The Best Broadly Articles of 2015

At Broadly, we believe in providing a nuanced, multifaceted look at the issues that matter most to women. To wit: This year, our coverage of the nebulous category of "women's interest" has included reporting on the erosion of reproductive rights in our country, on moms who do MDMA, on the NFL's domestic violence and sexual assault policies, on MTV's The Hills, on the violence faced by trans women of color, and on teens who tweet "fuck me daddy" at the pope.

Below, the Broadly staff has chosen their favorite stories of the year.

At this point, it has been remarkably well-documented that the Center for Medical Progress—the organization behind the anti-Planned Parenthood "sting" videos—has an unsavory background, to put it mildly. In this piece, I examined the extent of this unsavoriness: Not only does the Center for Medical Progress have ties to multiple violent anti-abortion extremists, but it's likely the organization broke several federal and state laws in establishing a fraudulent charity in order to surreptitiously film abortion providers. These are people who had direct ties to the man who assassinated Dr. Tiller, who may have committed identity theft, who may have committed felony perjury, and their specious claims are being parroted verbatim by presidential candidates. It's, frankly, terrifying.

On a very different note: I made the arduous voyage to a sex club in World of Warcraft this summer (I had to take a hippogriff, a boat, and a trolley to get there, and it took me like 45 minutes). I feel that I learned a lot about the sexual politics of Azeroth: Within the WoW sex club, players engage in a vide variety of sexual activities, including several things I had never heard of before that point (i.e., vore). Outside, erotic roleplay is fairly stigmatized; however, sexual harassment is rampant, and many players form romantic or sexual relationships with people they meet in-game. This was the best time I have ever had while reporting, and not only because my avatar was a sensual elf.

— Callie Beusman, executive editor

I did not expect Virginie Despentes, a rape survivor and radical feminist author and filmmaker who deserves to exist as more than a purveyor of "texts" as liberal arts students know them, to be so funny, and that is what I tried to convey here

What I thought would be a fun and funny critical endeavor turned into a blonde, nasal nightmare of no end. I watched and watched episodes of MTV's The Hills, and yet there were still more episodes of MTV's The Hills to watch. The achievement here was as much one of endurance as of cultural critique, but I nevertheless feel like my thoughts on one of the most subtly weird reality television shows in history were very solid, and I was pleasantly surprised at how far I could carry the Proust joke.

— Lauren Oyler, editor

This was one of the first stories that I wrote for Broadly and it's still one of my favorites, because who doesn't love woke teen girls who love One Direction? People with no souls, that's who.

I edited this thoughtful and provocative long read by Seán Faye, which investigates the historic and ongoing trend into the gay men who hate on women and all things feminine. I have never gotten more emails from angry men complaining about a piece before, and more emails from grateful women thanking me for commissioning it. Also, Matt McGorry tweeted it.

— Zing Tsjeng, UK editor

The world perceives Ann Coulter as a hate mongering Barbie doll. I spent several days with Ann and her friends and discovered the conservative writer is a complicated single self-made success who hangs out with gay men, dated a Muslim guy, and defended Monica Lewinsky while mainstream feminists crucified the White House intern.

Black lives matter, the trans revolution, public shaming. Rachel Dolezal's saga touched upon all the major issues of 2015. Our 9,000-word exclusive profile revealed Rachel's story was crazier than anyone could have imagined.

— Mitchell Sunderland, managing editor

One of favorite articles I wrote this year was basically just the act of transcribing a lengthy conversation I had with Eileen Myles. Her poetry changed my life, in that I read it while going through some major life changes. That's all in the piece, plus far more interesting words from Eileen herself.

Partying with a mother of two while rolling on molly was definitely one of the best things I did in 2015. I'm so glad I got to meet Nicole, who is a great mom and person, and to share her story.

— Gabby Bess, staff writer

This was probably the most challenging story I have written, and it was also my favorite to write. I am proud of this piece because it tells a story where the media too often repeats statistics and generalities. I believe that storytelling is helpful because it anchors the reader to a person and a world that is personally relatable. I prefer when political content is inherent, that it's part of the story rather than a heavy handed slogan, or watered down hot topic.

I am very proud of this story because it sheds light on an overlooked taboo: masculinity and insecurity. This piece provides a narrative about identity and love that is useful to both the transgender community and society at large. The issues that the male figure at the heart of this article deals with permeate American society and yet we rarely talk about them. The media typically focuses on the "other" (women, LGBT ppl etc.) but this story looks into what I believe is the heart of the issue: men. I think it's a beautiful story and that we need to hear more of them, because if men could accept themselves and be allowed to freely express their identities without being hammered down by their own illusory (fear based) systems of superiority and power, many forms of cultural inequity would shift.

— Diana Tourjee, contributing editor

Credit where credit is due: this story was handed down to me by Her Holiness Callie Beusman, who sent me a bunch of "fuck me daddy" links and told me to have at it. These were easily the weirdest interviews I conducted all year, and also led to a lot of teens tweeting "mommy" at me for a few days.

It just felt so good to get this all off my chest.

— Monica Heisey, editor at large

I really enjoyed joining Stormfront.org and trolling white supremacists and neo-Nazis for this piece on literal Feminazis. I wanted to call it For Whom the Belle Trolls for the double play on words and also to associate Hemingway with Nazis, but casually suggesting to self-identifying feminist Nazis that it seems like a bit of a farce to stand for women's rights but not for, you know, non-white people's rights, was enough for me. Also, look at that illustration! Gold.

This project helped me care about football! Actually, not really. But for the first time ever I found myself shouting names at the screen in a bar when a football game was on. Those names happen to be of alleged rapists on the field, but still, I was participating. And isn't that what football is all about?

— Lindsay Schrupp, social editor

Astrology is good for way more than figuring out why you and your ex were incompatible.

Because horoscopes look at a small window of time, considering long term transits (like Saturn, which takes about two and a half year to go through a zodiac sign) isn't something astrologers frequently get to share with readers who are not looking for a heavy or advanced astrology article. I love this article because it's accessible to anyone whether or not they know astrology lingo.

— Annabel Gat, staff astrologer