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Paper Monitor

15:41 UK time, Monday, 1 October 2012

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor was today deprived of its daily delivery of print newspapers. Not to be denied, it was time to explore the web versions for a daily fix.

Paper Monitor is all for gender equality.

So it is with great pleasure that one should welcome the Daily Telegraph's , offering "a female slice of life".

But one cannot help but wonder (ahem) if describing a bunch of journalists as "Wonder Women", though surely merited, does not risk tilting the gender-balance scales the other way.

A trawl through newspaper websites revealed no "Marvellous Men" sections.

But what is it that makes these women "wondrous" compared to the mere "women" on other sites?

Well, it appears the Telegraph is directly taking on the Daily Mail "Femail" (see what they did?) section's claim to be the voice for women in the 21st Century.

"All too often 'women's content' is either lipsticks and handbags or BMW - bitching, moaning and whining about the 'plight of being a woman'," opines Emma Barnett, the Telegraph's women's editor.

Perhaps she is right. Femail's sub-topics include "Food", "Beauty", "Fashion Store", and "Pictures" (of beauty, jewellery and fashion).

Kudos to "Femail" for breaking gender stereotypes.

Instead the new "Wonder Women" sections offers: "A new daily online section filled with sassy, irreverent and intelligent content about politics, business, family, life and sex."

So, essentially similar but with a specifically "sassy" take on politics and business.

Does "sassy" ever have a connotation that is not distinctly feminine?

Paper Monitor also finds it interesting that sex is the exclusive domain of women. It is hard to imagine a newspaper advertising a group of male columnists as experts in "politics, business and sex".

From the Sun's "Dear Deirdre" to the Telegraph's Dr Brooke Magnanti, it appears nobody wants to hear from men about sex.

Is this sexist against men? Or is it sexist that women are exploited for their wisdom about sex?

Oh-oh, Paper Monitor's must-be-impartial-regarding-gender-equality head is confused.

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