I think people are pointing and accusing others of stereotyping, when they are simply trying to appeal to their audience. A magazine generally has a central theme or interest. Usually, one sticks to that theme or interest, with perhaps a few articles that venture outside the lines.
When one has an idea for a magazine, there are two routes they can go: appeal to a general, broad audience, or specialize in smaller niche audience. A smart publisher would do research, surveys and demographic studies.
So when you have something like “Girl’s Life” which wants to be appeal to a broad spectrum of girls of a certain age range, they will do surveys to find out what girls are most interested in. This doesn’t mean every girl likes every topic in the magazine, nor that the magazine can or will include every topic that girls may be interested in. Of course when you try to be the most things to the most people, you end up very vanilla and generic. They may occasionally do a feature or a short blurb on a less popular topic - such as reviewing a new video game. But the core of their content is going to be broad appealing and limited depth.
On the flip side you have the niche magazines. So while something like Glamour aims to appeal to a large populations of several fashions, something like Gothic Beauty focuses on one style and fashion and the culture around it. They both are going to have make-up and fashion tips - though they will probably be wildly different from one another. And it would make about much sense to include an article found in Boy’s Life in Gothic Beauty, as it would in Girl’s Life.
There are also many magazines of a certain themes that don’t have a gender specific topic - but they do have a bias as to which gender is more likely to be interested in that magazine and they tend to slant that way. For example something like Guns & Ammo may have stories about women shooters and have an ad for a women’s concealed carry purse or handgun, most of the articles will be neutral (a review of a product) or have a slant towards their main audience, men. Likewise the advertisers will cater to the same demographic. You might find an ad for a new truck, but you most likely won’t find the new Oil of Olay ad. On the flip side, if I pick up a new scrapbooking magazine, I doubt I’ll see an ad for Skoal.
Does this mean some women don’t like shooting, and some men don’t like to scrapbook (or that some women don’t chew Skoal)? Of course not, but the magazines and advertisers are going to cater to the core audience. It is also why you won’t see an ad for Duct Tape in Girl’s Life, or the new Taylor Swift album in Gothic Beauty. Read the Advocate? You’re going to see gay friendly ads. Read Essence? You’re going to find make up and hair tips for African completions and hair types. Doesn’t mean they are stereotyping because they don’t show you how to best blend makeup for lighter skin tones. Play Boy is male centric, even though it’s not only men who like to look at nekkid women. I said before in another thread, pre-internet I would read Cosmo as it was a great place to find info on sex, even though I am not their core audience, none of their ads and almost none of their articles were of interest for me or written with me in mind. When I read Vampire Freaks, I want to read about KMFDM or Combichrist, or Aesthetic Perfection - not Jay-Z or Cold Play. (Just like I won’t find any of the before mentioned bands in Spin.)
OK - it’s late and I am probably rambling a bit - but I think I’ve given enough examples to make my point. When it comes to media, everyone has an audience they are catering to. They can make it very inclusive, or exclusive. You might call it stereotyping, I call it catering to your core general audience. Will that “typical” audience member represent everyone? No, but how could it? It still doesn’t preclude others from enjoying it.
