Flipping through the pages of The New York Times over the past week, you may have seen the lengthy investigation into sexual harassment accusation against film magnate Harvey Weinstein. Or perhaps you read of Attorney General Jeff Sessions's announcement that transgender people are no longer protected by federal workplace anti-discrimination laws. Or maybe you read up on the message of peace women in Liberia sent to their government. Stories on gender issues are nothing new in the Times, but now the institution is dedicating even more focus to how gender impacts our daily lives.
On Tuesday, October 10, the Times announced Jessica Bennett will serve as its first-ever gender editor, leading the charge in a new initiative to see the news through this lens. Even in a week when gender topped the Times's coverage through its investigation into the allegations against Weinstein, Jodi Rudoren, editorial director of NYT Global, tells Teen Vogue that Jessica's new role will connect the dots on gender coverage in an important way.
"One of the things I grappled with for a long time as I tried to figure out who should be our gender editor and what our gender initiative should look like is, really, what is gender and what are gender issues?" Rudoren tells Teen Vogue. "I felt like we had all this great coverage around the newsroom and around the world that I would categorize as gender, and I knew we weren't doing what we should be doing or could be doing to link up these different stories and different project on so many different beats that have this thing in common — and have this thing in common for readers, and help readers connect those dots, and create a little bit of a lens through which to engage with our report."
Bennett, who Rudoren described as an "idea factory," has worked as a freelancer with the Times on stories related to gender and culture, and authored the book Feminist Fight Club: A Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace. In her new role, which she officially starts on October 30, Bennett wants to reimagine the news through an intersectional lens — and not just in one section of the paper.
"To me, what gender issues means is not simply coverage of feminism or issues related to women's rights. Though of course that is important, and we're committed to approaching those issues and approaching them from an instersectional lens. But I think for a place like the Times, this type of content needs to exist throughout every section of the paper," Bennett says. "So whether that means stories about gender identity, or sexuality, or masculinity, or race and class and how that plays into gender identity, or simply the subjects that the Times already covers — politics, international affairs, science, health. But approaching these subjects through a lens of gender."
"We're think about this really holistically," she says. "It's about the type of coverage, and at times, elevating some of the underrepresented voices. It's also about looking at our own report critically and thinking about tone, and subtle language things, and the visual displays of stories, and bylines and sources."
This is all happening as our understanding of gender expands and shifts, as the concept of a gender binary is torn down, and as more and more people are gaining the tools and knowledge to better understand themselves and others around them.
It comes, Bennett says, as gender impacts every part of our lives, even as the strict understandings we once had about how gender shapes our lives change.
"I think it's everywhere, but I also think it's one of those things that we don't necessarily see," Bennett tells Teen Vogue. "We’re in a moment right now where women's rights are a subject of intense discussion and scrutiny. To that extent it feels very of the moment and in your face. But at the same time, this is the kind of thing that plays out in our daily lives in so many ways."
And that's precisely why Bennett won't head a section of the Times. Instead of creating a gender "section," Rudoren says the Times is breaking down the typical walls inside that we might expect to see coverage of gender issues. That's because gender is so pervasive in our everyday lives it can't be constrained to one area of coverage — it's in business, politics, science, style, and sports.
"The reality is that institutions, and old-school media institutions, were primarily created by and for white men," Bennett says. "But that has changed."
Related: Gender Variance Around the World Over Time
