Has Gawker's Blog Jezebel Lost its Feminist Way?

When the head of the Gawker media empire, the genius Nick Denton, announced that he was creating a blog for women at Jezebel.com, I was excited. Jezebel promised an irreverent look at woman's magazines and serious advocacy of feminist issues. At the time, most women's magazines wrote about a world where everyone is skinny, on a diet, having multiple orgasms, and wearing $500 Louboutin stilettos.

In the beginning, Jezebel delivered. They poked fun at women's magazines, campaigned against air brushing in ads, and took on Jon Stewart for not hiring women staffers.

Lately, they have fallen down on the job. Exhibit A in my argument is that there are 994 entries on the blog for Kim Kardashian. Yet, there are only 3 entries for the entire slutwalk movement, which is fast becoming the focal point of the third wave of feminism all across the globe. The slutwalk revolution started when a Toronto cop suggested the best way to avoid rape was not to dress like a slut.

Jezebel's lack of comment on the movement is particularly disappointing because slutwalk seemed tailor made for Jezebel.com. Most of the participants in the movement are twenty something, the average age of their readership. Some older feminists have not embraced the movement because they do not approve of the use of the word slut.

Jezebel should have been leading the movement not ignoring it. The Philadelphia Inquirer, which can hardly be classified as a feminist rag, wrote 7 stories or blog posts about the local protest.

The slutwalk is not the only example of Jezebel editor in chief Jessica Coen dropping the ball. Lately, Jezebel has been posting articles like "How to do a 30s Style Moon Manicure" or Was Pippa Middleton's Butt Padded? Instead, they should have been loudly cheering DHS' decision to provide free birth control without a co-pay to woman and booing the detractors of the decision. It is a big deal that women, who typically make less than men, no longer have the fiscal responsibility for preventing pregnancy.

Jezebel should have been at their snarky best belittling Fox commentator Dana Perino for her recent remarks about the decision. Perino gave them a free lay up to sarcasm. She said, "If you can afford a $5 Frappucino at Starbucks, you can pay your $5 co-pay.” Glossing over the Frappuccino part, her comments were simply accurate. Co-pays for birth control are not typically $5. They can run as high as $70.

They should have gone into defcon mode to attack Bill O'Reilly for saying "Many women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex, they’re not going to use birth control anyways.” Someone needs to explain the birds and bees to O'Reilly because it is clear by these words that he does not understand how birth control works. If a woman is on the pill, IUD, etc, it would not matter if she was drunk because the protection is 24/7.

Jezebel was completely silent during the free birth control debate. Interestingly enough, it was Jon Stewart, previously attacked by Jezebel, who pointed out the absurdity of their remarks. Who really is the feminist?