I want to shout out the wonderful Noella Williams for featuring me and our work at La Fronde in her story for The Objective about feminist media. It’s been really empowering to see so many new women-led outlets come up in the last few months, especially when the manosphere feels so palpably present.

The article makes the point that while women’s publications like Self, Glamour, Teen Vogue and Jezebel have either shut down or significantly scaled back their coverage, feminist media isn’t dead. Still, I want to stress one thing I said in the article: the landscape isn’t dead, but sustainable funding for feminist media (and outlets that cover marginalized voices, for that matter) is under threat.

I’ve talked with CEOs and founders of several media companies who cover women’s issues, LGBTQ+ issues and issues affecting people of color who say that the rollback of DEI support has hit them pretty hard financially. Many say their advertising dollars have dried up and forced them to make drastic cuts to their teams and resources. S. Mitra Kalita, the co-founder of URL Media who I interviewed in July about her work covering Black and brown communities, told me a similar story about how she’s lost significant government funding and sponsorship dollars, putting huge stress on her company. One editor in chief of a woman-focused media brand told me that advertising money has just stopped coming in.

A lot of these leaders told me that they’re just hoping to make it to 2029, when (maybe) the tide will shift on diversity once Trump is out of office. I can’t help but think that it’s still such a long way away. Who the hell knows what’s going to happen that far out from now? That’s a pretty bleak thing to think about, but I think the solution here is to support these outlets championing diverse voices in any way you can. Subscription dollars help, but even just reading and sharing their stories can mean a lot.

This retreat in diversity is perhaps most visible in the sheer number of women execs who’ve been pushed out of their high-profile posts in recent years. Our editor Brittney found this interesting study from September showing that women lost ground in corporate senior leadership this year for the first time in a decade. Big exits at Netflix, Disney and other places have raised this concern over the last week. What I haven’t really seen covered is how women in the industry are thinking about all of this right now as they navigate their careers. I wanted to hear from the actual people who have the most to lose from this rollback in diversity, not outsiders who are just speculating about what the fallout will be.

That’s what I’m covering in today’s cover story, plus Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway join forces to launch a new newsletter, a scoop on Condé’s fresh in-office mandate push, an NYT reporter’s son responds to allegations that Amy Griffin tried to sabotage his family, the influencers encouraging women not to vote, and more media intel in Seen and Heard.

xoxo,

Stephanie

As I was writing this, I started thinking about who helped me get a leg up at my first job at Discovery. I realized that all the women mentors who advocated for me back then were eventually let go from their jobs there. Every one of them.

It makes me wonder where I would be now if they hadn't been there. Probably not even writing this little newsletter here! And it makes me wonder how women currently working in entertainment are feeling about their own futures. I reached out to a few women I know across film and TV, from employees at major entertainment companies to independent creators, to get their POV on all of this.

Some were still hopeful about the future and had interesting thoughts about this period being a reset for Hollywood. Others, including current and former employees of major entertainment companies, say they don't even want to climb the corporate ladder anymore because it could make them easier targets for layoffs.

There was quite a range of perspectives. For this week's special edition of I Said What I Said, I wanted to share their unvarnished thoughts about everything going on (which they could do on or off the record).