I wonder whether if you looked at the readership of all articles in, let's say, Time or Newsweek (I'm trying to think of pulications that don't seem to advertise specifically to one gender) you would find that women read a certain subset, and men another. If that's true, then you could presumably have a magazine for women focusing on those same subjects (and leaving out the subjects apparently uninteresting to women). However, I suspect that of the men and women picking up magazines which are not oriented specifically to men or women, they wil have such a diverse range of interests that there is no easily definable 'subset' of things women read vs. general interest vs. things men read. But it might be an interesting experiment.

Personally, as far as 'intelligent content for women' I read Real Simple. It's marketed predominantly at women, but has all kinds of fabulous things in like alternate uses for household products you have lying around anyway, road tests of perfumes based on smells you know you like, and recently a run-down of the best blogs in certain categories, like home improvement, the environment, beauty products etc. So yes, it does cover beauty stuff, but in a way that people who don't actually wear make-up can skip by and read the other stuff. It's surprisingly general, and I love it :-) There are even articles on cars. I like reading about cars. ;-)