Jezebel: fond farewells

You Can Take The Girl Out Of Jezebel, But You Can't Take The Jezebel Out Of The Girl

Anna — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:00:00 EDT

There's no adequately poetic way to put this, so I'll just jump right in: Jennifer Gerson is leaving us at the end of this week. Jennifer, as some of our old-timers know, has been with the site since virtually the very beginning: In early February 2007, she answered an "ad" I put up on our brother site, Gawker, looking for writers for the as-yet-untitled site I was working on, then known simply as 'Girly Gawker'. At the time she wrote me, she was toiling away as an assistant to Elle editor-in-chief Robbie Myers, and although I was intrigued by her pedigree — Elle, Sephora, NBC, the office of Senator Hillary Clinton — it was the intelligent, thoughtful yet energetic tone of her email that had me, if not at 'hello', at this: "I believed whole-heartedly then, and still, in a more idealistic place, believe now, that women's magazines just might be the site of large-scale revolution, if the people who make them ever choose them to be. Why couldn't stories on, say, universal health care run alongside a fashion news piece explaining the most recent grunge revival? As I said in my interview [with Elle], 'I have been reading Maureen Dowd religiously since the 6th grade and I really, really love my shoes.'"

Jennifer and her MoDo iChat avatar are abandoning us for the preppier, more well-financed clutches of Ralph Lauren, where she will be their new Women's Editor — designing, creating and conceptualizing original content for the women's holdings under the RalphLauren.com umbrella. (She will also, hopefully, be sending us free pairs of Madras shorts and brushed-cotton tees that we can wear on our nonexistent yachts during our nonexistent summer vacations with our nonexistent, tow-headed Aryan children.) But she will continue to be found on Jezebel occasionally — she still owes me that May Past Fashion on bridesmaid and flower-girl dresses! — and we will be running small tribute posts to her throughout the week. What I'll say now is that we simply could not have launched this blog without her, and her endless amounts of energy, devotion, and creativity are both enviable and inspiring. We're damn proud of you, Jennifer. I only hope that we've been as good to you as you have been to us.

Earlier: Meet The Editors

From Homemakers To War Reporters, Women Now Get 46% Of The Vote

Anna — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:30:00 EST

Although women got only 17% of the attention in the New York Times' "Notable Deaths of 2007" review last week, the "fairer sex" fared, well, better, in the newspaper's Sunday magazine, out yesterday. The magazine's annual "Lives They Lived" issue features a whopping 11 women (out of 24 profiles total), most of them not-so-boldface names and none — with the exception of designer Liz Claiborne — repeats of individuals found in "Notable Deaths". In fact, the Times magazine chose to honor women who were not tabloid trainwrecks but those at the top of their games, some of them domestic doyennes intent on transcending the confines of the kitchen or the hospital ward.

Included within the issue: Lady Jeanne Campbell, writer, journalist, and female companion to any number of powerful men, including Norman Mailer (to whom she was married) and John F. Kennedy; Brett Somers, actress, co-host of 70s game show Match Game and "average-looking menopausal" television star; Dr. Marian Radke-Yarrow, researcher on the effects of maternal depression on children; Gloria Connors, housewife, onetime tennis prodigy and mother/coach/number one fan to tennis star Jimmy Connors; Madeline Stern, rare-book dealer, scholar, and "utterly apolitical feminist in a world where feminists were bluestockings and then bra burners"; Mary Crisp, a housewife who became a powerful force in the Republican party and supporter of the ERA and abortion rights; Australian war correspondent and onetime prisoner of war Kate Webb (pictured above); Karen Hess, cook, food historian, and proponent of "pure" food; Andree De Jongh, the Belgian artist and nurse who played Harriet Tubman to numerous downed Allied pilots during WWII; Kathleen Khan, a Christian missionary in Pakistan; and reluctant kitchenista and author (The I Hate To Cook Book) Peg Bracken, who so famously wrote, "add the flour, salt, paprika and mushrooms, stir, and let it cook five minutes while you light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sink."

The Lives They Lived [NY Times]

Earlier: New York Times Notable Deaths: Light On The Ladies, Heavy On The Mascara
Love To Cook? You're Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't

Susan L. Taylor, The Soul Of Essence, Leaves Mag After Almost Four Decades

Jessica — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 09:30:00 EST

In an industry where corporate loyalty has gone the way of the dodo, Susan L. Taylor has been synonymous with the Essence brand since the magazine's launch in 1970. Today, the NY Times reports that Ms. Taylor is stepping down from her post as publications director (she held that title for 7 years; she was editor-in-chief of the magazine from 1981-2000) to focus on the nonprofit she started, the National Cares Mentoring Movement. (As described in the Times, the organization's mission "is a call to action for every able black adult to take under wing a vulnerable young person, which costs nothing.")

Taylor, who could be described as the anti-Anna Wintour in almost every way, was the only single mom on staff when she joined Essence in 1970, and, as she moved up the editorial ladder, she always made sure stress the importance of female staffers living their personal lives as fully as their professional ones.

In 2004 Taylor told Black Issues Book Review: "I couldn't attend meetings beginning at 6 P.M. because I had to pick up my daughter. Those years made me so sensitive to how difficult it is for people to meet the many demands on them outside of work, and over the years I've worked with brilliant women who also care deeply about black people and have more to say than they can communicate in Essence. My commitment is to try as best I can to support anyone trying to advance our people."

In addition to her commitment to her staff, Taylor also championed many up and coming black fiction writers on the pages of Essence. Back in the 50s and 60s, serious fiction littered the pages of all the most popular women's magazines — Mademoiselle published the early work of Truman Capote, Harper's Bazaar had Carson McCullers' fiction — but now, Essence is one of the few ladymags that continues to publish serious short fiction on a regular basis. According to BIBR: "American readers first met the work of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Edwidge Danticat in Essence's pages, which have also been a nurturing proving ground for fiction writers like Bebe Moore Campbell and Terry McMillan."

With stories published often about the paucity of women in upper level media jobs, Ms. Taylor's example serves as a beacon, not just for the youths she hopes to mentor through her National Cares movement, but to female editors everywhere. Dear Kate White, Ms. Wintour and the rest of the lot — you could probably learn a thing or two from Ms. Taylor as well.

Essence Editor Is Leaving Magazine [New York Times]
Black publishing's inspirational godmother: Susan L. Taylor reflects on her 34 years nurturing writers at Essence [Black Issues Book Review]

Related: Essence National Cares Movement [Essence]