Online feminism: Broadly speaking, are you a Reductress or in the Pool?

There's never been a better time to be a woman online as hip sites run by feminists redefine gender politics - with a hefty dose of humour. Phoebe Luckhurst and Susannah Butter track the tribes. 
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It’s a funny time to be a woman. We have voices but some ladies are having vajacials. We’ve stopped talking about having it all; but under the surface we’re still trying to, and putting a placid face on things. It’s even spawned a phrase: Duck Syndrome.

Luckily, you don’t have to muddle through alone. Sites and communities are forming online, and the tribes are accepting new members.

Last week, directional guerilla news conglomerate Vice launched its women’s channel, Broadly. Based in the US but with a London editor and office, Broadly tackles the sort of offbeat, inflammatory topics Vice prefers (at the time of writing the site is headed up, “Why do teen girls like gay porn?”) in the knowing, intelligent tone Vice uses.

If you’re slightly younger and less earnest, there’s the Debrief (“It’s on a Need to Know Basis”), which has Harry Styles’s big sister Gemma as its star columnist and mishmashes high-street fashion and masturbation with Isis brides and ethnic diversity on the Great British Bake Off. It offers the sort of conspiratorial authority Girl Talk and its ilk never could — the internet’s Generation Z is far too grown up.

Lena Dunham is launching Lenny with her friend and Girls showrunner Jenni Konner: the weekly newsletter is pitched at “an army of like-minded, intellectually curious women and the people who love them, who want to bring change but also want to know, like, where to buy the best tube top for summer that isn’t going to cost your entire paycheck”. She sounds familiar to all of us. Less familiar to any of us is the Goop woman — though she exists, and she has plenty to entertain her (Blake Lively also has a site, Preserve).

Lena Dunham's witticisms will soon be landing in your inbox (Picture: Getty)

And then there’s The Reductress, which has been around since 2013 but this week has gone viral in offices across the capital. If you see a woman crying with silent laughter at her desk, she’s probably reading The Reductress: a parody of every stereotypical women’s mag piece you’ve ever read.

Find your tribe — we’re separate but equal.

USP Bold reportage, without ignoring the women. Broadly divides its articles and videos into the sub-categories of sex, drugs, politics, culture and, er, horoscopes. Headed up by former Jezebel exec Tracie Egan Morrissey, it focuses on topics overlooked by mainstream media such as abortion, decriminalising sex work and LGBT rights.

Signature piece The Lesbian Queen of the Juggalos is Reinventing Beauty Standards. Juggalos are fans of Psychopathic Records hip hop and often dress as clowns. If you didn’t know that, it is because the patriarchy didn’t want you to.

Reader Don’t try to define them. They are gender-fluid and want to save the world one investigative video about squatting with the women fighting Isis at a time. No one can oppress them — dip-dyed armpit hair, don’t care. They aren’t afraid to discuss bodily functions (see the article on the all-too-human beauty of queefing, that’s a sex fart) and drugs — sometimes they tackle both together, as in a recent article on cannabis vagina sprays.

Most likely to be read On stolen wifi that you have hacked into, paid for by the Corporate Man who is gentrifying the area around your Leyton warehouse.

How to share it Shouting above the bongo drums at the afterparty of a pro-Jeremy Corbyn rally while trying to get a fairtrade craft ale.

Celebrity feminists - in pictures

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USP The Onion takes on women’s magazines. The Reductress started as a Kickstarter campaign in 2013, launched by sketch and improv comedians Sarah Pappalardo, 30, and Beth Newell, 29. The magazine now averages 330,000 readers a month. It is a knowing send-up of a particular breathy brand of clickbait that is in thrall to beauty products that will “change your life” and performing the perfect one-two step that will keep “your man” happy. The send-up works partly because it admits that women are complicit in perpetuating the culture: many of its headlines focus on female relationships too (“National Calorie Consumption Down Because of your Judgey Friend Becca”; “Six Secrets Your Doctor Doesn’t Want You to Know About Her Personal Life”).

Signature piece “Five Ways to Keep Bringing Up Your High School Achievements Into Your Thirties”. Neurotic, navel-gazing: she is media’s everywoman.

Reader Twenty- and thirty-something graduates who carry everything around in a tote bag and have long been subverting pop media in their own way using ironic hashtags (#blessed on a picture of their mate passed out in their bed; #eatclean on a piccy of their drunk McDonald’s). Sarcasm is their preferred verbal currency. Mum doesn’t get it, but she does now get shared custody of the pug you bought with your ex pre-split.

Most likely to be read On an iPhone with a cracked screen, on the bus, where you are sitting, tangled in a couple of tote bags (carrying a single “statement” handbag is for #basicbitches). It’s only Tuesday but you’re a bit pissed and are chomping on a Pret absent-mindedly.

How to share it On the girls’ Whatsapp group (ironically called “the lads”).

USP This site is a friendly confidante for women who are professional but still like to have a laugh — just like its founders presenter Lauren Laverne and former Cosmopolitan and Red magazine editor Sam Baker. In 15 minutes you could read about how to be more assertive over email and whether going grey is a big deal, and then debates on Andy Burnham being entitled to wear an Armani suit and if there is a right time to have a baby.

The Pool recognises that its readers have a lot on their plates and helpfully labels articles with how long it will take to read them — Pool readers have learned efficient time- management.

Signature piece Can reaching the top ever be bad news for women?

Reader Busy superwomen. They turn to The Pool to share their experience of juggling a career and family, while finding time to be funny on Twitter. The Pool reassures them that they are not alone, whether their preoccupations are that we need to talk about bronzer or learning to put yourself first.

Pool readers are politically engaged. SNP MP Mhairi Black and Hillary Clinton crop up regularly, as does Sophie Walker, the leader of the newly founded Women’s Equality Party. Former Observer political editor Gaby Hinsliff has written about a world where men didn’t have the vote. Meanwhile, Sali Hughes shares her experience of when politics becomes personal — read her pieces about how housing benefit saved her and going out with a Tory.

Most likely to be read By day on an iPhone while dashing around between meetings and later on collapsed on the sofa; box set on, glass of chardonnay in one hand, iPad in the other.

How to share it Twitter, obvs. Your niece keep going on about Instagram and Whatsapp, but you just get Twitter, and the cool social media girl gang of India Knight, Sali Hughes and Caitlin Moran are all on board.

Follow Susannah Butter and Phoebe Luckurst on Twitter: @susannahbutter @phoebeluckhurst

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