What Do Businesswomen Want? More Shoes, Sez the Wall Street Journal

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Oh, dear. I’m not sure my little lady brain can take it, but the Wall Street Journal has created a new page on its website specifically aimed at women. While thankfully the site isn’t designed in a Sex and the City shade of pink, it’s full of stereotypically female things like shoes, fashion, dieting, and Bonnie Fuller.

While the page does have a few interesting articles, like one on how the termination of your pregnancy may coincide with the termination of your job, the entire idea of a separate ladies section of the Journal is a bit problematic. Doesn’t it sort of imply that the big, bad, serious sections of the newspaper are for the big boys? That women aren’t interested in scary, manly topics like quarterly earnings or industry mergers? Channeling Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder: can’t you have a vagina and a brain too?

I think the tone of the page answers some of those questions. There’s an article on “Putting an End to Mindless Munching,” another on “Decolletage at a Work Dinner,” and the kicker, “High on Heels: How Shoes Affect the Juggle.” The last article is a blog post on how high heels look great at the office, but hurt your feet. This is news? Come on, Rupert, we expect better, even from you.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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