Opinion: An ode to ‘women’s pages’ everywhere
(CNN) — Scrolling through Instagram a few weeks ago, a post from The Lily stopped us in our tracks. After nearly six years, The Washington Post’s hub for gender and identity coverage — which featured everything from stories by staff writer Caroline Kitchener, who would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on abortion after Roe v. Wade, to painfully relatable comics about parenting and friendship — was signing off for good.
The announcement was a blow — not just for fans of The Lily, but for those still mourning The New York Times’ excellent (and now defunct) In Her Words newsletter. It’s a discouraging trend: These spaces, beloved by readers, seem to be disappearing just as the demand and need for them have never been higher. (Both The Post and The Times cited a desire to integrate gender coverage into broader reporting.)
The first so-called “women’s pages” appeared in newspapers more than a century ago; they’ve been a double-edged sword ever since. In the early days, they served up “society” coverage alongside job opportunities for women reporters. As Sarah Jaffe pointed out in Columbia Journalism Review, “while reserving a separate space for ‘women’s issues’ meant that things like parenting, fashion, and the beginnings of the feminist movement got column inches, the separation also demarcated the women’s page as the site of less newsy content.”
Women journalists, at the time, were acutely aware of the risk of marginalization; more than a few enterprising reporters used this to their advantage, covering everything from war to sports from “the woman’s angle.”
The debate over the so-called “pink ghetto” continues today: Should we celebrate or bemoan the proud history of excellent reproductive health coverage in women’s magazines? What does it mean when a story on equal pay is tagged under “gender” rather than “economy”? Is the Style section really the most natural fit for news of a leadership transition at Planned Parenthood? As news outlets chronicle the devastation of the Israel-Hamas war, what will it take to see more mainstream reporting on the disproportionate toll of violent conflict on women and girls?
The issues that affect women’s lives are relevant to people of all genders — but it’s clear that women’s media outlets still have an essential role to play. Ms. Magazine was born out of a frustration that, in the words of founder Gloria Steinem, “there really was nothing for women to read that was controlled by women.” More than five decades later, the magazine is still going strong. Blogs like Jezebel and Feministing launched careers, built community and provided a forum to cover issues like abortion with twice the nuance and none of the “both sides” false equivalency of “mainstream” media outlets.
Many of the same journalists who got their start writing for feminist blogs or women’s magazines (and some who still write for feminist blogs and women’s magazines) are shaping coverage of presidential elections, providing sharp analysis of Supreme Court cases and breaking down complex policy issues for a wide range of platforms. When we see a byline from Anna Holmes, Erin Gloria Ryan, Irin Carmon, Jia Tolentino, Laura Bassett, Mattie Kahn, Rebecca Traister, Roxane Gay or so many others, we know we’re in for a smart take on what’s happening in the world.
Over the years, it’s been heartening to see coverage of issues like reproductive rights, paid leave, care work and the #MeToo movement begin to make headlines in some of our country’s most prestigious legacy media outlets (and even the occasional men’s magazine). It sends a message when a chilling story about a 13-year-old sexual assault survivor unable to access abortion is on the homepage of TIME, The New York Times spotlights child care and girlhood, CNN dedicates precious time and resources to investigative reporting on systemic gender inequality and The Washington Post puts the Black maternal mortality crisis front and center.
If we’ve seen progress when it comes to moving so-called women’s issues from the margins to the mainstream, it’s thanks in no small part to generations of mostly (though not only) women reporters willing to battle the powers that be, force important stories onto the front page, and insist that women’s news is, well, news. And as thankful as we are to every exhausted reporter continuing to push this particular boulder up the hill, the onus shouldn’t be on them.
As media companies compete for readership and fight to stay afloat, appealing to women isn’t just a nice thing to do — it’s a business imperative. In a 2020 report, “The Missing Perspectives of Women in News,” researcher Luba Kassova found that “women are lighter news consumers than men globally.” She wisely suggests: “This could be due partly to news being produced mainly by men, and focusing mainly on men – a problem exacerbated by the data gaps in understanding women’s news needs.” In other words, news outlets have some serious catching up to do when it comes to understanding half their potential audience.
In a recent viral appearance, comedian Chelsea Handler told Jimmy Fallon: “I think we are in a very important cultural moment, you know, with women dominating culture.”
Consider the many articles that popped up this summer analyzing the financial ripple effect of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie”; Coco Gauff’s US Open win; and Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, whose tours together generated more than an estimated $9 billion in economic activity.
Women make up slightly more than half of the US population, have out-voted men in every presidential election of the past 60 years and control more than $10 trillion in household assets. (For more on the role of women in the economy — and the challenges that persist — check out the research of newly-minted Nobel Laureate, Claudia Goldin.) In a crowded media landscape, outlets that spend time talking — and listening — to women are well-positioned to identify breaking news before it breaks, a reality on vivid display in the days following last summer’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
Heading into a presidential election where abortion will be a defining issue — if not the defining issue — this is a moment when every media outlet should be racing to expand its gender coverage, not backing away.
So what can readers do to encourage this? We can start by holding outlets accountable, demanding that they cover “women’s issues” with the rigor they deserve and employ reporters from all backgrounds — not just for the good of their own coverage but for the sake of our democracy, which benefits from having more voices in the conversation.
We can support platforms like The 19th News, The Meteor and Rewire News Group, along with smaller independent outlets (we’re big fans of Jessica Valenti’s Abortion, Every Day). We can champion reporters covering these issues by reading their work and sharing it far and wide. And, of course, let’s not forget that publications such as Glamour, Cosmopolitan, InStyle, Teen Vogue, Elle, Ebony and Essence have long been ahead of the curve in juxtaposing in-depth political and health reporting with stories on fashion and entertainment. (Full disclosure: We have proudly written for, subscribed to, and otherwise supported many of these platforms.)
The day The Lily posted their last Instagram message, the comments section was awash in heartfelt reflections. “I always read them and used their information in our work of women’s rights activism in Venezuela,” one commenter lamented. Reporters thanked The Lily for giving them their first big byline, or taking a chance on a topic other media outlets had deemed unimportant. “You guys are making me cry 😭 Thank you for all you did for young women in journalism ❤️,” read one response.
There were notes of gratitude for The Lily’s coverage of Black women’s health, LGBTQ families, postpartum anxiety, birth control and a host of other topics too often overlooked by media outlets. One commenter put it succinctly: “Thank you so much for seeing us.”
That’s the power of great reporting: It can hold a mirror up to society and shine a light on the unseen. The headlines we read help shape politics and public opinion, upend cultural norms and inspire people to act. Ultimately, gender coverage is too important to be either/or; it has to be both/and. It matters how these stories are told — and by whom, and where. We need an abundance of platforms like The Lily, serving as a complement to reporting on gender woven through every section: news, opinion, technology, health, politics, business, the arts. In the interim, wherever outlets place their gender coverage, one thing is clear: We need more of it, not less.
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