The 5 sites Jezebel creator Anna Holmes thinks you’re missing out on (plus, a book excerpt!)
The 5 sites Jezebel creator Anna Holmes thinks you’re missing out on (plus, a book excerpt!)
Women’s magazines like Vogue, Cosmo and O, The Oprah Magazine haven’t done all that well in print the past couple of years.
Online women’s media, though, has fared much better. Anna Holmes, creator of the popular online magazine Jezebel, says her site owes a lot to those print publications.
“I would say that the site was a direct outgrowth of my extreme annoyance and frustration with women’s magazines, both as a consumer of them, but also as an editorial staffer at many of them,” she says. Holmes says because of their dependency on advertisers, many of these magazines are reluctant to push the envelope in meaningful ways.
Anna Holmes is also the editor of the new book, “The Book of Jezebel,” which she hopes will translate the same sensibilities of the website, while giving it a larger permanence in the media landscape.
(Check out the first chapter of the book from The Book of Jezebel (pdf). Excerpted from The Book of Jezebel copyright 2013 by Gawker Media, LLC reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved.)
And while she was here, we asked Holmes to share her top 5 favorite women’s websites:
The sites listed below are favorites, not because they are the quote unquote “best,” but because of what they teach me about things I don’t already know a lot about.
Launched the same year as Jezebel, this online magazine features smart, provocative, progressive commentary by and about dynamic, opinionated, young African-American women.
A 4-year-old website for LGBT and feminist women founded by a formidable duo who have managed to create one of the most vibrant, female-focused spaces – gay or straight – on the internet.
Blogging wunderkind Tavi Gevinson’s cozy virtual nook is meant to speak most powerfully to adolescent girls, but there are plenty of older women like myself who love its mix of whimsy, intelligence and positivity.
This relatively recent entrant into the “women’s website” genre is part of a larger, upstart internet venture called Medium, but it has already distinguished itself with its smart, pull-no-punches commentary on the intersection of technology and gender.
I know it’s not technically a website, but I just have to include it because I feel so lucky that I can be exposed to so many thousands of whip-smart, hilarious women sharing their takes on the news of the day. It is a fantastic technology, and it also helps a much more diverse range of voices be heard.
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