tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/teen-vogue-42590/articlesTeen Vogue – The Conversation2021-07-21T15:03:42Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1646662021-07-21T15:03:42Z2021-07-21T15:03:42ZCan we cancel ‘cancel culture?’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412159/original/file-20210720-21-oo0r67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5991%2C3600&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Calling people out for problematic acts — like sexual harassment or racist comments — can lead to them being cancelled.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alexi McCammond’s <a href="https://thegrio.com/2019/08/15/historic-nabj-convention-gives-black-journalists-the-props-they-deserve/">journalism career was rapidly ascending</a>. She was a political reporter for Axios and a fixture on cable news.</p>
<p>Jeffrey Toobin was an <a href="https://nieman.harvard.edu/news/2008/04/columbia-graduate-school-of-journalism-and-the-nieman-foundation-at-harvard-announce-2008-lukas-prize-project-awards-for-exceptional-works-of-nonfiction/">award-winning lawyer-turned-journalist</a>. He wrote for <em>The New Yorker</em>, provided legal analysis on CNN and authored a <em>New York Times</em> best-selling book on O.J. Simpson.</p>
<p>And Mimi Groves was <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/am-i-right/202101/is-racism-permanent-state">accepted to the renowned University of Tennessee’s cheer team, who were reigning national champions</a>.</p>
<p>Each life was charmed.</p>
<p>But social media’s penetrating gaze and uncontrollable virality unearthed troubling personal moments for each of them. Their lives became disrupted in ways once unimaginable.</p>
<h2>Digital fall from grace</h2>
<p>In March 2021, McCammond was primed to assume the editor-in-chief position at <em>Teen Vogue</em>. However, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/teen-vogue-staff-rail-against-new-editor-in-chiefs-past-tweets-mocking-asians">offensive tweets from her teenage years resurfaced</a>. Staff members were outraged and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/business/media/teen-vogue-editor-alexi-mccammond.html">McCammond resigned before she even started</a>. </p>
<p>Toobin was <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-toobin-new-yorker-reporter-suspended-the-new-yorker-leave-cnn-exposed-zoom/">caught exposed during a staff Zoom call</a>, costing him multiple jobs.</p>
<p>And a seconds-long <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/mimi-groves-jimmy-galligan-racial-slurs.html">Snapchat video showed Groves stating a racial epithet</a>. Public pressure <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/05/opinions/nyt-groves-galligan-adults-failed-on-racism-heitner/index.html">forced Groves off her beloved Tennessee cheer team</a>, and she later <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/clarence-page/ct-column-first-amendment-cheerleaders-jimmy-galligan-page-20201229-jigkdm3uorfelgsj62dh3wckrm-story.html">withdrew from the university</a>.</p>
<p>Different circumstances, similar results and each was embroiled in cancel culture. Cancel culture is “<a href="https://nypost.com/article/what-is-cancel-culture-breaking-down-the-toxic-online-trend/">promoting the ‘cancelling’ of people, brands and even shows and movies due to what some consider to be offensive or problematic remarks or ideologies</a>.”</p>
<p>This phenomenon has exploded due to social media’s amplifying powers, society’s deep divisions and difficulties redressing longstanding inequities.</p>
<p>Violating standards of public morality can exact severe consequences, both online and off. This includes penalizing both the transgressors and those harmed by their offensive words or deeds.</p>
<h2>The roots of cancel culture</h2>
<p>Cancel culture arose in the popular consciousness decades ago. It is paradoxical that a term now used to counter problems like sexism emerged from a song about a bad romance that was later incorporated into a misogynistic movie scene.</p>
<p>Legendary Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers wrote the song <em>Your Love Is Cancelled</em> in response to <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/brief-history-being-cancelled-on-the-media">a date gone awry</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2mih9xvo7a8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Chic’s ‘Your Love Is Cancelled,’ the source of cancel culture.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And in dialogue based on that song, Wesley Snipes’ character Nino Brown dumps his girlfriend in 1991’s iconic movie <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102526/">New Jack City</a></em>: “<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/30/20879720/what-is-cancel-culture-explained-history-debate">Cancel that b—h. I’ll buy another one</a>.” Nino’s fiery command is harsh and unforgivable. </p>
<p>At its best, cancel culture minimizes regressive attitudes like Nino’s sexism. It brings them public attention and earns disapproval. Ideally, the targets rethink their position. And even better? They make amends.</p>
<h2>The right to free expression</h2>
<p>Democracies celebrate free expression — it is essential to their functioning. In <a href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4120&context=lcp">liberal democracies</a>, <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art2b.html">like Canada</a> and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-constitution/#:%7E:text=The%20First%20Amendment%20provides%20that,for%20a%20redress%20of%20grievances.">the United States</a>, constitutional protections safeguard a wide range of speech.</p>
<p>But at its worst, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/is-our-cancel-culture-killing-free-speech/">cancel culture curtails speech</a>. It threatens this longstanding fundamental freedom. If we limit speech by cancelling those we disagree with, other societal pillars also face peril. When expression is compromised, which freedom is next? Freedom of assembly? Freedom from fear?</p>
<h2>Endless purgatory</h2>
