We all have our guilty pleasures, submitting to cultural forces even when they completely contradict our beliefs and identities–we can’t deny it. I love reality TV—I find shows like Jersey Shore and Keeping Up With the Kardashians addictive. Despite the fact that no matter how much I try to downplay my interests with a sense of irony, I’m still feeding into a capitalist mass-media phenomenon that’s ultimately perpetuating inane cultural ideals, mostly relating to fame, gender-constructed notions of sexual identity and dating, and especially money. I won’t try to explain it or justify it or say that it creates some sense of intellectual fulfillment, because it doesn’t, and that would just be flat-out pretentious. I try to keep my “guilty pleasures” on the downlow, queueing up the megavideos of Kourtney & Khloe at obscene hours of the night, only speaking publicly about these shows with my adopted grandmother who shares the same secret obsessions (and used an apt metaphor to explain herself: “You know when you’re driving on the highway and you see a horrible, fiery accident and you slow down to look? It’s exactly the same thing.”).
There is nothing wrong with being a feminist with guilty pleasures. But I do find it quite disgusting when people try to justify their indulgences with feminist commentary, as if they were serving some greater good by circle-jerking (online and off) about aspects of sexual liberation in Sex in the City. The online magazine, Jezebel, has basically built a commentary empire based on post-feminist bullshit that tries (unsuccessfully) to reunite Western mass media with female empowerment. The thing that really irks me is that feminists, even the really intelligent, self-aware ones, keep buying into this crap, feeling some vague sense of fulfillment and pretension that somehow justifies what should be reduced to “guilty pleasures” instead of becoming over-glorified pseudo-social commentary that ultimately fulfills the same purpose as any other magazine “for women.”
Now, let’s be real for a second. Jezebel isn’t just a dumping zone for over-intellectual zealots, and for those who comb through the articles obsessively, it’s not too hard to find articles contributed by real activists with real, legitimate, culturally relevant opinions. But for the sake of example, today I loaded up the site and took a gander at the articles featured at the top:
Let’s take these headlines from left to right:
- “The Art of Getting Dressed While Drunk” – Hey, lady, even if you’re completely disoriented, you should still put thought and effort into your appearance because, after all, it’s an ART
- “Lady-Tears are Total Bonerkillers” – Don’t show your emotions in your heteronormative lifestyle because you will inevitably push your man away and NOT GET LAID (and we all know that bad feminists don’t have sex)
- “Social Minefield: How to Deal with Shyness” – could be more aptly titled “How to Conform to Social Expectations and Succeed in Impressing People with your Fake Personality”
- “Cosmo’s Fake Cover Hides Orgasm from Advertisers” – Appropriate subtitle: WE DON’T!
- “Kendra and Betheny Dissect Their Own Body Issues” – Because models who willingly sexually objectify themselves and fulfill societal standards of beauty should also be the standard of how you measure your own body issues too.
- “What the Angle of your Ponytail Says About You” – Mm, yes, really important information for empowered women here.
- “The Harrowing Date-Rape Scene from Snooki’s Book” – Celebrity date rape, not regular rape, because that would just be too human for a celebrity gossip e-zine. Still not exploitative or anything. Nu uh.
Pretty much all of these articles are in reference to cultural ideals that promote “false-empowerment,” or the post-feminist notion of being empowered by choosing which ways to conform to society’s expectations. Jezebel ditched its title as a feminist pop-culture e-zine some time ago, now proudly toting themselves as “Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women,” but its fans are not ready to let go. Smart women who consider themselves feminist still seek out Jezebel as a means to buy into the same cultural ideals that have oppressed women for generations, but then justify themselves as intellectuals — for some reason reading celebrity gossip on Jezebel is better than Us Weekly, despite the fact that it’s far more convoluted than just saying “Fuck it, I want to see Kourtney Kardashian’s exclusive baby pictures and I don’t understand why!”
Hell no–Jezebel is fucking proud of the way it can present the same topics that you’d find in any magazine “for women” yet justify it with some vague notion of being well-informed when it should be the exact opposite. If you’re well-informed, you should be dissecting the ways mass media exploits and oppresses women, not promoting it. I mean, if you want to buy into it a little bit, knowing full well you’re buying the ideas The Man wants you to, you can still keep a firm sense of boundary between your beliefs and their beliefs: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Yet Jezebel has no concept of this. In fact, it actively seeks to destroy it by continually attempting to reinforce the idea that if you’re a feminist, all aspects of your identity support this, despite the fact that no one is impervious to social pressures. In the end, if you want to continue to read Jezebel because they have articles that you like, go for it. Just don’t do it under the guise of being a well-read feminist. Please don’t encourage them or contribute to their sense of legitimacy as feminists creating change “for women. Without airbrushing.” Fuck no.
