A different picture of Africa

It has to be one of the more bizarre ventures—publishing a glamorous women's magazine in the world's 14th poorest country. Last November that's exactly what happened with the launch of Beauty Zambia.

Zambia is home to 10 million people—many with zero income, a lack of clean water, and periods of hunger. Poverty is real, yet every month Beauty Zambia is a glossy riot of colour, fashion, and features. How can this be?

Even in a country like Zambia there are new cultural identities forming. Stereotypes of Africa include poverty, war, famine, disease, or exotic wildlife—not perhaps a place of fashion models, professional workers, nightclubs, fancy restaurants, cell-phones, and rush hour streets at near gridlock with imported Japanese cars.

This highlife is experienced by a lucky few, in contrast to others on lower incomes with greater social problems. Publishers in Western countries rarely consider the tensions such diverse audiences create.

Criticisms of women's media include that it keeps women in subordinate positions, provides incorrect or inadequate health information, …