<p>Cancel culture can grievously <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/20/cancel-culture-claimed-chrissy-teigen-is-this-a-pandemic-backlash-against-celebrity-">impact the cancellee’s professional status</a>. Their livelihoods could end. Think of comedians <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/nov/09/louis-ck-accused-by-five-women-of-sexual-misconduct-in-new-report">Louis C.K.</a> or <a href="https://time.com/5104010/aziz-ansari-affirmative-consent/">Aziz Ansari</a> — <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/1/9/18172273/louis-ck-comeback-parkland-aziz-ansari-metoo">their once-flourishing careers have withered indefinitely</a>.</p>
<p>The debate regarding what to do with those who have been cancelled persists: Should their careers be terminated entirely, forever and without review? Should they be penalized in proportion to their offence? Should their punishment have an end date?</p>
<p>Cancellation is a widespread viral online phenomenon. Due to its essence, it must exist within public discourse to produce its full effects. Given that it occurs among members of wide-ranging internet communities, trying to tailor cancellations on a case-by-case basis seems improbable. Once guilty in the court of public opinion, there is no appeal.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412349/original/file-20210721-17-87uyxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chrissy Teigen in a white dress with her hair pulled back" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412349/original/file-20210721-17-87uyxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412349/original/file-20210721-17-87uyxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412349/original/file-20210721-17-87uyxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412349/original/file-20210721-17-87uyxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412349/original/file-20210721-17-87uyxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412349/original/file-20210721-17-87uyxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412349/original/file-20210721-17-87uyxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Model and author Chrissy Teigen is the latest celebrity to be cancelled after being called out for online bullying.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ideological divide</h2>
<p>We live during a particularly fraught political moment. The ideological division between right and left in today’s politics seems like an impassable chasm. This perilous gap has never felt wider. </p>
<p>One month before the last presidential election in the United States, nine out of 10 voters believed the other side’s victory would lead to “<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/13/america-is-exceptional-in-the-nature-of-its-political-divide/">lasting harm</a>.” And both sides claim their speech <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2021/0701/Why-free-speech-is-under-attack-from-right-and-left">has been unjustifiably chilled</a>.</p>
<p>During this era of cancellation, opponents’ transgressions are demonized. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/07/17/has-twitters-cancel-culture-gone-too-far/5445804002/">Slamming someone as irredeemably wicked on Twitter</a> becomes common. Lives are irrevocably upended. We no longer reconcile differences with respectful conversations. </p>
<p>The long-term outlook for public spaces as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23559183">marketplaces of ideas</a> becomes worrisome.</p>
<h2>Nuanced considerations</h2>
<p>But there is hope. A Politico survey conducted in July 2020 found that 27 per cent of American voters believed that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/22/americans-cancel-culture-377412">cancellation could positively impact society</a>. From this, the negative valence of cancel culture has the potential to be marshalled for more positive ends.</p>
<p>For example, cancel culture could champion pro-social movements that are broadly accepted, like the fight against racism. Following the unspeakable death of George Floyd, support for intractable social problems is strong. A 2020 poll showed that <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/316106/two-three-americans-support-racial-justice-protests.aspx">two-thirds of Americans supported racial justice protests</a>. This work is of fundamental social importance and requires constant vigilance. Cancel culture could combat racist expression, ultimately promoting social justice. </p>
<p>Coping with COVID-19 has <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-coronavirus-and-the-interwoven-threads-of-inequality-and-health">brought longstanding inequalities into sharp relief</a>. These include racial and class differences driving unacceptably poor health outcomes. Cancel culture’s dependence on the whim and will of the masses means that we cannot move forward together if we speak separately and alone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164666/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dino Sossi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cancel culture has exploded due to social media’s amplifying powers, society’s deep divisions and difficulties redressing longstanding inequities.Dino Sossi, Instructional Assistant, Technology and Media, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/889232017-12-17T21:50:54Z2017-12-17T21:50:54ZBeing woke is profitable: Teen Vogue made waves this year<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199500/original/file-20171215-17884-1k7oorm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Though Teen Vogue ran its last print edition this fall - pictured here and coedited by Hillary Clinton - the inaugural Teen Vogue Summit is part of the magazine’s shift to a progressive, “woke” digital brand.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(@teenvogue/Twitter)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Amid white, faux-fur beanbag chairs, trays of artisanal ice cream sandwiches and a glowing <em>Teen Vogue</em> logo, 600 girls and women gathered earlier this month to talk about politics, leadership and social change. </p>
<p>The inaugural Teen Vogue Summit is part of the teen magazine’s shift to position themselves as a progressive, “woke” digital brand that builds upon the reputation they’ve cultivated over past two years through articles like <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/donald-trump-is-gaslighting-america">Lauren Duca’s viral op-ed “Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America.”</a> </p>
