Letters to the Editor

• It's complicated

  [Read the article: Jezebels without a cause]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I read Jezebel everyday, more often than I read Salon. I understand that these women are targeting my demographic: single, childless, late 20's & early 30's women with middle to upper middle class incomes and too much education. But I've also found on Jezebel some of the most honest posts and discussions about sexuality, sexual assault, feminism, victimhood, politics, body image, consumerism, and racism. In an often brilliant way, the writers at Jezebel have a knack for combining these topics and for coming out on the other side with a crystallization of something that I was feeling but couldn't express. Truly, there is SO much that Broadsheet could get out of what Jezebel does. The first is to be a little less judgmental.

  So yes, I'm disappointed that Moe and Slut Machine didn't do a better job representing Jezebel and its readers. But what they, and Jezebel's other writers, are trying to do is complicated. They, and others, are using a new media to shift the way that women process, share and come to terms with their experiences, their society and their shared injustices; dismissing them as a "disgrace" is to completely misunderstand why so many women read Jezebel every day.

  I really think Anna said it best when she wrote:

  "These three women had the chance to have a fun, spirited discussion — or a serious talk; it remains unclear what the event was "supposed" to be — about issues like pop culture, politics, lifestyle choices, what it means to be a woman and/or a feminist, and the intersection of personal and professional responsibility. That chance was squandered. Some blame the format, or the participants, or generational differences, or alcohol, or the provocative subject matter, or unrealistic expectations, inarticulateness and lack of preparedness. I believe that everyone, however, can agree that the whole thing was a fucking shame."

  Get it? The "fucking shame" is not that Moe and SM got drunk and made jokes about date rape. The shame is that what Jezebel is really about didn't come through.

  Permalink Tuesday, July 8, 2008 03:49 PM