The early 2010s was a period of brief and unusual high visibility for women’s media.

With the shift to digital, media dedicated to traditionally and stereotypically female interests – Celebrity! Fashion! Devastating first-person accounts of reproductive trauma! – was no longer contained behind magazine covers at supermarket checkouts. But this was also before the internet decided to only show people what they actually wanted to read, so all of this previously secret women’s business could be landing on anyone’s screen.

Asher Keddie in the soon-to-be-released Strife, inspired by the early days of Mia Freedman’s website, Mamamia.

Other parts of the online world were often not kind to the huge number of women’s websites of this era, almost all of which were shuttered by the end of the decade, or given their final kick amid the financial pressures of the pandemic. In those days, the backlash came thick and fast. Sometimes it was extremely warranted: in a race for clicks, provocative “hot takes” were launched online within minutes of their completion. But without fail, comments on stories about Princess Catherine’s wardrobe and Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness woo-woo would soon appear: “Is this news?” “Why is this news?” “Who cares?”

Two recent happenings brought me back to that peplum-shirted time. The first is the closure of Jezebel, a US news and commentary website that was the too-cool trailblazer of the “online news churn, but make it feminist” genre. Jezebel survived trolling campaigns and hacking attempts in its 15 years, only to be felled – in the way of so many other media brands – by a change in parent company.

The second is the imminent release of Strife, an Asher Keddie show which is inspired by the early days of former Cosmo editor Mia Freedman’s website, Mamamia. (It feels prudent to disclose I was a junior staff member at Mamamia until 2014. However, this should influence this piece as little as the hours I spent posting URLs on Google Plus influenced the website’s traffic.)

Michelle Andrews (left) and Zara McDonald host the hugely popular podcast, Shameless.Credit: Hugh Stewart

Digital publishing has moved on. The moment women’s media had sitting with its Barbies in the middle of the playground, dodging boisterous games of Bullrush and being called names by the kids on the monkey bars, passed quicker than you can say social media algorithm.

Women’s media has been evolving towards podcasts, behind paywalls, and even onto podcasts with paywalls. It is delivered by individual social media influencers with dedicated followers, and email newsletters with sign-up lists. You can’t discount the (necessary) financial motivations, but, in terms of the visibility of content designed for a female audience, it’s back to the magazine rack days of old.

Those who are not seeking out women’s media now rarely encounter it. Gone are the days when a controversial opinion about parenting could spawn days of national outrage, further opinion pieces and breakfast television slots. So, are women free to just like what they like and say what they feel? It’s complicated.