<p>The rebranding is arguably paying off; <a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/conde-nast-to-fold-teen-vogue-print-reduce-frequency-of-gq-glamour-and-more">despite Condé Nast announcing the folding of the print magazine</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/25/teen-vogue-readers-consider-themselves-activists">web traffic is up over 200 per cent</a> [and continues to draw significant public attention for its <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-donald-trump-lied-about-this-week">political reporting</a> and sharp <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/youth-incarceration-in-the-united-states-explained">cultural commentary</a>.</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton co-edited the final <em>Teen Vogue</em> print issue and also attended the first-ever <a href="https://summit.teenvogue.com">Teen Vogue Summit</a>, held in early December in Los Angeles. The event featured 150 speakers that included politicians, celebrities, entrepreneurs and community organizers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199499/original/file-20171215-17869-6mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199499/original/file-20171215-17869-6mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199499/original/file-20171215-17869-6mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199499/original/file-20171215-17869-6mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199499/original/file-20171215-17869-6mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1216&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199499/original/file-20171215-17869-6mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1216&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199499/original/file-20171215-17869-6mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1216&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hillary Rodham Clinton edited the final print version of Teen Vogue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(@teenvogue/Twitter)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Significant politicians like Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Compton Mayor Aja Brown spoke, as did big-time creative artists like director Ava DuVernay, actress Yara Shahidi and YouTuber Lilly Singh. A few entrepreneurs were there too — beauty maven Michelle Phan and the founder and CEO of the Bumble dating app, Whitney Wolfe. Activists such as #BlackLivesMatter co-creator <a href="https://twitter.com/aliciagarza?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Alicia Garza</a>, Girls Who Code founder <a href="http://reshmasaujani.com">Reshma Saujani</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/iammarleydias?lang=en">Marley Dias</a>, the 12-year-old creator of #1000BlackGirlsBooks, also came to share their experience as national change-makers. </p>
<p>Panels and workshops spoke about heavy issues like sexual violence, and gave practical advice: How to run for office, how to get into the tech industry. These were interspersed by mentor sessions where participants sat in small groups on couches to get advice from leaders in activism, entrepreneurship and the arts.</p>
<p>As a media and cultural studies scholar currently researching anti-Trump activism among young girls, I headed to L.A. to find out how teenage girls and young women are getting political when their voices are desperately needed. Here are my five take-aways from my two days at the Teen Vogue Summit:</p>
<h2>1. Teenage girls and young women are angry</h2>
<p>Despite the playful atmosphere of the summit, there were moments when the tenor of the room grew dark. Girls and women are angry about the Trump administration, and in particular, its sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia and nationalism. </p>
<p>This sentiment was most palpable when Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters led summit participants in an “Impeach 45” chant that loudly echoed out into the night. Girls and women are often <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/does-your-daughter-know-i_b_10340394.html">encouraged to mute their anger in order to appeal to cultural expectations of femininity</a>, yet Waters gave permission for girls to be angry – a necessary resource for social change and one of the most memorable moments of the weekend. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199384/original/file-20171215-17845-u38iel.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C160%2C613%2C456&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199384/original/file-20171215-17845-u38iel.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199384/original/file-20171215-17845-u38iel.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199384/original/file-20171215-17845-u38iel.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199384/original/file-20171215-17845-u38iel.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199384/original/file-20171215-17845-u38iel.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199384/original/file-20171215-17845-u38iel.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teen Vogue Summit buttons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jessalynn Keller)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Hillary Clinton is (still) popular</h2>
<p>Despite what you might have heard during the election about Clinton’s lack of appeal to young people, many girls and young women admire her and are inspired by the significant inroads she’s made for women in politics. </p>
<p>When Clinton emerged onto the tiny stage to give her keynote address, a wave of girls armed with their smartphone cameras rushed to the front, cheering, clapping and snapping photos. (I <em>may</em> have been one of them.) </p>
<p>They shouted “I love you!” and “You are beautiful!” to Clinton, who saluted the crowd with her signature point and nod. She talked candidly for 40 minutes about sexism in politics, mentorship and activism, while continually returning to a piece of advice for the audience: Vote!</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199501/original/file-20171215-17884-10ncgeo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199501/original/file-20171215-17884-10ncgeo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199501/original/file-20171215-17884-10ncgeo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199501/original/file-20171215-17884-10ncgeo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199501/original/file-20171215-17884-10ncgeo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199501/original/file-20171215-17884-10ncgeo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199501/original/file-20171215-17884-10ncgeo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hillary Clinton with Yara Shahidi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jessalynn Keller)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Femininity and politics are not antithetical</h2>
