Leandra’s Man Repeller has always been problematic
By: Bianca O'Neill
Tags: Man Repeller, Fashion, Media, BlackLivesMatter, Racism

But for some reason, the world’s only just noticing it now.

Leandra Medine (now Cohen) has always made me feel some kind of way.

Often it was the little things — like this reference to “luxury=freedom”, for example, that seemed so tone deaf to the average consumer. Equating upper-class, first-world, financial liquidity, in the form of access to luxury items, to freedom? I couldn’t think of any other way to put it, other than off.

There were also big things — like that time she compared herself to a post-surgery Michael Jackson — that were blatantly gross. Take a moment to consider the privileged ignorance at work here: lol! I look like that time Michael Jackson made his skin white and had nose surgery to look even more like a white person, due to centuries of ingrained societal racism and childhood trauma! How funny! Maybe I should take a side by side selfie and post it as a punch line!

So when I saw that Man Repeller — founded and run by Cohen — was being accused of racism within its ranks, I was far from surprised. In fact, I was surprised that anyone was surprised.

Man Repeller has always been a beacon of white female exclusivity; a(nother) space for the fashion industry to uphold as an inclusive space, when it was anything but. The idea that Cohen was a ‘man repeller’ — a model-skinny, cis, white woman, married to an investment banker, and living in Manhattan’s East Village — was flawed from the outset.

Stories like “Please Help Us Find Dakota Johnson’s China” would be the perfect troll, if not for the fact that these stories are written with such a level of earnest fervour so as to render them almost farcical. Are the writers aware of the absurdity of their plight? Or are they simply so wrapped up in the minutia of their insignificant problems that they genuinely think the average person would relate to an hours-long search for a $90 bowl that was ‘so close in spirit’ to Dakota’s that it allowed their ‘optimism to double in size’?

(And here we are complaining about Gwenny’s Goop… at least it does what it says on the box.)

Is it really any wonder that when Cohen posted a vague open letter about how she could create “a sustained impact in the fight to eradicate systemic racism”, without detailing any specific actions at all (other than linking to a few bestselling books), she opened herself up to criticism?

And criticism certainly came — firstly, via the general condemnation of its privileged, white-centric nature of the content and team, and secondly via direct accusations of racism within the company.

Then, a second open letter appeared, in which Cohen suggested she was “humbled by the depth of wisdom on display” — but apparently not humbled enough to bother actively working on her own shortcomings. She instead announced that she had stepped down from the top job.

For me, this was the most empty action of all; rather than learn, work, and deliver on her promise to ensure that Man Repeller’s content would forge a new, diverse path, she would instead run away and let other people deal with that whole thing.

(Side note: There was an excellent comment under the open letter that I now can’t find — links and screenshots welcome so that I can credit the poster — which pointed out that luxury and ‘richness’ is not the exclusive domain of white women, and fair point. I would, however, ask: how many times has Man Repeller written about a quest to find Taraji P. Henson’s china?)

Leandra’s stepping down is a coward’s act — there are no two ways about it.

To be clear, this is not a criticism that I level at all senior representatives who simply step down in the face of such allegations — in most cases, this is an appropriate action, in the face of their failings, to make way for a more diverse team to thrive. However, in this case, Man Repeller IS Leandra. This is her legacy; it is up to her, and her alone, to right these wrongs.

If Man Repeller is to pursue a space where they can meaningfully talk about #BLM — without the hypocritical employment of a mostly-white staff — they need to start with their voice.

As a former editor, I have to ask the question: could you take rigorous discussion of equal rights seriously if it sits next to headlines like Chloë Sevigny’s Baby Is 6 Days Old and Already Cooler Than Me? Would you place faith in the rigorous editorial standards of a website that also publishes articles like There’s a New Twilight Book Coming and My Heart Is Pounding?

Perhaps, dear reader, we ask too much. Only time will tell if this Leandra-free pivot will actually mean anything at all.