There's a reason my diary title is a question. I'm honestly not sure what to make of this, and I want to throw it out there to you all for a discussion and see what you think. I just read a major, in-depth article analyzing the career of Gloria Steinem in today's New York Times. It's a fascinating article about a singularly important person and topic. The article's premise is:
For more than 40 years, Gloria Steinem has been the near-singular voice of the women's movement. Why, in all that time, has no one emerged as her successor?
This is a hard news piece of political journalism. I would urge anyone interested in the politics of women's rights, including issues of race and sexual orientation, to read it, as it touches (even if briefly) on these matters as well.
I saw this article in the Sunday Styles section of the Times, a section that, quite frankly, I normally don't read because I'm not particularly interested in, well, style (my wife can attest to that). I really don't mean to suggest that style isn't important, it's just not my area of interest. To each his own, right?
But Gloria Steinem is a political figure, and one whom I have a lot of respect for and interest in, so I picked up the section just based on the large image of her on the section's front page. I initially assumed that, since it was in the Style section, the article would be about some aspect of her that relates to "style" broadly speaking. Had that been the case I probably wouldn't have read past the first paragraph. However, this was, as I said, a hard news article. So, I ask again, why was it in the Style section?
This is a tricky question. Maybe I don't truly understand what the Style section is about. Maybe for some people the divide between the news about "style" and other, more directly political kinds of news is more blurry than it is for me. But, and this may just be me, I felt like this article belonged in the hard news part of the newspaper, either in the Week in Review (which is where longer form news articles go) or perhaps the New York Times Magazine (for pieces of in-depth, investigative journalism), although this piece was more the former than the latter when I think about it.
It's very hard for me not to think that this piece was "relegated" to the Style section. Again, that could be just me, my wanting to separate hard news from Style. Maybe that's my problem. I'm open to that possibility. And maybe the editors just think that this article will appeal to women, and women read the Style section, so that's why they put it there. Is there something wrong with that?
So, was this a business decision that in reality reflects sexism? What do you think? Was putting this article in a "women's" section of the newspaper rather than in a general interest section a diminution of Steinem and the politics of gender equality? Does putting this article on the front page of a section where the other two front page articles were about: 1) naps, mattresses, and pillows and 2) parties in downtown Manhattan respectively represent a downgrading of women's rights and women in politics by the NYT?
I'll admit it's hard for me not to think that is the case. But maybe I'm wrong. Let's hear what you all think.
9:21 AM PT: Interestingly, in the online version of the NYT, the "Style" section has a subheading "Fashion and Style." (h/t dov12348)
11:48 AM PT: Thanks so much to the groups who republished this piece. I'm very honored.