celebrity gossip, academic style

I’ve been distracted all day. Or at least ever since reading Molly Fischer’s recent piece in n+1, “So Many Feelings,” outlining the demise of the ladies’ magazine and the rise of what she terms the “ladyblog.” Sassy and Jane are dead; Cosmo and Glamour aren’t hip; Vogue is for people who don’t actually exist. In their place, we have now have Jezebel, The Hairpin and, more recently, XOJane and Rookie. I’m going to quote Fischer’s piece at length below, but here’s the gist: ladyblogs don’t grapple with serious issues. They’re either self-effacing and whimsical (The Hairpin) or working really hard to be P.C. (Jezebel) and thus evacuate the site of any real feminist or political work. Because these sites are neither radical nor unceasingly serious, they’re essentially spectacle and/or pablum for the (middle-class, educated) masses.

To wit:

The Hairpin was sort of about women, but really it was about editor Edith Zimmerman’s sensibility: internet-fluent and self-consciously eccentric, with a nostalgic streak for both childhood and history. There were photographs of brightly colored items organized by color, a list of “Things to Name Your Oregon Trail Family,” and a discussion of 17th-century dildo pranks. Creepy dolls were objects of ongoing fascination, and Steve Buscemi was included in a game of Fuck/Marry/Kill. This was cute performed for an audience that disliked Zooey Deschanel but still liked reading about eco-friendly cat bonnets. It was cute that was always also a joke about being cute, with hyperbole or alcohol or icky things thrown in to make sure everyone got the joke. Accompanying some posts were Zimmerman’s own shaky little line drawings of a dolphin, a birthday cake, a disembodied smile.

The Hairpin’s media criticism tended toward the observational, peculiar, and irrefutable. (In what must have been her most popular post of all time, Zimmerman presented “Women Laughing Alone With Salad,” a collection of stock photos, without commentary.) The exception was posts by Liz Colville, who at first sat below Zimmerman on the masthead. Seemingly there to legitimize The Hairpin’s status as a “women’s website,” Colville dealt straightforwardly with gender and politics; many of her posts wouldn’t have been out of place on early Jezebel. Last January, Colville posted “How Lady Magazines Fared in 2010,” an earnest breakdown of 2010 circulation figures and cover subjects for women’s magazines. “The data suggests that in a lot of cases women just aren’t getting what they want from a magazine,” she concluded. Her post appeared back-to-back with Zimmerman’s “Oo-ooh, Someone’s Mad at the New Yorker,” about a woman who was demanding a refund because the vast majority of the magazine’s writers were men. “Does this bother you?” Zimmerman wrote. “This doesn’t bother me. If you like a magazine, read it; if you don’t, don’t. Also, if you’re mad at a magazine, sounding like a total drag can’t be the best way to get what you want.” By January, Colville had left the website.

After this weird insinuation that Edith essentially offed Liz for being “too feminist,” the piece goes on to belittle other columnists and past and current Hairpin editors, segues into an overview of XOJane and Rookie, and concludes with the following:

My own mother went to college in the early ‘70s. She started a women’s resource center with a newsletter; it was called The Bimonthly Period. She retains a second-wave feminist’s fondness for the very deliberate use of the word “woman.” She is a doctor, though, and occasionally she says “lady” when discussing gynecological matters. (“Sometimes ladies need a few stitches after labor.”) The word allows a certain decorous remove from discomfort—it is a polite way to acknowledge the listener’s presumed squeamishness or embarrassment about anything particular to her sex.

On the ladyblogs, adult womanhood is a source of discomfort, and so when we write posts or comments, we tend to call ourselves ladies. We also might be tempted, at slightly braver moments, to call ourselves feminists. Indeed, each ladyblog’s approach appears intended to counter a particular brand of easy misogyny. Women are not mindless consumers, declares Jezebel; women are funny, proclaims The Hairpin.

But the ladyblogs are not feminist simply by virtue of offering women an alternative to traditional female media—feminist blogs are of a different genre, with a specific and explicitly political project. The ladyblogs are fundamentally mainstream general interest outlets, even if a façade of superiority to the mainstream (edginess, quirkiness, knowingness) constitutes part of their appeal. Neither Jezebel or the Hairpin concerns itself with the harder to articulate, more insidious expectations about women’s behavior. Neither knows how to write for and about women without almost embarrassing itself in its eagerness to please. Jezebel is too painstakingly inoffensive to hurt anyone’s feelings. The Hairpin is too charmingly self-effacing to take itself seriously, too tirelessly entertaining to ever bore a visitor. They bake pies with low-hanging fruit: they are helpful, agreeable, relatable, and above all likable.

