The new issue of People magazine has both celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and fashion designer Kate Spade on its cover. Sadly, the magazine is the only weekly tabloid to give both stars the cover treatment, with other magazines featuring only Bourdain.

When Spade and Bourdain died by suicide, just days apart, tributes and tweets celebrated the lives of both, but there was a distinct gender bias in the media coverage of the two deaths. While articles on Bourdain celebrated his life and accomplishments, writers speculated that Spade’s professional success and the pressure associated with it had, perhaps, finally taken its toll on her. Bourdain was heroic; Spade was tragic. If you don’t think gender has anything to do with it, please consider these two headlines:

From Rolling Stone: “Anthony Bourdain’s Meal With Obama Was a Proud American Moment” 

From Business Insider: “Kate Spade reportedly addressed a suicide note to her daughter”

The media largely focused on Spade’s career as a successful designer, on the business she built, and on the effect the things she created, most notably handbags, had on those who purchased them (often with some serious classist overtones). At times it was as if Spade was invisible, existing only in relation to how she made others feel, how owning a Kate Spade purse had made a writer feel like they had finally crossed over the threshold to adulthood. Spade was not a woman, but a symbol of first careers, of first moves to big cities like New York, of first steps towards the Carrie Bradshawing of one’s life. 

Bourdain’s tributes were much more emotional, much rawer, and more focused on keeping Bourdain front and centre. He was repeatedly described as a great listener, a great conversationalist, a great checker of white privilege. It was not just about his resumé, what he produced, or how we consumed it, as it had been with Spade. People talked about the effect Bourdain had on their lives, but never in a way that rendered him absent from the narrative.

Significantly more column inches were devoted to the sensationalist, tabloid-like aspects of Spade’s death. How did she do it? Was there a note? If so, what did the note say? Who was it addressed to? There was US Weekly-style speculation that perhaps Spade’s separation from her husband and business partner Andy Spade had led to her death.

In the hours after Spade’s death, the media was like TMZ on steroids. Spade was not a human, but a headline. A CNN online story notes the cause of Spade’s death in the first paragraph. It takes CNN eight paragraphs to get to the cause of death in their reporting on Bourdain.

Coverage of Bourdain avoided the celebrity gossip angle and was less concerned with details of motive or method. No one speculated about the state of his relationship with actress and director Asia Argento and no one questioned how or if it could have been a factor in his death.

Writers were respectful of Bourdain, repeatedly acknowledging that they may not have known what the TV host was going through. The same can definitely be said of Spade, but that didn’t stop the media from speculating widely about it. As a woman, they felt it was okay to project, to speculate, to speak for Spade—even in death.

Bourdain’s coverage largely questioned why he would take his own life when he had everything. His was a glass half full. Spade’s coverage referenced what she had lost, her business troubles, her marriage troubles, and how it might have all been too much. The underlying narrative was that women are weak, that this world is too much for them. That they cannot survive. She was a glass half empty.

Coverage of Spade’s death mentioned that she may have been drinking too much, may have been self-medicating with alcohol and pills to deal with business challenges and her crumbling relationship. Writers discussed how Spade may have been afraid her depression and drinking would jeopardize her brand so she kept it hidden. Remember, Spade was a brand. Bourdain was a human. It makes me incredibly sad that in her professional and personal life, Spade could have felt like she had to hide addiction, darkness, and depression to preserve an empire built on positivity and polka dots. This says so much more about the pressures that society places on women, and especially successful women, then it does about Spade.

Articles hinted at Spade’s drinking, but largely treated it like a shameful secret she kept. If only Spade had been a man, then her drinking would have been good for business. Bourdain’s coverage described him as a “drug-loving chef,” and while his battles with heroin have been well documented, most notably in his 2000 book Kitchen Confidential, tributes largely treated his addiction as a thing of the past.

While coverage didn’t speculate on whether Bourdain was using drugs again, it certainly would have if he was a woman. It celebrated his bad boy image, his status as a “renegade chef,” and talked of his second act which, of course, doesn’t include his past drug use. Celebrating, rewarding, and excusing the bad boy is something media and pop culture do again and again (see also: Charlie Sheen, Sean Penn, Johnny Depp and so many more). Both in life and in death, male celebrities always get a redemption story.

