Feminism rebranded: women’s magazines online and ‘the return of the F-word’ Feminismo rebranded: revistas femeninas en línea y ‘el retorno de la palabra con F’ Laura Favaro [email protected] University of London Rosalind Gill [email protected] University of London Recibido: 09/02/2018 Aceptado: 16/04/2018 ABSTRACT RESUMEN In recent years feminism has gained spectacular En los últimos años el feminismo ha adquirido levels of visibility, notably among young niveles espectaculares de visibilidad, women and in the media, especially online. notablemente entre las mujeres jóvenes y This article makes a novel contribution to a en los medios, especialmente en línea. Este growing discussion about ‘the new cultural life artículo aporta una contribución novedosa a of feminism’ (Difractions, 2016), and in particular una discusión creciente sobre ‘la nueva vida the ‘mediated feminist landscape’ (Banet-Weiser, cultural del feminismo’ (Difractions, 2016), y en 2015) and its ‘new luminosity in popular culture’ particular el ‘paisaje feminista mediado’ (Banet- (Gill, 2016) by bringing to the conversation Weiser, 2015) y su ‘nueva luminosidad en la cultura the voices of those very individuals doing the popular’ (Gill, 2016) al traer a la conversación las mediating, providing such luminosity. Drawing voces de aquellos mismos individuos que hacen on 68 in-depth interviews with the producers of la mediación, que proporcionan tal luminosidad. women’s online magazines from the UK and from Basándonos en 68 entrevistas en profundidad con Spain, we examine the range of ways in which los productores de revistas en línea para mujeres these professionals defne and dis/identify with del Reino Unido y de España, examinamos la feminism, as well as explain, applaud or critique variedad de formas en que estos profesionales the emergence of a ‘new feminism’ promoted defnen y se des/identifcan con el feminismo, by their publications. In general terms, the así como explican, encomiendan o critican el analysis shows that the talk of women’s magazine surgimiento de un ‘nuevo feminismo’ promovido producers constitutes a heterogeneous discursive por sus publicaciones. En términos generales, el terrain flled with ambivalence and ideological análisis muestra que el relato de las productoras dilemmas. Additionally we show how the recent de revistas femeninas constituye un terreno interest in feminism by these media is deeply discursivo heterogéneo lleno de ambivalencia y but not only ideological, necessarily but not dilemas ideológicos. Además, mostramos cómo el simply commercially-driven, and involved in interés reciente en el feminismo por estos medios simultaneous practices of de-stigmatising as es profundamente pero no solo ideológico, well as depoliticising the movement. We suggest está necesariamente pero no simplemente that in its transition into popular media feminism impulsado comercialmente, e involucrado en is ‘rebranded’ in such a way that both opens up prácticas simultáneas de desestigmatización and closes down possibilities, in a contradictory y despolitización del movimiento. Sugerimos dynamic of regulation and adaptation that is que en su transición a los medios populares el characteristic of ‘cool capitalism’ (McGuigan, feminismo es sometido a un ‘rebranding’ de 2009). manera que tanto abre como cierra posibilidades, en una contradictoria dinámica de regulación y KEY WORDS adaptación que es característica del ‘capitalismo cool’ (McGuigan, 2009). Feminism, women’s magazines, Internet, digital journalism, postfeminism, neoliberalism PALABRAS CLAVE Feminismo, revistas femeninas, Internet, periodismo digital, posfeminismo, neoliberalismo Nº 4 Revista DÍGITOS • 4 • 2018 • ISSN: 2444-0132 37 Laura Favaro y Rosalind Gill Feminism rebranded: women’s magazines online and ‘the return of the F-word’ pp. 37/65 1. INTRODUCTION: ‘THE RETURN OF THE F-WORD’ In recent years feminism has gained spectacular levels of visibility and even apparent approbation, with a diversity of voices and initiatives proliferating across social spheres. This includes civil society and institutional politics but also the corporate world and the global marketplace, as well as, and with particular intensity, the terrain of digital, celebrity and popular media cultures. What is more, as Sarah Banet-Weiser and Laura Portwood-Stacer (2017: 884) put it: “we now are living in a moment when feminism has undeniably become popular culture”. “Everywhere you turn, there is an expression of feminism – on a T-shirt, in a movie, in the lyrics of a pop song, in an inspirational Instagram post, in an acceptance speech”, Banet-Weiser (2018) additionally observes. Such ‘new cultural life of feminism’ (Difractions, 2016), especially its “new luminosity in popular culture” and among young women (Gill, 2016: 614), together with the “perplexing new trend” of widespread public—and often widely publicized—feminist self-identifcations (Farris and Rottenberg, 2017: 5), has rapidly become the object of much feminist attention, generating empirical research and vibrant debate (see also the special issue edited by Banet-Weiser and Portwood-Stacer, 2017). For