Surely one can’t, and shouldn’t, strive to like and be liked all the time. But how else can one be? This is not a likable enough question for the ladyblogs to entertain. In the end, they tell us less about how to be than about how to belong, and they are better at this than Sassy ever was, because no place is better for performing inclusion than the internet. Readers write to The Hairpin’s advice columns in painful imitations of the house style. (“SO MANY FEELINGS.”) Commenters squeal over plans for real-life meet-ups in bars. (“I registered just so I could RSVP YES to this!”) The internet, it turned out, was a place to make people like you: the world’s biggest slumber party, and the best place to trade tokens of slumber party intimacy—makeup tips, girl crushes, endless inside jokes. The notion that women might share some fundamental experience and interests, a notion on which women’s websites would seem to depend—“sisterhood,” let’s call it—has curdled into BFF-ship.

I would strongly suggest reading the piece in its entirety (here’s the link one more time, go for it, I’ll be waiting). And full disclosure, my brother, Charles Petersen, is an editor for n+1, although he gave me no indication that this piece was in the pipeline. And, of course, I am a regular contributor to The Hairpin, and I am proud to associate its good name with my own. Which is precisely why I take such umbrage at this piece: Fischer’s critique of The Hairpin (and ladybloggers) not only applies to The Hairpin, but my own writing on The Hairpin, and, by extension, this blog.

I challenge Fischer’s argument on several levels, but the most crucial thing she gets wrong is perhaps the simplest. She suggests that feminism and fun are mutually exclusive, and that a site that makes room for eyeliner techniques doesn’t also have room to talk about women’s reproductive rights, historical (problematic, hilarious) representations of women, American Dolls, being a queer woman today, white wine, and (ahem) scandals of classic Hollywood.

The urge to delineate between “good” and “bad” feminisms has divided women for YEARS. Decades! The Porn Wars divided an entire generation of women against one another! YOU GUYS, THAT IS TOTALLY WHAT PATRIARCHY LOVES! Divide and conquer….. YOURSELVES! Jezebel vs. Hairpin, Second Wave Feminists vs. Third Wave Feminists, Feminists of Color vs. Feminists Not-of-Color. We just keep on thinking of ways to disagree with one another instead of uniting around the issues that make a difference in our material realities. Sometimes those issues are Capital Letter Big Issues like “Do I have the right to get an abortion?” or “Do I receive equal pay?”; sometimes they’re lower-case issues like “How do I negotiate the pleasure I take in non-feminist texts, like Twilight?” or “I like how my eyes look with make-up on; is that okay, and if so, can you teach me how to do it better?” It’s not that we shouldn’t talk about these things, but when we do, we should talk about them in a way that’s fair and

Some people like a solid dose of didactic, self-serious, in-your-face, militaristic feminism everyday. That’s what makes them feel energized to be a person in the world. Other people encounter issues that make them think about the place of feminism in our world EVERYDAY. Take a look at my life: I interact with 15-18 year old girls constantly. In the classroom, in the place where I live, while eating, while working out — I am constantly thinking about what feminism means to both myself and to these girls. Put differently, because I am a feminist, feminism inflects everything that I do, everything that I write, everything that I read. Sometimes my feminism manifests itself critically, sometimes it’s trying to work through my apathy, sometimes it’s disgusted, other times it feels proud, especially when I see things like the teens here organizing a male-and-female feminism group on their own accord. Because here’s one thing that feminism should never be: prescriptive. I don’t necessarily agree with women who see sex work as liberating, but I also don’t hate them, or tell them that they’re doing feminism wrong. Why? Because I still want them on my team, and want to continue the conversation, and talk about what each of thinks about how sex work functions within patriarchy. I don’t call them sluts, and they don’t tell me that all I want in life is happy f-ing sleepovers.

And that’s exactly what I feel Fischer is attempting to do. But I don’t need to prove it to you, because The Hairpin commenterati has done the work for me. (See the comment in their ever-growing entirety here). Ultimately, I’m less concerned with my own reaction to the piece and more interested in what the Hairpin readership has had to say in response, which demonstrates their particular awareness of the site, its balance between the (ostensibly) frivolous and the explicitly political, and the benefits of cultivating a commenting atmosphere that is inclusive (and not, crucially, without disagreement — it’s just that people aren’t being assholes when they don’t believe the exact same thing).