Both might have been drinking too much, but only one merits mention. In death Bourdain was a saint, and Spade a sinner. If you want to see this tired narrative in action some more, just compare the tabloid-like documentaries of the lives of Whitney Houston or Amy Winehouse, which chronicle every drug use detail and bad relationship decision, with the 2017 documentary devoted to George Michael’s life and career, with doesn’t mention drugs, public restrooms or undercover cops at all. Of course, Michael’s film was authorized by the artist; with Houston and Winehouse’s docs, male filmmakers thought it was okay to just take a woman’s story, pick it apart, and package it for moviegoers.

It’s not surprising that Spade’s role as a wife and mother was front and centre in all the tributes. Spade’s coverage often referenced her 13-year-old daughter and painted Spade as a selfish mother who had abandoned her child. Bourdain’s daughter was not mentioned as often, if at all, nor was he accused of abandonment or neglect. I actually had no clue he had a daughter until one article mentioned it days after his death.

Eventually, coverage of Spade’s death was replaced by Bourdain’s as he took centre stage. The tributes to Bourdain continue, while Spade’s death has largely faded from the media spotlight. Female celebrities are always upstaged by their male counterparts—and even in death, it is no different.

By Christopher Harte, via Wikimedia Commons

Sixteen. That’s the number of years tabloid magazines have spent declaring Jennifer Aniston pregnant. Rumours started gestating while the actress was still married to Brad Pitt, but really ramped up post-Pitt. Aniston has been “pregnant and alone,” “pregnant with twins,” “pregnant with John Mayer’s baby”—your body is not a wonderland when that happens—and a “pregnant bride.” She’s been pregnant in every possible situation, except the one where she is actually with child.

Just last month In Touch published a cover story declaring “Jen’s finally pregnant” complete with photos of Aniston and husband Justin Theroux on their Bahamas babymoon (please make this word go away forever. I beg of you.). In what felt like a 100 page-article, the tabloid discussed possible baby names, nursery plans, and what she is eating now. She has a special salad! It has feta!

The photos that accompanied the piece painfully dissected Aniston’s body with arrows pointing to her baby bump and illustrating how her body is getting “fuller.” In case the close ups of her mid-section weren’t enough to convince readers, In Touch pointed out a picture of Theroux paddling a floating thingy around some water. The magazine emphasized that Jen was not paddling, because everyone knows pregnant women don’t paddle. The photos also looked more like she had maybe just skipped the special salad that day and had a burrito instead. Burrito or baby bump? You decide! (I will always side with team burrito.)

Aniston didn’t seem to enjoy the cover story, or that last 16 years of them, and last week penned an essay for Huffington Post confirming she was not pregnant and calling out tabloids for using “celebrity ‘news’ to perpetuate this dehumanizing view of females, focused solely on one’s physical appearance.” She went on to criticize the magazines for defining “a woman’s value based on her marital and maternal status” and for perpetuating “this notion that women are somehow incomplete, unsuccessful, or unhappy if they’re not married with children.”

Responses to Aniston’s piece ranged from “how brave!” and “you go, girl!” to criticism that she has no right to rail against the magazines when she is part of the ridiculous Hollywood machine that promotes unrealistic and unattainable standards of beauty. Online commenters called her a hypocrite for shaming tabloids for focussing on her looks when she makes millions endorsing beauty products. Aniston currently shills for Aveeno and Smart Water, both of which seem harmless enough. Or wait—maybe you’re right, dear anonymous internet commenter, an insistence on moisturizing or staying hydrated totally gives me a right to her uterus.

Keeping it classy, others commented on her appearance. It’s helpful to respond to an essay about body shaming, by pointing out that someone looks like Jay Leno with a potato stuck in the middle of their face. Thanks “feminist” website. Women’s magazines applauded Aniston for her stand, but then seemed to cling desperately to the part of the piece where Aniston admits, “Yes, I may become a mother someday.”

