Long Form Journalism Review: Vanity Fair’s Women on Women

Summary: Some interesting insight into the lives of current celebrities and women from history, but also clear proof that just because a woman wrote an essay doesn’t mean it’s feminist.

This is a collection primarily composed of essays by female journalists about female celebrities. It also includes several essays by women about women’s rights and related social movements. My understanding is that all of these pieces have been previously published in Vanity Fair.

I find myself in the unusual position of having liked this essay collection, while also thinking that it wasn’t very good. There were two categories of essay that I particularly enjoyed. The first was essays on people I’m already interested in, but haven’t bothered to learn much about. These included essays where we got interesting, personal introductions to Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama, and Nicole Kidman, among others. The other set of essays that worked for more were those towards the end of the collection. These were primarily more recent and mostly in the section on movie stars. This was where we first, finally, got some essays where I felt like the authors had some sympathy and connection with the subjects of their essays. The fact that this wasn’t true for the rest of the collection was its fatal flaw.

Especially given that this was billed as a feminist collection, the misogyny on display was truly horrifying. Nearly every piece had a strong focus on the appearance of the woman who was the subject of the essay. For a few women being featured as fashion icons, this was understandable. In most essays, it simply read as judgmental. Many of the essays also felt prurient and prying. Only in the later pieces do the authors begin to express some remorse for asking prying questions or avoid asking them while still giving us a ton of insight into the women they were talking to.

Had this been presented as a mea culpa from Vanity Fair with some analysis of how their coverage of women has improved over time, it could have been really incredible. As is, it just highlights how concerning it is that Vanity Fair’s current editor-in-chief thinks these essays all belong in a feminist essay collection.

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