Third year's the charm

Broadsheet celebrates its third anniversary with a list of our all-time favorite posts.

Published October 24, 2008 10:00PM (EDT)

Broadsheet started three years ago, the brainchild of then Life editor Lori Leibovich and staff writers Rebecca Traister and Katharine Mieszkowski. At the time, the ladysphere was a much quieter place -- Feministing was there, as well as Pandagon -- and the first post announced Broadsheet's intent thus:

Our aim is to cast a spotlight on news that puts women in the center … Broadsheet will be taking the ladies seriously, whether that means tracking news about how our rights are holding up, how well we're representing ourselves politically, or how the advertising world has decided to address us, what kinds of health advances are ahead of us -- all the news of our (usually) two-steps-forward, one-step-back march to equality. Broadsheet is about contradictions -- the fact that opinion and editorial pages are dominated by men, alongside the fact that the most powerful editorial section of all, that of the New York Times, is run by a woman, Gail Collins. That's the Broadsheet paradox: We've got problems, we've got some power, we'll talk about both.

Since then, Broadsheet has evolved into what MSNBC not long ago called a "must-read feminist blog." The media landscape has altered dramatically since Oct. 24, 2005, of course. Slate introduced the XX Factor. The fantastic Jezebel hit the scene. Leslie Stahl, Liz Smith and company rolled out Wowowow, for older women.  And the market has yet to be saturated. Just yesterday, in fact, came a report that former Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers plans to start her own female-centric blog.

In honor of Broadsheet's third anniversary, we put together a list of our favorite posts over the past three years. Breast-feeding, sex tourism, Hillary Clinton and Dolly Parton. How's that for a nice, heady mix?

Enjoy. Comment. Disagree. We wouldn't have it any other way. And as always, thanks for reading.


By Sarah Hepola

Sarah Hepola is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, "Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget."

MORE FROM Sarah Hepola

By Judy Berman

Judy Berman is a writer and editor in Brooklyn. She is a regular contributor to Salon's Broadsheet.

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