<p>Ever since <em>Teen Vogue</em> contributing editor Lauren Duca told Fox host Tucker Carlson in December 2016 that “a woman can love Ariana Grande and her thigh high boots and still discuss politics,” the magazine has adopted this as an informal rallying cry, giving Duca a regular column called “<a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/we-need-to-reckon-with-donald-trumps-alleged-sexual-misconduct">Thigh High Politics</a>.”</p>
<p>Teen Vogue challenged the false dichotomy of beauty and smarts by hosting an event that celebrated both femininity and political action. The summit followed that lead and refused to abandon the pleasures of girlish femininity (to wit: each participant received a velour Juicy Couture hoodie emblazoned with personalized initials in Swarovski crystals). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199503/original/file-20171215-17869-fe7dhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199503/original/file-20171215-17869-fe7dhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199503/original/file-20171215-17869-fe7dhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199503/original/file-20171215-17869-fe7dhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199503/original/file-20171215-17869-fe7dhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199503/original/file-20171215-17869-fe7dhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199503/original/file-20171215-17869-fe7dhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teen Vogue Summit sign at night.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jessalynn Keller)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Being woke is profitable</h2>
<p>Is Teen Vogue’s woke-ness solely about generating profit? It is a brand that was previously floundering in a digital market in which traditional print teen magazines have <a href="https://www.thehairpin.com/2014/08/the-tragic-history-of-fallen-teen-magazines/">struggled to survive</a>. Since the early 2000s, several popular teen magazines folded, including <em>YM, ElleGirl, TeenPeople</em>, and <em>CosmoGIRL</em>, in part, due to their inability to compete in a digital mediascape. </p>
<p>Have “woke” identities been commodified by <em>Teen Vogue</em> in order to distinguish themselves from their competitors and sell their audience to advertisers?</p>
<p>By cultivating an audience that identifies as politically progressive, the magazine is able to deliver a niche audience to companies who aim to market to this demographic. Many of these companies – TOMS, Philosophy, PBTeen, for example – had a presence at the Summit, pointing to the ways in which woke audiences many serve both Teen Vogue’s political and commercial goals. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, this commercial imperative should not detract from their celebration of girls, and in particular, girl activists. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199504/original/file-20171215-17857-wzxdpb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199504/original/file-20171215-17857-wzxdpb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199504/original/file-20171215-17857-wzxdpb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199504/original/file-20171215-17857-wzxdpb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199504/original/file-20171215-17857-wzxdpb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199504/original/file-20171215-17857-wzxdpb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199504/original/file-20171215-17857-wzxdpb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Teen Vogue Summit badge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jessalynn Keller)</span></span>
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<h2>5. Girls are amazing activists.</h2>
<p>While I’ve been researching girls’ feminist activism since 2009, I was still floored by the incredible girl activists I met over the weekend. Many of these girls were part of Teen Vogue’s <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/21-under-21-2017">21 Under 21 list</a>. They were nominated by the magazine for their “trailblazing talents” and announced during the summit’s Friday night mixer. </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/littlemissflint?lang=en">Mari Copeny</a>, age 10, was honoured for her advocacy for clean water in her hometown of Flint, Mich., while 18-year-old trans model <a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/43wwzq/trans-activist-hunter-schafer-on-why-shes-fighting-for-much-more-than-bathrooms">Hunter Schafer</a> was celebrated for her LGBTQ activism — in particular, her role as a plantiff in a lawsuit against the discriminatory “bathroom bill” HB2 in North Carolina. </p>
<p>Another nominee, <a href="https://www.period.org/nadya-okamoto/">Nadya Okamoto</a>, 19, founded a nonprofit organization to provide menstrual products to homeless women while also running for a seat on the Cambridge, Mass. city council. </p>
<p>The diversity of issues that these girls are engaging in is phenomenal, and should remind us that girls are doing the necessary work to make our world a better place.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199505/original/file-20171215-17889-bv4kzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199505/original/file-20171215-17889-bv4kzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199505/original/file-20171215-17889-bv4kzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199505/original/file-20171215-17889-bv4kzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199505/original/file-20171215-17889-bv4kzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199505/original/file-20171215-17889-bv4kzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199505/original/file-20171215-17889-bv4kzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Teen Vogue Summit sign in day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jessalynn Keller)</span></span>
