These women’s magazines tackle ‘power’ and how to attain it

Two women’s magazines claim to be focusing on power in their current issues — who has got it and how those who don’t have it can get it.

Condé Nast’s Glamour boasts that its November issue is “powered by women” and that “every word, every photo” in the issue was picked by women.

Hearst’s Marie Claire presents its annual “Power Issue” where it spotlights 50 women, it says, who are “changing the world right now.”

For our money, Marie Claire Editor-in-Chief Anne Fulenwider does a better job in speaking truth to power.

Glamour Editor-in-Chief Cindi Leive, who is stepping down at the end of the year, has, for one of her last efforts, published one of her weaker efforts. We couldn’t tell the difference between it and October’s issue — save for a few less-than-cute items, like asking the editors of several international Glamour titles what they think of women.

And what is up with all those exclamation points?! Was that the not-so-subliminal message Leive was trying to convey?

On nearly each of the 158 pages, whether introducing coats!, writing about petite clothes!, styling hair! or learning about a fragrance tip in France! — the women who put together this issue seem like a bunch of screamers.

Calm down, ladies, we get your point. Don’t get us wrong — the issue covers all the bases of a women’s magazine: how to fight for a raise, the truth about orgasms, a story or two about successful women and great fashion photos.

But this issue is not special and does not live up to the hype of being “powered by women.”

Marie Claire has much more meaty stories on more cutting-edge women. We also like the writing in MC better. Glamour decided its two lengthy features — on UN representative Nikki Haley and cover girl Zendaya — would be Q&As. MC’s feature on Mila Kunis is better.

MC’s fashion spreads, with their large photos, are also superior to Glamour’s. The magazine gets its point across very clearly — without resorting to exclamation points.

Opioids receive the full treatment

We’ll give The New Yorker credit for its reporting but, man, did it depress us.

This week, David Remnick’s mag dedicates 26 pages to the opioid crisis — 10 of which include photos of Montgomery, Ohio, an area so ravaged by the crisis that its morgues are said to be out of room because of opioid-related deaths.

Patrick Radden Keefe’s reporting takes us inside the rise of OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma and its now billionaire founders, the Sackler family.

Keefe tells how Purdue employed “aggressive methods” to promote drug sales while ignoring and downplaying the risks — even as they became more apparent.

The piece ends hauntingly with the tale of “Jeff,” a recovering painkiller addict who also works as a tradesman. One house he frequently worked on belonged to a member of the Sackler family.

“I couldn’t tell you how many times I was on that property, sitting in a work truck, snorting a pill,” Jeff said.

We’d like to thank Time magazine for not depressing us, but they did put us to sleep.

This week’s cover tackles the so-called “Goddess Myth” affecting new and expectant mothers. In eight pages, the mag goes over what is already covered endlessly in blogs and chatrooms — that mothers feel harshly judged over decisions ranging from how to deliver and whether or not to breast-feed.

Is the “Goddess Myth” a thing? Certainly. But perhaps a more timely use of cover space would have been US Senate candidate Roy Moore, who is expected to take Jeff Sessions’ vacated Senate seat.

Nash Jenkins and Philip Elliott write how Moore, backed by Stephen Bannon, represents a growing rift in the GOP.