Others used the essay as an opportunity to talk about Aniston’s acting skills. I am not a huge fan of Friends, but that’s not the point. I may not be hanging out at Central Perk, but I (and many other non-celebrity women) can relate to feeling interrogated about not reproducing. Aniston is 47, which makes the media even more uncomfortable with her lack of children and decision to not embrace motherhood. I am three years younger than Aniston and have, unfortunately, had more than one person inquire about why I am unmarried and don’t have children. At a recent meeting, a woman I had just met asked if I had children. When I responded that I had no desire to she looked at me like I had just asked the group to blue sky a large pile of human feces I had left in the middle of the board room table. (She also took the last muffin so she’s basically a monster all around.)

The same week that Aniston called out the tabloids for their dehumanizing and disturbing behaviour, it was announced that Mick Jagger was going to be a father for the eighth time. Celebrity gossip sites celebrated the news that despite his age (72), Jagger could still get his jumping jack flash up inside another human being. If Jagger had been a woman the media would have reported on the story in a very different way. Jagger was treated like a god, while any woman in Hollywood over the age of 40 who dares to have a child is treated like a freak who tricked science and must receive all our pity, skepticism, and ridicule.

The tabloids have focussed so much on Aniston’s stomach over the years I feel like I could now confidently pick it out of a police line-up. George Clooney is also childless and married late, according to celeb gossip standards, but I have never seen a paparazzi close up of the Ocean Eleven in Clooney’s pants with the headline “Full of baby batter or just awkward fitting Dockers?” Also, Clooney’s decision to marry later in life made him a desirable “bachelor” and “hard to lock down” while Aniston’s made her a sad lonely woman who was going to die alone surrounded by cats and/or burritos.

When Aniston isn’t on 24-hour bump watch she’s busy feuding with Angelina Jolie. A recent cover story declared the two had an “Explosive Showdown.” Apparently, Pitt sent Aniston an email or an edible arrangement offering condolences on the recent death of her mother and all hell broke loose. (Did she die watching By the Sea because that thing sounds so awful it’s basically like the videotape in The Ring?) Sadly, this cover story is not new. Rachel Green and Mrs. Smith have been going at it—and not in the way the majority of people would like them to—since 2005. That’s 11 years. When these ladies started feuding George W. Bush was still president of the U.S. and Facebook was barely a year old. Let that sink in for a moment.

From celebrity boob blunders to celebrities without make up to who wore it best, the tabloids are constantly scrutinizing, analyzing and pitting women against each other. The latest issue of Star features a report on Hollywood’s best and worst Mom’s complete with scores for each. Jolie gets an A+ which is amazing since, according to the tabloids, she spends all her time engulfed in a seemingly never ending episode of Cheaters. Courtney Love gets an F. As a defender of Love, even I’ll admit she probably won’t win any PTA awards, but I’d like to point out that in Montage of Heck she is the only parent of Frances Bean not shown nodding off on heroin while holding her and is also the only parent—spoiler alert—still standing at the end of the film.

The tabloids have yet to release, and probably never will, their rankings of Hollywood dads. They rarely discuss this. They sometimes talk about how Tom Cruise doesn’t see Suri, but that’s because he is a weird Scientologist, not because he is a man. There is no celebrity boner blunder coverage and rarely do men make the worst bodies’ issue, which is the tabloids’ answer to the swimsuit issue. Mickey Rourke occasionally washes up on the beach, but that’s about it.

When tabloids mention dads at all, it’s usually to praise them, sometimes for simple things like just being in the same room as their offspring. Even Charlie Sheen’s parenting skills have been applauded. A recent tabloid story about Sheen talks favourably—and weirdly excitedly—about his possible awesome new reality show. (Didn’t we already have this and it was called Two and a Half Men?) It also mentions Sheen’s great relationship with his kids, despite what must be the scores of child psychologists circling them like vultures, visions of billable hours dancing in their heads. It’s like all of 2011 and #winning and #tigerblood never happened.

But, trashy tabloids aren’t the only ones at fault. Vanity Fair recently came under criticism for its August issue cover story on actress Margot Robbie. Writer Rich Cohen basically spends the piece nursing a journalistic hard on for Robbie and the result is a sexist, offensive piece, sparking writer Roxane Gay to tweet “Every issue of Vanity Fair this month comes with a thin sheen of Rich Cohen’s semen holding the pages of Margot Robbie’s profile together.”