some the “emergent feminisms” “complicate” postfeminist media culture and hence the modes of feminist analysis (Keller and Ryan, 2018). In contrast others demonstrate how postfeminism, a gendered neoliberal sensibility, “informs even those media productions that ostensibly celebrate the new feminism” (Gill, 2016: 610). Also, as Farris and Rottenberg (2017: 8) note, various analyses underscore “the righting of feminism” —or its neoliberalization—which “has become a global phenomenon”, even as they insist on the particularity and contingency of the context in which this righting occurs. The present article makes a novel contribution to these discussions not only by focusing on one cultural site notably involved in the articulation and dissemination of the popular or ‘new feminism’—young women’s magazines—but by bringing to the conversation the voices of those very individuals doing the mediating, creating the luminosity. How do they relate to feminism? How do they defne feminism? What brought about the take-up of feminism by women’s magazines, and how is this negotiated with issues relating to genre conventions and commercial demands? How do local versus transnational sensibilities and dynamics come into play in this process? These are some of the questions we address in this article by drawing on almost seventy in-depth interviews with the producers of women’s online magazines from the UK and from Spain. 2. FEMINISM, WOMEN’S MAGAZINES AND THE INTERNET You’ve read the papers, you’ve seen the news; Feminism is back! —FemaleFirst.co.uk, 2015 After a long period of widespread repudiation and postfeminist stranglehold, albeit with diferent levels of visibility and engagement, many countries in the West and beyond have in the last few years witnessed a resurgence of interest in feminism (McRobbie, 2015). This involves a diverse and often opposing array of modalities of Nº 4 Revista DÍGITOS • 4 • 2018 • ISSN: 2444-0132 38 Laura Favaro y Rosalind Gill Feminism rebranded: women’s magazines online and ‘the return of the F-word’ pp. 37/65 thought and action, ranging from the high-profle (and high-proft) interventions of ‘stadium feminists’ (Gill et al., 2016) from the corporate world, such as Facebook Chief Operating Ofcer Sheryl Sandberg with her 2013 “sort of feminist manifesto”, to grassroots campaigning against welfare cuts by young women using creative forms of political intervention, such as Sisters Uncut, a British direct action group founded in 2014. Whilst high-powered bestselling authors tell women to ‘internalize the revolution’, with incitements to ‘lean in’ to their individual careers and close the ‘(leadership) ambition gap’ (Sandberg, 2013), and to ‘stand tall’ and defy the ‘confdence gap’ (Kay and Shipman, 2014), low budget initiatives like the Everyday Sexism Project catalogue instances of sexism shared by users worldwide with the aim of “showing the world that sexism does exist, it is faced by women everyday and it is a valid problem to discuss” (http://everydaysexism.com/). To be sure, one notable constant in this otherwise heterogeneous terrain of voices purposes and acts is the use of digital technologies and Web 2.0 spaces. Moreover, the Internet is considered as a defning element of what for some evidences a fourth wave of feminism (Cochrane, 2013). As Ealasaid Munro (2013: 24) observes, it “works both as a forum for discussion and as a route for activism” at national and international levels. This may span from the sustained efort of one individual to record and commemorate on a blog women killed through male violence in the UK (see https://kareningalasmith. com/) to global viral campaigns counting the engagement of famous fgures and much media attention, such as #MeToo, which appeared in 2017 to raise awareness about the pervasiveness of sexual assault and harassment (for a critical refexion on this ‘movement’, see Sarah Banet-Weiser, 2018). The Internet, Munro (2013: 23) also emphasises, has been used to create a ‘call-out culture’, “in which sexism or misogyny can be ‘called out’ and challenged […] insofar as they appear in everyday rhetoric, advertising, flm, television and literature, the media, and so on”. One notable example in the British scenario is The Vagenda blog, namely: “a big ‘we call bullshit’ on the mainstream women’s press”. Indeed, the web is additionally used to produce media, especially by younger women – as evidenced by the number of feminist bloggers and, increasingly, YouTubers (for a study of girl feminist bloggers, see Keller, 2015). Also key in making the “return of the F-word” (Glamour.com) take a transnational and youthful dimension has been popular media and celebrity culture. An important moment in this sense was the performance at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards by pop star Beyoncé to extracts of author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDx speech ‘We should all be feminists’ against an enormous neon sign reading: FEMINIST. That same year, young actress Emma Watson took the UN as a platform to tell men that ‘gender equality is your issue too’, launching the HeForShe global campaign.