritanical, dead-and-gone “Wired” standard at the expense of selling magazines is unproductive. Any concessions made to your criticism will be anchored by the bottom line — the bottom line of a magazine which caters to a very male-dominated consumer-tech culture. I’d love to hope for more from Wired, a brand which still carries weight, but their slide into irrelevance shows no signs of slowing.

  23. Rosemary Hook says:

    The Editor’s response is defensive. If I understood him correctly, he’s actually trying to justify it by saying it’s “breast tissue engineering” instead of just “tissue engineering.”

    Tomato or /toh-mah-to/

    I would say that before you give them any “suggestions,” that they offer to pay you for your consultation time. There are enough people doing too much free work for companies already.

    The breasts weren’t “up and comers” and they still made it on the front over. But here’s the real question — whose doing the photography for this magazine? Why would they take a personality like Martha Stewart and position her as though she’s selling drapes on a tech magazine? Wake up WIRED. If you can’t sell a female mega media mogul to an intelligent audience, then it’s not an intelligent audience you’re targeting.

    Whew, glad I got that off my up and coming chest!

  24. Karl says:

    I have he-boobies that look startlingly similar to the photo. How to you know it is not a man?

  25. lilly says:

    When I was a kid, I knew that technology and culture was my constant fascination and I dreamed of having Chris Anderson’s job. Yup, being editor of wired was the nerdy dream job of my 17-year old school news editor / web hacker self. I didn’t know about libertarianism then, I didn’t get that the technology isn’t always just marching us forward into awesome. I loved all the crazy possibilities Wired covered. I even subscribed.

    As the magazine mainstreamed around 2003 or so, it became clear it was becoming Details for gadget boys. Chris Anderson, cover sales doesn’t explain the constant use of japanese school girls and lady models as graphical elements in back pages. I vividly remember seeing the synthetic diamond lady cover on the newsstands and thinking, “screw this wired, I’m done with you.”

  26. Caitlin says:

    I still don’t understand why people are saying this cover is sexually charged. Yes, it’s a picture of cleavage but it’s a rather abstract one. I don’t find it sexual or erotic in the slightest. Are Americans just prudes?

    Also, it’s not an article on “tech and industrial design and global warming”. It’s an article on breast tissue engineering. I didn’t find the article that interesting personally but the image is certainly editorially justified.

    Could Wired do a better job of promoting women, especially women in tech? Almost certainly and yes, I’d like to see it. But I’m not sure that focusing on cover art is the answer, given that the covers are usually conceptual and rarely feature people at all (of either gender).

  27. Caitlin says:

    @jane stevens Great story about the cavewoman art!

  28. Louise says:

    @janestevens – this is a great example of the male heteronormative skew that so many teck/geek publications – and entertainment – take. I’m amused by this, as I know many gay male tech geeks, and they find these covers, at best, boring. At worst, they agree with Cindy’s take on the bias.

    The tech/geek world is large and varied – embrace it! We all have potential disposable income, and a thirst for tech commentary.

  29. James says:

    Great commentary, Cindy. Spot on. Wired is in the Maxim category of gadget coverage, don’t go there for actual important stories, tech or info. The breast tissue engineering article actually surprised me for it’s content and how well written it was.

    Sex sells… but to whom? People who want to read about science and technology advances? Really?

  30. Chris asked for suggestions of women to put on the cover. Here’s a list of women we wrote about for Ada Lovelace Day last year.

    http://findingada.com/list/

    Thanks for asking.

  31. Darren says:

    There seems to be an incredible amount of naivete about the publishing industry and consumer marketing in this comment thread. Picking on “Wired” for an occasionally provocative cover is like blaming Costa Rica for climate change. They do contribute, but they’re better than most.

    Have the commmenters in this thread not looked at the dozens of magazines produced by and for women? One issue of “Cosmopolitan” inflicts greater crimes of sexism than the entire catalog of “Wired”. Your collective rage feels rather displaced.

    Finally, the argument that “sex sells” is an entirely legitimate one. It’s applied to every corner of our culture. Why? Because it’s effective.

  32. Bob Calder says:

    I dropped my subscription when the approach and content got stale after Negroponet left, then started up again a couple of years ago when I realized it was good again. I’m more sensitive to the level of snark and I’m glad it dropped.

    I had my students read both Wired articles on Newmark just last week. He’s an anti-MarthaStewart and I expect if stories on both were in an issue and she won, I might shed a few tears on principle.

  33. JFS says:

    Chris, here are about 50 suggestions for women who have done amazing things in technology: http://www.ncwit.org/heroes.

    These are just women who’ve been entrepreneurial. There are many, many more who do research, work inside large tech companies, or influence our lives in countless ways that we don’t know about in part because they don’t seek fame or self-promote. (Ask Clay Shirky about that.)

    I see your point that you don’t have a magazine to publish unless your covers can sell, but also agree with Cindy that you have, if not a responsibility, then at least an opportunity, to influence the public’s perception of women in tech.