Tabloids’ defence is that they’re just giving the people what they want. According to an Adweek report, if you want to move magazines put Aniston on the cover. Her July 2015 Life & Style “It’s Official! Jen is…Finally Married!” (Phew!) cover was the magazine’s best-selling issues of the year and sold more than 260,000 copies. Her post-Pitt 2005 Vanity Fair cover still remains one of the magazine’s top five covers of all-time. Speculation about the contents of her womb continues to be newsstand gold 16 years on. Congrats, Jen! You may not have a baby, but think of all the burritos you can buy.

How we imagine an “arty” Shia LeBeouf may look  || By User:Wiki Lon (Own work) [GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

When male celebrities implode on the world stage, they’re arty heroes. When women do it, they’re called “troubled” and worse

Did you miss the recent Valentine’s Day announcement that winning warlock Charlie Sheen is getting married for the fourth time? Maybe you were busy having a life, or watching season two of House of Cards (SO GOOD!) or let your subscription to Winning Warlock Weekly lapse.

Who can blame you after Sheen’s well-publicized 2011 meltdown, or “meltforward” as he called it, complete with truth torpedos, goddesses and weird rants about tiger blood. The media covered Sheen’s meltdown—I refuse to make meltforward happen—like it was a sitcom or comedy tour, wondering what hilarity and hijinx Sheen would get up to next. His history of violence against women, substance abuse, anti-Semitism and responsibility for making #winning happen were largely swept under the rug. Sheen’s behaviour was often described as “antics” or dismissed, as “hey, look Charlie’s being zany again.”

In fact, during his meltdown heyday, Sheen was treated like a rock star. He landed a Rolling Stone cover and made several primetime appearances that provided him ample airtime to explain himself and his behaviour. Sheen was also the highest paid television actor at the time—earning a reported $1.8 million (US) per episode of Two and a Half Men. That kind of cheddar buys a lot of bowling shirts. Sheen’s mental state may have been questioned during his meltdown, but not nearly as much as that of a 2007 meltdown era Britney Spears.

Sheen’s media image hasn’t changed much since 2011. Coverage of his recent engagement largely laughed off his 2011 “antics,” instead focussing on his desire to have children with his new bride. No mention was made of Sheen’s history of domestic violence or lacklustre parenting record. Does this man even have custody of any of his other four children? Do his children just go directly from the womb to Denise Richards’ care?

Compare coverage of Sheen’s meltdown to that of Drake-lover Amanda Bynes or an umbrella-wielding Britney Spears and it doesn’t take long to see the double standard when it comes to celebrity meltdowns. At the same time Sheen was gracing the cover of Rolling Stone, Lindsay Lohan appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in a piece that painstakingly detailed Lohan’s substance abuse issues and legal troubles. It also made frequent reference to her haggard appearance and questioned whether she would ever, ever get her once promising career back on track. The verdict: no. Sheen #winning. Lohan #tragic.

But Sheen’s not the only one benefiting from the media’s double standard. Once squeaky clean pop star Justin Bieber has had a DUI arrest, disrespected Bill Clinton while peeing in a restaurant mop bucket, egged a neighbour’s house, been photographed sneaking out of a Brazilian brothel and sparked a US petition to deport him. He also wants to change his name to Bizzle, which is not technically a crime, just kind of a crime against humanity.

Media coverage of Bieber largely downplays the severity of his troubles, chalking them up to growing pains as the singer transitions into adulthood and sheds his Bieber skin to become Bizzle. Like Bieber, both Bynes and Lohan started out as child stars, but their troubles are rarely attributed to growing up, instead the media focuses on their mental state or their drug use. At least Bieber is allowed to grow up. If the media had their way Miley Cyrus would remain in a perpetual state of Hannah Montana.

Despite finding drugs on his tour bus, pilots on his plane having to wear gas masks (is that even safe?) cause the marijuana smoke was so thick and sources close to Bieber—I refuse to make Bizzle happen—concerned about his addiction to Sizzurp (Google it) and pot, Bieber’s substance abuse and troubled behaviour has largely been portrayed as socially acceptable teenage rebellion. Again, none for you Miley.

