Media: The fickled Malaysian women ('s weekly).

In my usual scour for news on what ticks Malaysians and what tickles them, I picked up this month's Women's Weekly. Though not a magazine of my usual choice and definitely not my cup of reading tea, I discovered something strange in this issue which is quite... amusing.

On the cover of the magazine, the blurb runs "How to stop the other woman stealing your man!", brings you to the full article on page 129 about Tess Stimson who published a book called 'Beat the bitch' based on a true story from personal experience. Obviously Tess had been the bitch and upon tasting her own medicine, she decided to save womenkind from self destruction by publishing a book.

So, I get it. The fairer sex, being all girl and womenhood power obviously see the need to raise the red flag to protect one another from future heart breaks, caused... not by her man (okay, maybe partially), but (mostly) by the bitch.

Flip couple of pages later on 142, you will discover a 10-page spread on 10 married men with a headline that ran across the page saying "Who's the hunkiest hubby of all?" - The search is back for The Weekly's hunkiest hubby. Vote for your favourite finalist now and win! (emphasis and raised eyebrow mine). Hmm. Do you see the obvious irony? Or is it just... me?

So, I get a different message now. Girls just want to have fun, so voting for someone else's husband is just plain innocent, good clean fun which of course will never lead to you or anyone as a matter of fact being the bitch (refer to Tess' advocation). Oh, of course not! Don't be silly...

It wasn't a specific article that caught me by surprise. It's the entire magazine and how the content was planned and structured that caught my undivided attention. It is quite contradicting, no?

No wonder women are said to be from Venus. Actually, wherever she's from, she definitely isn't from the same planet of testosterones. First she said yes which means no which means yes which means no... These mixed messages, you see, are difficult for a Martian to decipher.