    Like other women readers of Wired, I don’t subscribe to your magazine for the hairstyling tips or advice on how to please my man; I read it because you write so well about the intersection of technology with pop culture, politics, health, entertainment … technology is the BACKBONE of our lives and you capture this in meaningful ways, month after month. Please, just don’t make me embarrassed to be reading Wired “for the articles.”

  34. Carol Gallo says:

    Do a piece on Ory Okolloh. She’s a total rock star. She speaks at things like TED and PopTech all the time. All about using tech, and the open source software she developed, to facilitate emergency response and social activism. She’d make a great story. I know people would pick up the magazine even if they never heard of her. (http://www.cp-africa.com/2010/08/24/cnn-african-voices-spotlight-ory-okolloh-cofounder-ushahidi/)

  35. Cindy Royal says:

    Hi Kristi,
    Thank you so much for your comment. I love to hear from former students, and I realize the responsibility I have when making recommendations in class. If nothing else, this at least sheds some light on the topic for the moment, and hopefully begins to influence some change. Congrats to you on your career. I’d love to hear more about it! Email me when you have a chance.

  36. Carol Gallo says:

    Darren. Agree totally about Cosmo. But just because something is effective doesn’t mean that everyone should roll over and accept it. There are plenty of efficient, effective things that are still wrong.

  37. I don’t read Wired often and I didn’t read this issue either. However, I have no issues with the cover or it’s presentation of women. In fact, I think that the “problem” may actually be in the mind of the viewers rather than in the mind of the magazine, so to speak.

    Yeah, boobs were probably chosen because they would sell magazines but women too have an interest in their own anatomy. I don’t know how many fashion and “women’s” magazines I’ve seen on shelves selling better ways to enhance this or that with boobs being right up at the top of the heap.

    And as far as the sensationalism of the story goes, there really isn’t any. The story which the cover is referring to is about tissue augmentation which would naturally encompass breast tissue augmentation. Unfortunate as it may be, plastic surgery is a multi-billion dollar business and it’s not going away. Technology is making that surgery easier, cheaper, safer, and more popular and Wired would have been remiss to ignore the connection.

    Could they have chose a different cover? Yes. Would it have sold as many copies? Probably not. Would it have galvanized the two warring parties? No.

    And after all, isn’t the exchange of information about getting polarized parties excited enough to continue the discourse?

    To “break up” with a publication (or any media outlet) because of a cover graphic (or even a history of cover graphics) is ridiculous unless those graphics push the limits of decency. I would argue that Cosmo has done that more times than Wired. Heck, National Geographic has probably done that more times than Wired.

  38. Greg says:

    I consider female readers of Wired magazine bold, self-confident individuals who are comfortable in their own skin. In the case of this cover, with the tag line, “Who needs implants?” scrawled across a pair of photo-shopped breasts suggests to me that Wired is implying that natural actually isn’t good enough.

    “Enhancing medicine” is one thing, augmenting aesthetics to boost self-esteem in an already over-sexualized climate is another.

    I’m eagerly awaiting the article addressing the pressures women face in their respective realms and how to succeed and be empowered. You know, how to dress, what surgery will land your next job etc… *Sarcasm*

    A poor, cheap call for this issue, imo. Wired, I thought you were better than this.

  39. Hector says:

    Damn – looks like VICE Mag is pissed about Wired ripping their cover off
    http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2010/11/11/wired-is-biting-our-shit/

  40. Nofunrich says:

    Every month I look forward to my car mags, and Wired. My girls (11 & 8) enjoy looking at the cool cars in the car mags. I’ve been introducing technology to them using Wired. This issue was immediately turned face down and placed in my office. The “sexification” is bad enough on television, but parental control takes care of that. I am hopeful I don’t have to exercise parental control for my wired subscription.

    I, too, would like to see more women showcased so my daughters can see that not just the guys are geeks.

  41. “We’re just giving people what they want to sell” is the same lame, pathetic excuse used by all sorts of media, old and new, to justify reinforcing bad stereotypes. If Wired actually reported on cutting edge tech instead of being a flavor-of-the-month magazine, they wouldn’t have to worry about readership.

  42. fernando says:

    Let’s face it and be real. Wireds male readers comprise a significant majority of their readers. If all their female readers cancelled their subscription, and they published more covers like this one, they could attract more males than all the females they would ever lose.

    Furthermore men are visually driven. Sure, there might be some good articles about strong smart women but really, its only the visual appeal that drives male readers.

    Like it or not this does work. If you want a magazine that promotes women’s academic achievements etc… then look elsewhere.

    Get real.

  43. Megan Kamerick says:

    Cindy

    Thank you for an insightful critique. This issue needs to be addressed loudly and often, especially if we want to ensure that the emerging media landscape doesn’t look like the old media landscape — predominantly male, predominantly white, etc.

    Megan Kamerick
    President, Journalism & Women Symposium

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