Writing after Bieber’s recent surrender to Toronto police for allegedly assaulting a limo driver the media wondered if maybe this was all a carefully constructed public relations move or an image rebrand designed to improve Bieber’s bad boy image. Hey, it worked for Sheen—who I would like to point out is worth a reported $125 million (US). The media noted that Bieber’s record sales weren’t what they used to be. Perhaps vandalism and monkey abandonment were just the thing to get the record buying public interested in him again.

For Bieber being a bad boy is good for business. Not so much for Lohan. Her last film The Canyons was largely panned before it even hit theatres. Reviewers seemed unable to separate the Lohan they saw on the big screen with the Lohan they saw on the TMZ small screen. Lohan is definitely not the worst thing about The Canyons—next time perhaps the director could avoid hate filming his actors or people could remember that Bret Easton Ellis-penned characters are largely vapid and often laughable—but almost every review focussed on Lohan’s performance and never missed an opportunity to refer to her as “embattled actress Lindsay Lohan” or “troubled startlet Lindsay Lohan.” Chris Brown is always just Chris Brown not “Rihanna beater Chris Brown” or “violent misogynist Chris Brown” or “serial douchebag Chris Brown.”

Even if being a bad girl can be good for business the media is quick to remind us that this fame and success could vanish at any minute. During her meltdown days Spears made some questionable choices—shaving her head, marrying Kevin Federline, hanging out with Paris Hilton, just to name a few—that the media will never let her forget. Despite media concern over her post-meltdown career, Spears continues to top the charts, judge The X Factor and headline a two-year Vegas residency. Despite this, the majority of her media coverage never fails to mention her quickie marriages and rehab visits and suggests that another meltdown might be waiting just right around the corner.

And then there’s Shia LaBeouf. Where do we even start? If you’re just joining the LaBeouf crazy train already in progress he’s been plagiarizing people, punching people, walking out on press conferences while plagiarizing people, punching people at bars, fighting with Alec Baldwin and just generally behaving bizarrely. Rumours of substance abuse have long plagued LaBeouf. He generally brushes them off as “method acting” or blames others for not understanding his intensity (read: love of the sauce).

LaBeouf’s latest stunt involves his announcement that he is retiring from acting, followed by an appearance at the Berlin Film Fest for the premiere of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac sporting a paper bag over his head with “I’m Not Famous Anymore” scrawled on it. It turns out this was all part of—wait for it—a performance art piece called #IAMSORRY that LaBeouf was mounting in Los Angeles. The performance involves LaBeouf sitting silently in a dark room with the paper bag over his head and various mementos from his career; including Indiana Jones’ crystal skull and a Transformers action figures. I give his show three 2009 Joaquin Phoenix’s out of five. Can’t LaBeouf just join General Hospital like James Franco did?

Media coverage of LaBeouf’s meltdown in the name of art has largely focussed on his eccentricity—there’s those zany antics again—and his valuable contribution to the dialogue around performance art. One media outlet even gathered a panel of performance artists to discuss LaBeouf’s work with one going so far as to say: “he’s starting a broad cultural discussion that needs to be had.” Way to go, Even Stevens—LaBeouf was a child Disney star too, but we don’t get reminded of this nearly as much as we do with Miley.

By embracing his performance art angle the media legitimizes LaBeouf’s bizarre antics. There’s no mention of his mental state. No mention of whether his career will ever recover. Media coverage of Bynes’ meltdown focused largely on her physical appearance, commenting on what she wore and how much her appearance had changed—and not in a good way—since her “25 Hottest Stars Under 25” days in 2006. Media rarely comment on LaBeouf’s appearance or commented on Phoenix’s I’m Still Here appearance, despite the fact that both of them are definitely less dashing as performance artists.

While the media regularly updates us on Sheen, Bynes has received little post-meltdown coverage. She’s doing better—having spent time in rehab and away from Twitter—but the media only likes a redemption story if there’s a male protagonist. Bynes only gets the meltdown and then she’s tossed aside. And while the Bynes story has a happy ending, that’s not always the case. If Lohan or Bynes were to die they would get a media circus of Whitney Houston proportions not the respectful coverage afforded Philip Seymour Hoffman or Heath Ledger.

I hope it doesn’t come to that, and that Lindsay’s actually been punking us all this time. Soon she’ll announce it’s all been one big performance art piece. If she did, the media would no doubt accuse her of stealing LaBeouf’s paper bag.