I was debating putting this in GD but I’m not sure I have a specific debate.
Anyway, the last time I posted about Jezebel was when I was writing about their take on abortion parties. But the first thing they ever did that made me think they might be a bit…cracked, was when Tracey and Moe were interviewed by Liz Winstead on her segment “Thinking and Drinking.” They got drunk, talked about how rape wasn’t a big deal because they were street smart about it, though one of them actually has been date raped.
I found this article about it. (And I’m hoping we didn’t already post about this.)
Anyway, I figure a lot of people read it as it’s a popular blog. Do the attitudes espoused in the blog piss any of you off? With me, kind of, yeah. They just come off as so incredibly damaged that often reading about their personal lives or attitudes feels like a train wreck. I know it sounds awfully patronizing, but based on the video clip and other things, I can’t help viewing them as this big walking punchline.
I got into both blogs, Double X and Jezebel, as a result of this controversy. I now like Jezebel a lot more - I just think it’s better for what it is; and if I want weighty considered analysis I’ll go to another site entirely.
I find that Double X blog enlightening on how Gawker writers are treated, but I didn’t like its overriding victim-blaming message, especially this:
Really, really not the same when you’re talking about something that’s HAPPENED TO THE WOMAN HERSELF.
Well feminism itself is rather split, though as an ideology in opposition these schisms aren’t always obvious. I’d just say read it if it entertains you, but don’t expect it to be a coherent representation of feminism as a whole.
I and a lot of other women I know don’t like Jezebel very much, though I read the occasional article if I’m linked from another blog.
It’s hard to describe what the problem is… Most of the people writing there come off as white, middle class, straight, young women who try hard to be hip and fashionable. I’m those things myself (well, aside from the hip and fashionable bits), but it feels like drowning in a sea of self congratulations.
Well, society sort of cements the stigma of Rape as though it’s the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. Like there is something wrong and sublimated by someone if they weren’t broken by the experience.
It’s not even just the rape thing. Like, they post this about an ad campaign against drunkenness and get all huffy about how people are painting women who drink in a negative light. But at the same time they go on about how they get wasted and go home with guys and just don’t feel like using protection, but it’s all good.
And yeah, Risha, trying extremely hard to be so cool and with it and coming off as anything but.
I dunno, do all women really have a responsibility to positive feminine portrayal? I mean the women at Jezebel are vapid sluts, being vapid sluts, catering to a market of vapid sluts, or people who want to get a little bit of titillation by reading about vapid sluts.
It’s the same old sad clown thing. When the make-up comes off they cry in the mirror sort of thing, but while they are on stage they keep up the show, because that’s what people came to see.
In today’s day and age we have this idea that everything we do is justifiable that our ‘lifestyle’ should be validated by everyone, and we get very upset when it isn’t. But the idea that every woman needs to be a feminist icon or present sound feminist values is just the flip side of that coin. They are both about sublimating the real person to lifestyle choices.
The writers at Jezebel are playing out the hipster sex and the city fantasy for their blogging public, but it seems to me from that article that they are hoes being pimped out and overworked.
Huh, I totally thought that they advertised themselves as a feminist blog, since that’s always how people list it when giving recommendations or talking about a story from it. But now that I actually look at their About page, I don’t see anything about it.
Good, I feel better about my distaste for them now.
I feel better if they don’t bill themselves as feminist; I don’t think them as anything like feminist. I’m always pretty repelled by their articles and rarely read them.