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</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessalynn Keller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Though Teen Vogue ran its last print edition this fall, the inaugural Teen Vogue Summit is part of the magazine’s shift to a progressive, “woke” digital brand.Jessalynn Keller, Assistant Professor in Critical Media Studies, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/799302017-08-31T20:24:45Z2017-08-31T20:24:45ZFriday essay: The personal is now commercial – popular feminism online<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184158/original/file-20170831-22614-1skgmb1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eva Blue/Flickr, Southern Cross Austereo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Once a week, during electives at primary school in 1980, I walked with a group of girls to the local hairdressing salon where we were taught how to apply eyeshadow, lipstick and smooth foundation onto our perfect skins. We also played AFL with the boys during sports period, but the news from women’s liberation about make-up and women’s oppression hadn’t yet arrived at my little school in the sleepy seaside town of Sorrento.</p>
<p>Second-wave feminism, to a large extent, defined itself against the beauty industry. As Susan Magarey <a href="http://www.outskirts.arts.uwa.edu.au/volumes/volume-28/susan-magarey">writes</a>, one of the Australian Women’s Liberation movement’s first actions was a 1970 protest against Adelaide University’s “Miss Fresher” beauty contest. It was inspired, in part, by a protest in the US against the 1968 Miss America pageant.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183943/original/file-20170830-23681-1bi34ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183943/original/file-20170830-23681-1bi34ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183943/original/file-20170830-23681-1bi34ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183943/original/file-20170830-23681-1bi34ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183943/original/file-20170830-23681-1bi34ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183943/original/file-20170830-23681-1bi34ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1218&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183943/original/file-20170830-23681-1bi34ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1218&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183943/original/file-20170830-23681-1bi34ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1218&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Women’s liberationists did have their disagreements about individual choices and tactics. Anne Summers, writing in the newsletter MeJane in 1973, said she was abused for wearing make-up at a Women’s Liberation conference. Carol Hanisch, a member of the New York Radical Women group behind the 1968 protest, argued later that protesters should target not the women who enter beauty contests, but “the men and bosses who imposed false beauty standards on women”. </p>
<p>In 1963, Betty Friedan had argued women’s magazines were central to creating the feminine mystique, an infantalising image of womanhood built around a myth of beautiful women in beautiful homes tending to handsome husbands and beautiful children. By 1975, Summers agreed. In Damned Whores and God’s Police, she wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Popular magazines have as their principal <em>raison d'être</em> the codification and constant updating of femininity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And by 1991, feminists were still linking beauty to women’s oppression. Naomi Wolf’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39926.The_Beauty_Myth?ac=1&from_search=true">The Beauty Myth</a> argued that women’s progress in the public sphere was matched by a fashion and media industry that promoted increasingly narrow standards of physical perfection: the superwoman also had to be a supermodel. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183904/original/file-20170830-5071-15kbrdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183904/original/file-20170830-5071-15kbrdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183904/original/file-20170830-5071-15kbrdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183904/original/file-20170830-5071-15kbrdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183904/original/file-20170830-5071-15kbrdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183904/original/file-20170830-5071-15kbrdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1186&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183904/original/file-20170830-5071-15kbrdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1186&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183904/original/file-20170830-5071-15kbrdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1186&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Wolf’s thesis was an important and galvanising one, but by the 1990s popular culture was in some ways outrunning popular feminism. As an undergraduate, I nodded along with my feminist friends reading Wolf during the day, while at night we frocked up and painted our lips to visit inner-city clubs where androgyny and queer culture were increasingly visible. </p>
<p>Celebrity figures such as Bowie, Prince and Madonna had prompted fans, as well as gender and cultural studies scholars, to ask if fashion and make-up, rather than necessarily being oppressive, could be seen in terms of play, choice and experiments around gender and sexuality. </p>
<p>Scholars had also started to ask whether women who consumed fashion and beauty products really were all passive dupes of big corporations. In more recent years, some have <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08164640701361766">convincingly argued</a> that beauty and fashion magazines might have been slipping feminist messages and empowering information into their pages all along. </p>
<h2>The women’s magazine formula</h2>
<p>The relationship of feminism to the beauty industry and women’s magazines, in other words, has a complex history. Still, as I listened to Elaine Welteroth, the editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, <a href="https://www.swf.org.au/stories/listen-elaine-welteroth-on-editing-teen-vogue/">speak</a> to the Sydney Writers’ Festival in June this year, it occurred to me that today’s popular feminism would be unrecognisable to many of the Miss America protesters half a century ago. </p>
<p>For Welteroth, an African-American former beauty editor at Teen Vogue, women’s magazines and beauty products <em>are</em> feminism now.
