Can I represent gender equality in a "masculine" theme?

This week I was intrigued by the study of a news room run by women. The study prompted me to think about what responsibilities I have as a lady in media. Currently I work as a designer for a local magazine Austere in which all our leadership is female and in a staff of 31, 22 of us are women. As a designer I am one of the last people to see the magazine before it is published and usually make final choices about what photo shoots we use and how we phrase ourselves.
I feel strongly that despite our small readership I have a responsibility to represent both gender and racial equality in our work. Recently the owners of the magazine decided that in order to bring more men into our audience we would feature a more masculine aesthetic in our upcoming issue, and exclusively write about men in our feature stories.
While everyone we have chosen to write about is undoubtably an interesting or inspiring individual and and all of our fashion and life articles are turning out gorgeous and interesting, something about this business is making me uneasy. I consider the magazines that inspire us are sometimes more directed towards men, for example Monster Children, an Australian skate magazine. I hesitate to pull this card on people whose style and creativity I admire, sometimes I see articles and features which lean towards sexualizing women in a way that I don't think is necessary for the aesthetic of the magazine and while These magazines are interesting and creative but I don't really see a positive gender stance.
This is not to stay that a publication has a responsibility to take a stance on gender issues or that it is inherently wrong to show some boob, but in many ways I feel that in the cause of our magazine, a magazine produced by intelligent and creative women we have a responsibility to represent women with a focus on gender equality.
So can we do this if we are making an issue of our magazine that features men. I think the answer is yes, but it is also a challenge. I think that we have already made a step in the right direction, all the men we have chosen to feature are talented and respectable people, and the aesthetic that we are creating while maybe masculine is not inherently male, our design strictly feature men, and we only are choosing content that shows women in the same "masculine" setting and framing as the men shown.
I don't think that I will really know if we are successful in this until it has been finished and I hope that cultural norms don't hold me back from presenting all people in my work in an empowering light.