18 Working Woman Weekends

1987. Seems like yesterday. The children were both graduated and gone. I was having empty-nest syndrome big time. I thought I would die. I don't think I gave a hoot about having my week-ends free, because I was just thrilled to have a new job that I loved as Head of the Veterinary Medicine Library at Ohio State. Other women obviously need some help with their week-ends, and thus this magazine. John Stoltenberg, the editor, wrote in the Winter 1987 Premier Issue (don't you love a guy telling us about how to live our week-ends?):

A new weekends life-style is emerging in this country--and it promises to enrich the lives of many people who have made serious commitments to their careers. . . Weekends was conceived in part because effective R & R and getaways worthy of the name call for just as much commitment and purposefulness as a successful business deal. Wonderful weekends don't just happen; smart career people decide to make them happen. . . [Husbands and wives] joint commitment to their careers has forged a new sense of partnership--a new collegiality--that has completely transformed their expectations of weekends.

Is it only me? Or does this guy sound just a bit condescending, like women couldn't battle a week-end respite without some help? So I googled John. Turns out he is a white male, self-described as a gay feminist and has written two books on the topic, Refusing To Be A Man and The End Of Manhood. He has an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary, so he also has written, not unfavorably, on Promise Keepers, a Christian men's group.

Weekends offers snippets on short trips, vehicles, outings, relationships with family members, a celebrity bio (Diane Sawyer), winter holiday get-a-ways, romantic places, entertaining and recipes, and some health tips. There is nothing here that wasn't covered in the supermarket magazines Family Circle and Woman's Day of 17 years ago.

According to Ulrich's, Weekends ceased after a brief life, as a publication of Hal Publications. Working Woman had a fairly long run of 30 years, from 1972 to 2001. It incorporated (in 1997) Executive Female (0199-2880), which superseded (1978-1979) Executive Female Digest (0160-8134).

Working Woman Weekends
Winter 1987, Premier Issue, Supplement to Working Woman (0145-5761)
ISSN: (na)
Subject: Women--Lifestyle
Status: Ceased 198?
Working Woman/McCall's Group
342 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10172
Editor: John Stoltenberg
Working Woman Editor-in-Chief: Anne Mollegen Smith
Publisher: Carol Anderson Taber