Mhmm, well this is odd, why didn’t I know about this blog before? Mhmm…
But in any event, I totally 100% agree with you. I noticed the weird “Celebrity Gossip” banner and I never understood how Celebrity gossip related to feminism. Ultimately, I feel that things like this are an indication of avoiding real issues by focusing on the superficialness of the media. After a while, I became a negative nancy in the comments section because I wasn’t really sure why they continued to reference and report on mainstream things and not realize how these are the same things that OPPRESS women. They’re so clueless that it’s almost hilarious. And more often than not, they misfire and post something that will be incredibly racist (Like their “ASIANS LOOK THE SAME” article) or that terrible ponytail diagram. There seems to be a huge disconnect between how an industry that tells you how to dress, another industry that criticizes women and exploits them on their looks, and another are the very things that feminism is NOT about.
Posting on that site is incredibly sad. You have tons of girls there that don’t seem to know why the things they report on are harmful, and a site like Jezebel isn’t about to explain it to them. It will just keep them completely misguided and they’ll just keep spouting ignorance. I kind of gave up on Jezebel but when they banned me because I criticized an editor for using the term “crazy” I kind of knew it wasn’t the kind of website I wanted to support anyway.
As a frequent visitor of Jezebel, I agree wholeheartedly with you. The site is supposed to be all anti-tired-stereotypes-of-women, but all you see on there is the same trite, uninteresting crap: thousands of posts about fashion, stories about celebrities, stories about dieting, just general unimportant stuff.
The editors feel its their duty to call out society on valuing women for their appearances, then put up weekly pictures of the non-thin Coco’s ass or Christina Hendrick’s tits and call it “empowerment”.
Its wrong there to criticize women for being fat, but the articles themselves frequently mock women for being thin.
Its a whole mess of vapid and boring shit, all tied up with a pretty pink logo.
Hmm I agree with you about Jezebel but isn’t this post kind of strange? I mean you are saying it’s okay for Jezebel to write about Khloe Kardashian, “Just don’t do it under the guise of being a well-read feminist.” It seems a little hypocritical to criticize anyone for perpetuating oppressive stereotypes while you yourself consume them. Isn’t it possible that for many people on Jezebel, that is their guilty pleasure?
If you read the last paragraph of the entry you’ll see I’m not trying to pass judgement on people who read Jezebel. However, I am passing judgement on the writers of Jezebel who try to play off their stereotypical online women’s magazine as being empowering when it’s simply not. There’s a saying I like, “Don’t feed the animals at the zoo.” I like some reality TV shows, but if I’m going to write about them, it’s going to be a piece of criticism, not trying to defend some vague notion of empowerment–I’m always critical of things that need to be analyzed, and I think every self-proclaimed feminist should. If you like celebrity gossip, or dieting, or Lady Gaga, or looking at porn, that’s fine, but don’t try to align those interests with any sort of positive political opinion, and don’t talk about it as if you’re indulging in some great intellectual feat.
Hi – I enjoyed reading this. I recently felt the need to email Jezebel with the subject line, Maybe It’s Just Me, to tell them why I don’t read their site:
“The reason I don’t read Jezebel is because of Fleshbot. And that whole Slut Machine thing. That was pretty pathetic. But mostly, because of your association with Fleshbot. Just FYI.”
The reply: “It’s just you.”
So snarky and witty and smart! But apparently also wrong.
Thanks for writing this
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I feel like the fact that Jezebel is not a typical feminist blog, is what makes it feminist. For example, the article you mentioned about what your ponytail says about you… the whole point of the article is to talk about something extremely insignificant and make it significant with the point of doing so being to highlight the fact that the things that our society cares about, such as the position of a ponytail, are pointless. By talking about insignificant things, they are putting a comedic twist on the subject because the writers themselves are aware of the fact that the topic is pointless. I identify as a feminist and for my senior comp, this is is pretty much my topic. I do wish that Jezebel would write more about real issues other than hair, but I do see the point in their writings. Just a thought
Jezebel is a complete and utter JOKE and a slap in the face to anything remotely feminist related..I was looking up gender biased language at work and I got to one of their articles called “That Condescending Feeling You Get From Dudes in the Office? Yeah, That’s Real.” In the article Lindy was referring to something and I quote ” “…from researchers out of Harvard (that is like the Yale of universities, you guys!!!), “. With that Valley Girl talk and not to mention calling female “you guys” is pretty much up there with gender biased language that she was supposed to be AGAINST ..LMAO..what a joke that stupid website is..seriously avoid at all costs unless you want to lose braincells on crap written by idiots.
Jezebel exploits sexual assault stories on their web site for advertizing revenue. Period. No matter how they try to justify it, the money trail is evident.
Just recently they posted YT screenshots of the Stubbenville victim, and sleazy Nick Denton and his troupe of “feminist” bloggers refused to take it down. So, so tired of “feminists” being more interested in blogging about rape because it is inflammatory and starts flame wars with mras, than caring about the actual people they are writing about. Jezebel has done more to promote “rape culture” than most of the groups they criticize by provoking the shit out of men on the internet by acting like snarling dogs.
They love the fight, they don’t care who they insult and drag through the mud in the process. Shame on Jezebel writers. I hope they don’t sleep well at night knowing that they are using the people they claim to be fighting for.