“Beauty and style are just really great platforms to open up important conversations,” she said. </p>
<p>Welteroth has been widely celebrated for commissioning stories ranging from <a href="http://www.teenvogue.com/story/donald-trump-is-gaslighting-america">Trump gaslighting America</a> and <a href="http://www.teenvogue.com/story/trumps-budget-proposal-to-strip-funding-from-planned-parenthood">abortion rights</a> to <a href="http://www.teenvogue.com/story/coachella-cultural-appropriation">cultural appropriation</a> at the Coachella music festival and the difficulties of being <a href="http://video.teenvogue.com/watch/this-intersex-person-would-do-anything-to-get-their-period">intersex</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183907/original/file-20170830-8679-1h0d78p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183907/original/file-20170830-8679-1h0d78p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183907/original/file-20170830-8679-1h0d78p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183907/original/file-20170830-8679-1h0d78p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183907/original/file-20170830-8679-1h0d78p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183907/original/file-20170830-8679-1h0d78p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183907/original/file-20170830-8679-1h0d78p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teen Vogue’s website this week.</span>
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<p>She told her Sydney audience that fashion and beauty are portals to sisterhood and political awareness:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the bathroom with another woman … we feel we have nothing in common but we talk about a great lipstick shade or great hair … and it’s just this doorway for connection and for understanding and for dialogue.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While acknowledging earlier magazines that pioneered this path, like Marie Claire, Sassy and Ms. Magazine, Welteroth claimed Teen Vogue’s pairing of “fashion and beauty” with “radical information” is “special and unprecedented”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"868732583554633729"}"></div></p>
<p>On my most Pollyannaish days, I want to cheer Welteroth and other online publications that mix politics with fashion and beauty for the way they are mainstreaming feminism. In Australia, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle">Fairfax’s Daily Life</a> blends wide-eyed articles about <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/miranda-kerr-reveals-dior-wedding-dress-to-vogue-20170716-gxchf4.html">Miranda Kerr’s wedding dress</a> with <a href="http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/news-features/outgoing-australian-of-the-year-rosie-batty-hopes-successor-will-continue-work-20160125-gmduts.html">stories</a> about Rosie Batty and <a href="http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/news-features/outgoing-australian-of-the-year-rosie-batty-hopes-successor-will-continue-work-20160125-gmduts.html">smart commentary</a> by writers such as Ruby Hamad about the relationship between feminism and Islam. </p>
<p>Mia Freedman’s <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/">Mamamia</a> mixes stories about making <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/make-waxing-less-painful/">waxing less painful</a> with articles on reproductive rights. Freedman’s websites were described as being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/27/being-mia-freedman-this-idea-youre-doing-feminism-wrong-i-find-laughable">at the epicentre</a> of the mainstream Australian women’s movement three years ago, although even then, as writer Chloe Hooper observed, Freedman had become “something of a lightning rod for contemporary feminism”. </p>
<p>On closer inspection, though, this lashing together of feminist politics with a women’s magazine sensibility has produced some odd results. In The Feminine Mystique, Friedan ridiculed a 1960s edition of the women’s magazine McCall’s for running articles on baldness in women, on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and on finding a second husband. In 2015, when Freedman launched a new (and now defunct) site called Debrief Daily, the site included stories on why <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/hair-thinning-in-women/">women’s hair thins</a> out, the name of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/name-of-the-royal-baby/">new baby</a>, and <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/are-second-marriages-happier/">one</a> titled “Four reasons why second marriages are happier marriages”. </p>
<p>In other words, the women’s magazine formula runs deep in many online publications newly rebranded as “feminist”. And as Freedman’s recent and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/cruel-and-humiliating-bad-feminist-author-roxane-gay-calls-out-treatment-by-mamamia-20170613-gwq7i5.html">widely criticised</a> podcast interview with feminist writer Roxane Gay suggests, the relationship between feminism and online women’s magazines may be at breaking point (more on this below). </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"874822238574448640"}"></div></p>
<p>But does this mash-up of fashion and celebrity and feminism <em>have</em> to be incompatible? For Welteroth the answer is no: she says you can cover hard-hitting political and social issues and beauty, fashion and fame. Teen Vogue, she told us, takes news stories that “maybe needed a little bit more context for a younger audience, needed maybe a personal narrative to make [them] seem relevant to them”. </p>
<p>It’s this making the political personal that echoes the second-wave idea of the personal being political, albeit in a reversed way. </p>
<h2>The personal is neoliberal</h2>
