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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I like the idea for the blog. I don't agree that it's a ghettoization, any more than any other separation of the news by subject or topic is. It's interesting to glance through. So's the rest of the news. I hope you don't retire the idea.
The pink, though? Seriously. Why is the site dressed up like a Shopaholic novel again?
This thing is really horrid, random, arbitrary, and uninteresting, as well as unnecessary. Also not at all funny.
I won't repeat what the (now) seven pages of mostly critique have said. But it seems that Salon is equating women's issues with women, whether they be Rockettes or geishas or various hollywood celebrities. Women's issues don't necessarily have women in the starring roles... C'mon Salon, I know you've taken women's studies 101 (haven't you?).
Why not take a more woman-centered approach to the important news of the day? Why no mention about Rosa Parks today and the important role women played in the civil rights movement? Military death tolls and women's lives? There seem to be hurricanes everywhere...how are they affecting women and how are women coping? A huge new law on bankruptcy and not a peep about the gender issues? Increases in the cost of energy...how are women going to heat their homes and keep them and their children warm this winter? I'm guessing we'll start paying attention after a few tenement fires this winter...
But instead of any of this, we get make-up commentary. We should have both, but the Broadsheet seems visibly absent of anything with heart and soul.
p.s. Do people know that Rebecca Traister talks on VH1 about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? This is the type of person Salon has on the payroll for "women's issues"??????
"Cheeky" "Broadsheets." Come on, Salon. If you really wanted to spotlight women's issues, you could do a heck of a lot better than "cheeky" "broadsheets." Hip, cute, and close to Pepto-Bismol in color does not a truly feminist blog make. A few cute puns are fine, but if that's all you're going to offer me (bonus mention of "catfights" for the ultimate in sexist style!), I'll be hitting my back button, thanks.
Seriously, what do Salon readers have against pink? Pink is a nice color. More than that, it's just a color. How can a color be sexist? Or, by itself, convey any real meaning other than to say, Hey, this is me, pink! Pink!
Do you guys get upset at those pink breast cancer ribbons as well?
... is what you should have called this stupid section if you had to have it at all. That would have been honest, after all you write "Sometimes those e-mails turned into stories, but often the item would be small enough that it wouldn't merit its own feature at Salon, either. Still, the staff comments -- hilarious, angry, shocked, pleased -- would zing back and forth by e-mail chain. Without realizing it, we'd begun our own internal blog," - fine, if your blog-envy is so bad you absolutely need another bloggy feature here, go for it*. Calling it a "women's blog" is just insulting.
Salon of all places should have more sense than to divide items along some outdated gender-lines. You have been the example I have pointed people to to show them that all of the US isn't sliding into some kind of mid-19th century paranoia.
If you had only called it "The fluff room" or "Editors waste time too" I could have been able to still cling to that hope.
It is one thing to proclaim that lipstick isn't anathema to feminism, quite another to equate women with fluff.
(*But a little perspective on things please: funny, weird, light-weight stuff is ok, as long as it doesn't drain resources from your *real* jobs - publishing high quality journalism.)
So offensive. So sexist. So wrong.
Please.
Just stop.
Another step away from the reason I subscribe, another area that excludes me.
What is it with salon lately ? its turning into Women's Day. If I needed sophomoric coy little articles on "empowering womyn ! girls can do anything !" then I head over to oxygen.
What patronising hackneyed rubbish. I look forward the section devoted to what men care about, I'm sure it will be full of insiteful articles on how to pull chicks.
I common with many others, unless you reverse this insulting chicklit trend I'm dumping my Salon subscription. I damn near did with the creation of this section.
Just looking at the the title again - "cheeky" - how precious. I wanna vomit.
Well, you've certainly made my decision about whether or not to renew my Premium subscription a little easier. Thanks!
What a worthless, insulting use of internet space this new blog is. The "Broadsheet"? Are you kidding me? Articles on makeup, the Rockettes (newsflash, Salon: many, many US companies don't offer maternity leave), and office catfighting?
Thanks, but no thanks.
HATE it.
I was relieved when the pretentious "Mothers Who Think" section was re-titled "Life"; now I'm faced with another "aren't we too cool" division of what should/could be the refuge of ALL thinking, funny, reality-based people.
At 55 I'm TIRED of artificial divisions, even well-intentioned ones; why did you feel the need to elevate office prattle to the level of a new Salon blog? Where is the man's blog?... Have I been reading the Daou Report and not realizing I was identifying with the male point of view?
And by the way --- "broad" is a term that carries plenty of baggage, and not of the "tough, independent woman" variety. Originally, it referred to prostitutes (as in Broad or Broadway street). In my part of the country it is an epithet.
HATE it.
Centerbeth, your post puzzles me. Of the item on the Rockettes, you wrote, "newsflash, Salon: many, many US companies don't offer maternity leave."
But what is your point? Didn't the item suggest that what's happening to the Rockettes may be indicative of larger cultural and economic forces? Are you saying that because many other women don't get maternity leave in the first place, it simply doesn't matter that the Rockettes lost their maternity leave? How does that make any sense? Would you have preferred no mention of it? How does that make any sense?
So, I wonder, can you please explain why you don't think it's worth nothing that the Rockettes were forced into signing a restrictive labor contract?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
