The title of this article is The new confessional journalism turns female writers into tedious, self-hating semi-celebrities:

A first-person piece about, say, drug addiction in the week the government is voting on downgrading the classification of certain drugs is journalistically justified. An extended piece pegged to absolutely nothing in which a “former anorexic” journalist describes her hilarious horror at having to eat “normally” for three weeks is not, and simply suggests that the journalist can think of nothing to write about but herself.

But I might put forward a different hypothesis: Be it resolved that women created and popularized this genre of writing, rather than being victims of it.

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Brigitte adds: I’m not disagreeing with you, Andrea, but in my experience, editors (male or female) want popular pieces. And this sort of confessional stuff is popular – they’re like a car crash; horrifying yet oddly fascinating. We hate ourselves for reading those pieces. But enough of us read them to make them come back.

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Andrea adds: I’m not saying I’m 100 per cent sure that women did create the genre…at the same time neither am I sure that it was foisted upon us. Certainly the Oprah Winfrey world we live in demands confessional style everything from men and women alike.