<p>In my PhD research, I’ve looked at the origin of the phrase “the personal is political”. Gloria Steinem once said crediting someone for coming up with it would be as absurd as assigning credit to someone for inventing the term “World War II”. Still, its first use in a publication is commonly cited as being the headline of an article by the member of New York Radical Women I mentioned earlier, <a href="http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html">Carol Hanisch</a>, in the 1970 collection of essays Notes from the Second Year.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183908/original/file-20170830-5027-6pu364.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183908/original/file-20170830-5027-6pu364.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183908/original/file-20170830-5027-6pu364.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183908/original/file-20170830-5027-6pu364.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183908/original/file-20170830-5027-6pu364.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183908/original/file-20170830-5027-6pu364.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183908/original/file-20170830-5027-6pu364.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183908/original/file-20170830-5027-6pu364.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Notes from the Second Year.</span>
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<p>Hanisch’s article was a defence of second-wave feminism’s consciousness-raising. Meeting in small groups, women told stories about their lives to understand how their personal problems were actually political ones. And they planned collective action. </p>
<p>Women in the left and the civil rights movement felt that while they protested inequalities between black and white, and the imperialist war in Vietnam, there were glaring injustices in their personal lives. Women took the bulk of responsibility for housework and childcare, did the “shitwork” (Hanisch’s word) in protest movements, were judged on their appearances, and took all the responsibility for contraception and abortion.</p>
<p>Second-wave feminists wanted sexual emancipation and the right to work alongside men, but they didn’t want to do everything. They discussed all kinds of solutions, from communal living to state-provided free childcare, to a total revolution in the consumerist capitalist system. </p>
<p>The jarring thing about the feminism of sites such as Daily Life or Mamamia is that they seem to want to make women responsible for doing everything again. Take a look at the sections at the top of a magazine’s website and you’ll see a list of topics such as “relationships”, “health”, “beauty”, “careers” and so on. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183909/original/file-20170830-10133-1pwcenh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183909/original/file-20170830-10133-1pwcenh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183909/original/file-20170830-10133-1pwcenh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183909/original/file-20170830-10133-1pwcenh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183909/original/file-20170830-10133-1pwcenh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183909/original/file-20170830-10133-1pwcenh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183909/original/file-20170830-10133-1pwcenh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Daily Life’s home page this Wednesday morning.</span>
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<p>The endless articles and lists of ways to improve and excel in all those areas can make these sites exhausting just to look at. It seems no coincidence that the same sites will carry articles about managing anxiety, or “ten ways to cope with your depression” and, most famously, Freedman’s own tale of <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/living-with-anxiety/">using Lexapro</a> to cope with anxiety, a drug she endorsed to readers.</p>
<p>Many second-wavers were influenced by the counter culture and, with their radical therapy groups and interest in personal growth, they were also interested in self-care. And medication, of course, can be life-saving. But when second-wave feminists like Friedan saw large numbers of women who were anxious and using anti-depressants, they asked how the <em>world</em> needed to change. Or as Hanisch said in 1970: </p>
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<p>There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution. </p>
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<p><a href="http://carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html">Reflecting on her original article in 2006,</a> Hanisch did acknowledge that we can change ourselves at the same time as we change the world. But now websites like Mamamia are increasingly asking how women can transform and adapt themselves to fit into a competitive, individualistic world. The emphasis is mostly on individual achievement and adaption to the status quo – rather than on changing the status quo.</p>
<h2>The political becomes personal</h2>
<p>The use of first-person stories on women’s websites like Daily Life and Mamamia exploded around the same time as media budgets were cut (a trend writer <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-personal-essay-boom-is-over">Jia Tolentino</a> has written about in the US). They have been immensely popular, as researcher Kate Wilcox found in her <a href="https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/10137?mode=full">study</a> of Daily Life website.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183910/original/file-20170830-5016-1qd9t2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183910/original/file-20170830-5016-1qd9t2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183910/original/file-20170830-5016-1qd9t2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183910/original/file-20170830-5016-1qd9t2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183910/original/file-20170830-5016-1qd9t2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183910/original/file-20170830-5016-1qd9t2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183910/original/file-20170830-5016-1qd9t2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183910/original/file-20170830-5016-1qd9t2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>At their best, these contemporary personal stories are a new form of feminist consciousness-raising, helping women to realise they aren’t alone and to understand that their experiences have social and political contexts. Some great writers with extraordinary stories, such as Mamamia’s Rosie Waterland, emerged from this process. </p>
<p>At their worst, today’s personal story trend never gets beyond the personal to be political, focusing instead on the scandalous, the trivial or sensational, as Roxane Gay recently found. </p>
