'Life and Style', and the myth of women's journalism

For all the lefty-liberal and progressive qualities of The Guardian, there is one element of its online design that seems oddly archaic, and a little unsettling. In the grand scheme of women's rights it isn't exactly at the forefront of our problems, but nevertheless it strikes me as odd, and got me thinking. My question is this: why, oh why, is the women's section of the newspaper tucked away in 'Life and Style'? 

'Life and Style' is a weirdly nebulous part of any news or magazine publication, generally containing high quality photographs of the latest fashionable pan-something dish, pseudo-scientific articles on whether vitamins actually work, and passionate arguments for why this new style of yoga really will change your life. The sections tend to be a mix of tips and trends, with a pinch of celeb gossip and the occasional link to dating sites and the like. I don't mean to describe these features pejoratively; they form light reading in most newspapers and they are what they are. It's just that they don't exactly fall under hard hitting news, unlike a lot of the pieces that are featured in the 'Women' sub-section. The Guardian tabs (see below) arguably suggest that the Women sub-section contains articles that are only as important as those of 'Fashion' or 'Food', or if we were to be really fussy (and why shouldn't we be) suggest that they are less important, due to their placing. Just as Culture and Sport come after the News on the main page, Women come after other more significant sections. 

It should be said at this point that a) I love The Guardian, and b) it's certainly not the only publication guilty of struggling to find an apt place for a women's section. Although The Telegraph place their Women section alongside the other main sections of the newspaper, the frankly hilarious page title "Wonder Women" is suggestive of an ideal readership of multi-tasking, stiletto wearing power Mums shouting "I can have it all!", baby monitor in one hand and Blackberry in the other. That may have been a bit of a tirade, but it's more than a little patronising, and Theresa May was staring from under the headlines at me during writing so I was immediately ticked off. In comparison to the Daily Mail's 'Femail', both The Telegraph and The Guardian are positively saintly in their representation of women - at least both contain comment pieces on the most important women's issues of the moment, i.e. online sexism, female campaigns. As we can see in the snapshot below, the Femail section contains a huge advert for WeightWatchers (you are too fat, Femail readers), an article about Gwyneth Paltrow, and the new trend of nipple surgery. 

At least The Guardian do not automatically assume that its female readers will be interested in babies and weddings, or for that matter, assume that readers of the opposite gender will not. The Mail however seem to be using their Femail section to perpetuate and encode a stereotype of womanhood that many female journalists are explicitly fighting against. 

It is perhaps not the paper that's the problem, but the idea of a "women's section" to begin with - a place for female journalism, directed at female readers. Criticising a space for women to share their views and read about issues affecting them may sound a little counter-intuitive, but the fact is, this kind of marginalisation is outdated. Thirty years ago a women's section would have been a breakthrough in the media, and rightly so, but surely we are now living in an age where women's news is mainstream news, the subjects important to everyone regardless of gender. For example, within The Guardian's women section is a subsection for feminism - a movement now commonly regarded to be the business of anyone who cares for equal rights, no matter what sex they are or which gender they identify with. 

To be fair to The Guardian their stories can be tagged under any section, as former Guardian IA Martin Belam kindly pointed out to me, and there is a subsection for women under News. However, the branch of Life and Style still sends out a bad message. Although it may initially seem strange when newspapers and magazines don't have a women's section, it actually means that stories which could be interpreted as by females and for females have actually been assimilated into the mainstream sections and editorials to which they belong. Before writing this piece I (being a complete wannabe journo-geek) asked feminist author and writer Laurie Penny for her opinion on the matter, to which she gave a crackingly succinct response, noting that these type of sections cover 

"'Women's-issues journalism' or, as I like to call it, 'journalism'."

And therein lies the whole point of this issue - there is no such thing as women's journalism. Indeed, articles such as the many recent ones on Twitter abuse, misogyny and campaigns such as No More Page Three are of as much importance to men as they are to women, and in many cases are supported by men as well as women. These issues are universal, and so maybe newspapers should consider treating them as such.