Linda Hirshman, whose ardent feminism is so strongly felt that she will not allow anything as mundane as "facts" or "evidence"-which are probably man things anyway-to get in the way of an argument, took on ladysite Jezebel for yesterday's debut of new Slate ladysite Double X. Hirshman's contention that Jezebel is "hurting women" would have been an incredibly timely attack if delivered, say, last summer; Jezebel's Megan Carpentier responds rather comprehensively. Then all those bitches in the comment section go crazy.
So that's what penis envy feels like.
Yeah, it's hard.
Aside from the slut-blaming craziness, there *were* those pesky factual errors, which, I guess Megan decided not to comment on all of them because there is seriously not enough room on the internet. Among them: where on earth did Hirshman get the stats about the gender breakdown of Jezebel's readership? And uh my favorite, the part about how I chronicled my sex life online "for a year" then wrote an article about that. (WTF?) Double X's editors have some explaining, some correcting -- and maybe, in the future, some fact-checking -- to do.
What? Double X is a print magazine?
Ha, no, Moff, I guess you're right! I guess it's a website, and so they want to be wrong about as much stuff as possible so they can use the ensuing controversy to drive traffic. Nice work, X Factor editors: pretending to criticize Nick Denton while ripping pages out of his playbook.
i guess the factual errors and lack of timeliness can be blamed on the site being in 'beta,' too. (even though hasn't it been in the works for months now? that is one of my pet peeves. if you're going to launch, LAUNCH. and stand behind your launch. sheesh.)
they added this "correction":
"Correction, May 13, 2009: This article incorrectly stated that Emily Gould wrote about her relationships and sex life online every day for a year."
Isn't a site called "DoubleX" asking for it?
Totally. I mean, look how it's dressed, bro.
Yeahrite? I mean, XX, XXX?
Wow. She managed to beat Time magazine in untimeliness. I guess she didn't want to use a straw man so all she was left with was something from a year ago.
Oh - and jezebel is reactionary twiddle.
When I first heard about it yesterday somebody typo'd and told me "HX new slate site for wmyn launched, went after the Jez." It's too bad - HX going after Jezebel would've been SO much more exciting than this. bitches be triflin!
“a lot of women feel that they have to roll with routine degradations and laugh them off in order to stay on the inside.â€Â
Aww … I’m suddenly so nostalgic for Radar.
Aww ... me too. And for being bashed as a bad feminist by the rabid horde of reading comprehension-challenged Jez commenters. Good times.
I was kind of hoping to see xx be a smarter/less hyper womanish site, but how boring to just start out bashing the competition (which is moderately smart, at least Megan seems to be). It's like "in case you didn't notice, we're old!" sigh.
Megan is the shining diamond in those acres of rough over there, in my opinion. Too bad there aren't alternative platforms for her (I guess XX is out!).
how depressing it must be to work for either site, knowing you are minutes from layoffs/cuts and very unlikely to get work at the alternative. It's like Self tearing down Shape or something (if those even exist anymore).
Shame on them, because lots of us old - I'm a few days away from my 54th birthday - would prefer a Jezebel to Double X or whatever that crap wowowow place is. They're not old. They're closed-minded and boring and probably always were. Sigh. I wish Cookie Mueller were still with us. Imagine HER blog....
A true missed opportunity. Nevermind what happened last summer. Let’s talk about how Tracie’s “writing†is now reduced to posting clips of daytime television. The Gawker empire, once worth Hirshman’s kind of hard look, is now a half-step above Perez. But I guess I’m preaching to the choir here.
I can't say I miss the videos of high colonics.
Having freelanced in a large, Midwest-based retail juggernaut and unwantedly and embarrassingly come under the raised eyebrows of the tech dept.'s employee internerd filter and log, I can say that, in light of how a huge chunk of this blog's traffic (like Jez's) will come from people at work, "Double X" is a TERRIBLE, short-sighted name.
Agreed, also any site featuring "lingerie," which will block Neiman Marcus, amongst other retail outlets, at my job. Never mind that Gay Fleshbot, photos and all, can load right up in the comfort of my office.
True. I always found it odd that it blocked yahoo mail but not gawker, I mean, people are going to blow A LOT more time reloading gawker pages to check up on their ongoing arguments or to see if anyone agrees with them than sending an email to mom about how you're not making it home for Labor day, again.
Emily Bazelon on the Slate political gabfest podcast is gonna be enough for me.
"Then all those bitches in the comment section go crazy."
This could be said for every post on Jezebel ever.
That would be sexist.
Ooops. I just meant that they are rather, er, overly expressive over there.
I don't know if it's considered sexist if it's the truth.
What's wrong with being sexy?
Or the hook for a Velvet Underground song.