Here’s a sampling of my favorites, at once serious and hilarious….which, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down, doesn’t mean that they’re not also good, or smart, or political, or feminist.

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Come to think of it, I am getting sick of the hairpin being fun to read and the commenters being funny and welcoming.

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And yo, if you don’t catch any smart, important shit on this site, you ain’t readin’ it.

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That’s the thing. People, (ladies and dudes, or as that writer would prefer, MEN AND WOMEN) come to the Hairpin because the comments section is that unicorn of the internet: intelligent, funny, humane and most of all, civilised. The recent Bob and Eli thread is a perfect example. All the while I was reading the thread and and admiring people’s insight and perspicacity, and laughing at the funny stuff, I was thinking that on nearly any other site, no matter what its remit or readership, the civilised comment response to that letter would almost immediately be swamped by irrational fury, ad hominen attacks on other commenters, rampant misogyny, prejudice, racism etc etc etc. The Hairpin is a haven for commenters who are like real life friends. That’s why it’s great.

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Just because the writing can be a bit whimsical doesn’t mean it’s glib.

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Her last sentence:”The notion that women might share some fundamental experience and interests, a notion on which women’s websites would seem to depend—’sisterhood,’ let’s call it—has curdled into BFF-ship.”

I mean, I don’t even get why she thinks sisterhood would “curdle” if it becomes “BFF-ship.” Shouldn’t sisterhood encompass that, or does she have this imagined notion that “sisterhood” is adulterated if it’s not always unequivocally and expressly written with the intent to stick it to the patriarchy?

The Hairpin sincerely trying to connect with readers and commenters on a “hey friend” level sounds gravy to me. Just because she doesn’t like the tone of it doesn’t make it wrong-if you don’t like slumber parties where we drink Qream and listen to Robyn while talking about pertinent issues, then don’t come. But you’re still invited, anyway.

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Ladyblogs are a big enough ‘thing’ now to warrant a critical media eye and thinkpieces. Yay?

Regardless, ladyblogs were some of the first places where it was … cool to be a girl, again. A woman. A feminist. And not just because we were raised to believe we were equals and could do it all, but because we could be MORE than equals. The “silly” things we value and enjoy didn’t have to be silly at all. No need to pretend to like dude stuff, just to get dude approval. What do YOU actually like? From political to profane to pretty, baby, you can have whatever you like. Let’s talk about Roe and our reproductive rights, debunk the economic value of Newt’s proposed simplified tax code, have a chat about hair-pulling during sex and then let’s all make paper snowflakes, apply fake eyelashes and drink Qream, shall we? SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT ALL OF THOSE!

Ladyblogs also, I think, taught a lot of people about how to name yourself as a feminist and be okay with that. And they brought the language and knowledge of the LBGTQ community to the forefront. If only in vocab(cis-gender, transwhatever, hell, the idea of queer itself) but also so much more.

I get the concept of ladyblog as a likeable on-line slumber party, but what I don’t get is why that’s a bad thing. The readership and commentariat is self-selecting. And there are many places to go. If I choose to seek out the blogs that resemble me the most because that’s what I like…I fail to see the problem.

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I have so much gratitude to Jezebel and Hairpin, for reasons beyond makeup tips, girl crushes and endless inside jokes.

Both sites SHOWED me what a feminist is, what it means to be a positive, responsible person, what it means to command self-respect and self-confidence. Y’all called out Rich Santos’ bullshit and made me less willing to take that bullshit in real life. Jez and the Pin introduced me to LGBTQ issues, and to issues around race and privilege. AND all this in a fun, sometimes funny, but always approachable manner.

Thanks for the slumber party.

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I think there’s a point worth looking at there, but also not? It does get sort of disappointingly vapid in the “Friday Bargain Bin” posts or likewise sometimes. If I had to venture a guess, I would say it’s because the women reading this site *are* super-smart feminists who feel uncomfortable talking about lipstick and rompers in their real lives and here they are provided the space to talk about them with the implication being that it’s safe to do so without being judged as vapid (heh, I proved them wrong?), because it’s a defined “smart -lady blog”. That’s cool and I appreciate it, but I sometimes do feel like it can tip in mindless consumerism, especially when some of the more absurd things (like crazy high heels or rompers you can’t pee in without discomfort) are presented without commentary as to just how absurd they are and maybe we should look at *why* we like the things instead of snapping them up like magpies. <3 you, Edith & Jane et. al, and also aware that I can just not read what I don’t like, but I kind of wanted to speak up on this, because it’s been itching me for a while.