Jessica Bennett (journalist)
Jessica Bennett (born 1981) is an American journalist who writes on gender issues, politics and culture. She was the first gender editor[1] for The New York Times and a former columnist at Time.[2]
Jessica Bennett | |
---|---|
Born | 1981 (age 38–39) Seattle, Washington, United States |
Education | Boston University |
Occupation | Journalist |
Employer | The New York Times |
Awards | New York Press Club (multiple) Newswomen's Club of New York (multiple) GLAAD Media Award International Center for Photography |
Website | jessicabennett |
She is the author of ''Feminist Fight Club: A Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace'' (HarperCollins, 2016)[3] and editor of ''This Is 18: Girls Lives Through Girls’ Eyes'' (Abrams, 2019).[4]
Personal background
Bennett grew up in Seattle, Washington, where she attended Garfield High School. She received a B.S. in journalism from Boston University, where she was a student reporter covering crime at The Boston Globe. She moved to New York City to become a research assistant to the investigative reporter Wayne Barrett.[5]
Career
Bennett began her career at Newsweek, where she was a staff writer, and won a NY Press Club award for the story on the Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy, about a family's struggle to remove their daughter's gruesome death photos from the internet.[6][7] In 2010, she and two colleagues wrote a cover story titled "Are We There Yet?"[8] about Newsweek's long history of sexism. It appeared on the 40th anniversary of a landmark lawsuit against the magazine,[9] in which 46 female staffers sued the company for gender discrimination. That story became a book, The Good Girls Revolt, by Lynn Povich[10] and an Amazon television series of the same name.[11]
Bennett left Newsweek after it merged with The Daily Beast and worked briefly at Tumblr[12] and Sheryl Sandberg's nonprofit Lean In,[13] where she cofounded the Lean In Collection with Getty Images, a photo initiative to change the depiction of women in stock photography.[14]
For The New York Times, Bennett was a contributing writer and columnist [15] for the Style section before becoming gender editor. She has written on the #MeToo movement,[16] uncovered allegations of sexual misconduct against the playwright Israel Horovitz,[17] and has covered cultural trends such as the attempt by Playboy magazine to rebrand,[18] feminists joining sororities,[19] and the rise of sexual consent training programs on college campuses.[20] Her profiles include Monica Lewinsky,[21] Paula Broadwell,[22] Whitney Wolfe of Bumble,[23] E. Jean Carroll,[24] Alyssa Milano and Jennifer Aniston.[25] She once wrote a viral piece about her Resting Bitch Face.[26]
In 2016, Bennett published her first book, Feminist Fight Club: A Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace,[27] which was called "engaging, practical and hilarious" by Sheryl Sandberg[3] and "a classic f--k you feminist battle guide" by Broad City's Ilana Glazer.[3]
In 2017, The New York Times announced that Bennett would serve as its first-ever gender editor.[28] In that role, Bennett was responsible for expanding coverage of women and gender issues across platforms and better engaging women readers. She created the In Her Words newsletter,[29] launched the Overlooked obituaries project,[30] a series of long-overdue obituaries for notable women whose deaths were never covered in the paper, and published the perspectives of young women around the world through “This is 18,” [31] a photography initiative that became an international exhibit and a book.
She is cohost of The New York Times’s annual women’s conference, The New Rules Summit.[32]
Awards and honors
Bennett has been honored by the Newswomen's Club of New York,[33] GLAAD Media Award,[34] the New York Press Club[35] and the International Center of Photography for her work on the Lean In Collection.[36]
References
- Bennett, Jessica (December 13, 2017). "Jessica Bennett, Our New Gender Editor, Answers Your Questions". The New York Times. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
- "How to Stop a 'Manterrupter' Like Donald Trump". Time. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
- Bennett, Jessica. "Feminist Fight Club - Jessica Bennett - Hardcover". HarperCollins US. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
- Bennett, Jessica (November 12, 2019). "A stunning celebration of girlhood around the world, from the New York Times". Abrams. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
- Pérez-peña, Richard (February 25, 2011). "For Wayne Barrett, the Digging for Dirt Hasn't Stopped". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
- Bennett, Jessica (April 24, 2009). "One Family's Fight Against Grisly Web Photos". Newsweek.
- Bennett, Jessica (April 2, 2010). "For Family of Nikki Catsouras, a Victory in Court". Newsweek.
- "Young Women, Newsweek, and Sexism". Newsweek. March 18, 2010. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
- "40 Years of Sexism at Newsweek?". ABC News. March 24, 2010. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
- Liesl Schillinger. "Throwing Stones at Glass Ceilings". The New York Times. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
- Watch Good Girls Revolt Season 1 Episode - Amazon Video, retrieved September 26, 2016
- Brian Stelter. "Blogging Site Tumblr Makes Itself the News". The New York Times. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
- Suzanna Bobadilla. "Meet Jessica Bennett, Feminist Powerhouse and Editor of Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In". Mic. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
- "Q&A: The Curator of Lean In's Feminist Stock Photos". February 10, 2014. Retrieved September 26, 2016.
- "Command Z". Retrieved June 1, 2017.
- Bennett, Jessica (November 5, 2017). "The Click Moment: How the Weinstein Scandal Unleashed a Tsunami". The New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
- Bennett, Jessica (November 30, 2017). "Nine Women Accuse the Playwright Israel Horovitz of Misconduct". The New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
- Bennett, Jessica (August 2, 2019). "Can the Millennials Save Playboy?". The New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
- Bennett, Jessica (April 9, 2016). "When a Feminist Pledges a Sorority". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
- Bennett, Jessica (January 9, 2016). "Campus Sex … With a Syllabus". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
- Bennett, Jessica (March 19, 2015). "Monica Lewinsky Is Back, but This Time It's on Her Terms". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 26, 2016.
- Bennett, Jessica (May 28, 2016). "Paula Broadwell, David Petraeus and the Afterlife of a Scandal". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 26, 2016.
- Bennett, Jessica (March 18, 2017). "With Her Dating App, Women Are in Control". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 18, 2017.
- Bennett, Jessica (June 27, 2019). "Why E. Jean Carroll, the Anti-Victim, Spoke Up About Trump". The New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
- Bennett, Jessica (September 10, 2019). "It's a New Morning for Jennifer Aniston". The New York Times.
- Bennett, Jessica (August 1, 2015). "I'm Not Mad. That's Just My RBF". The New York Times.
- Bennett, Jessica (September 13, 2016). Feminist Fight Club: An Office Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace. Harper Wave.
- "Meet The New York Times's First Gender Editor". Teen Vogue. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
- "In Her Words". The New York Times. July 6, 2018. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
- Padnani, Amisha; Bennett, Jessica (March 8, 2018). "Remarkable People We Overlooked in Our Obituaries". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
- Bennett, Jessica; Strzemien, Anya (October 11, 2018). "This is 18 Around the World — Through Girls' Eyes". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
- "The New Rules Summit: Women, Leadership and a Playbook for Change". The New York Times. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
- Alex Alvarez (November 5, 2010). "The 2011 Front Page Awards". FishBowlNY, AdWeek.
- "Pictures and Winners From the 20th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in NYC" (Press release). GLAAD. March 30, 2009.
- "The New York Press Club Journalism Awards: 2011 Winners". New York Press Club. Archived from the original on July 9, 2015.
- "2015 Infinity Award: Trustee". International Center of Photography. May 16, 2016. Retrieved June 1, 2017.