<p>Gay is an accomplished writer and academic who makes the personal political in her latest book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22813605-hunger?from_search=true">Hunger</a>. She places the story of her body in the context of her past traumatic sexual abuse. She writes that her body has been pathologised by the medical profession, by the media (singling out shows such as The Biggest Loser) and by people who treat her as an object to be feared and commented on, rather than as a person with opinions and feelings.</p>
<p>Freedman’s <a href="https://www.apple.com/itunes/download/?id=995159486">interview</a> with Gay was not <em>terrible</em>, but it wasn’t very enlightening either. It mostly glided over big political questions. Instead she asked Gay to repeat a series of stories: about her experiences on planes, her relationship with her parents and where Gay sources her clothes.</p>
<p>Freedman’s most egregious mistake, however, was to introduce her podcast by going into minute (and questionable) detail about Gay’s access requirements. Freedman revealed discussions with Gay’s publicists about lifts, stairs and chairs: reducing Gay to a freaky body that doesn’t belong in the world – the very thing her book asks people not to do.</p>
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<p>Feminist books, magazines and now websites have allowed consciousness-raising to move out of small intimate groups, opening up a proliferation of stories for women to read anywhere at any time. Observing the US scene, Tolentino says the personal essay trend is all but <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-personal-essay-boom-is-over">over</a>. </p>
<p>But books marketed as popular feminist texts have been (and remain) increasingly personal and memoir-based. Often now written by women who are celebrities (Lena Dunham, Sheryl Sandberg, Caitlin Moran …), their life story becomes both the example and proof of the author’s feminist credentials. </p>
<p>The very personal tone in which popular feminism is conducted today can be traced back to both second-wave consciousness-raising <em>and</em> the confessional column of women’s magazines. Although Gay is an academic and cultural commentator as well as a feminist celebrity, as the Mamamia interview debacle showed, these two traditions can collide, creating a new set of problems where the political can become unhelpfully <em>personal</em>. </p>
<p>I’m not suggesting we give Freedman, a publisher who made her name as the youngest editor of Australian Cosmopolitan, a free pass. I am suggesting, though, that we shouldn’t have been <em>surprised</em> by the way this story turned out. Freedman apologised to Gay almost as soon as her interview was published, but her No Filter personal podcast thrives, with Freedman recently tweeting it has reached 4 million downloads. </p>
<h2>Selling consciousness-raising</h2>
<p>With their roots in the new left and anti-capitalist counter culture, it’s not surprising many early women’s liberationists opposed the beauty industry and the commodification of women’s bodies. They weren’t against sex (who is?), but rather the “commercial exploitation of sex”, as an early Sydney women’s liberation group told Julie Rigg in a 1969 interview with The Australian. </p>
<p>Now, on Welteroth’s Teen Vogue, articles about make-up and hairstyles, or a bathing suit brand <a href="http://www.teenvogue.com/story/bella-hadid-fae-swim-suits">worn by</a> model Bella Hadid, jostle with serious stories about <a href="http://www.teenvogue.com/story/eating-disorder-expert-to-the-bone">cinematic representations</a> of eating disorders. And while Mamamia will run body-positive stories, it’s often tied to products you can buy, like <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/plus-size-activewear-tights/">active wear</a> and <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/cult-buy-plus-size-tights-and-stockings/">tights</a> for larger women. </p>
<p>Welteroth and Teen Vogue haven’t been described as <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/woke-meaning-origin">“woke”</a> without good reason. And they <em>are</em> challenging publishers and the broader community’s preconceptions about what young readers are interested in. </p>
<p>But the site is still bound to the genre’s code of presenting attractive bodies and aspirational lives. So it will run a critical article about <a href="http://www.teenvogue.com/story/coachella-cultural-appropriation">cultural appropriation</a> at Coachella music festival – and illustrate it with Instagram images of stunning models and a Jenner family member wearing an American headdress. </p>
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<p>On the face of it, it was encouraging when Welteroth told her Sydney audience her plans for Teen Vogue include bringing young girls together “IRL” to “actually have conversations around the table where they can have their voices heard and work together to try to now solve some of these problems in the world we talk about”. </p>
<p>But this is consciousness-raising version 2.0, branded VogueTM. It has to be a good thing for a struggling and isolated teen to read about a celebrity coming out, or coping with depression, or the mechanics of safe <a href="http://www.teenvogue.com/story/anal-sex-what-you-need-to-know">anal sex</a>. But I find it hard to celebrate what is also, in many ways, a major corporation effectively “selling your politics” back to you, as one friend recently put it. </p>
<p>I’m not the target audience. And I don’t think it would be <em>terrible</em> if those Vogue-convened consciousness-raising sessions came with a gift pack of a rainbow tattoo for Pride Week, a T-shirt with a Black Lives Matter-endorsed fist logo, and even purple eyeshadow for feminism. But I can’t help feeling like I’m back in primary school, being marched down to the beauty professionals to learn how to be a woman.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kath Kenny does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The women’s magazine formula runs deep in many online publications branded as ‘feminist’. While the personal was once deemed political, the emphasis now is on adapting to the status quo - not changing it.Kath Kenny, Doctoral candidate, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.