Why We Should Put Women-Centered News First

Why We Should Put Women-Centered News First

For years, I was an avid reader of mainstream world news. Subreddits like r/worldnews and r/politics were part of my daily routine, providing a steady stream of headlines, analysis, and global updates. At times, they did help me understand world events, including crises, wars, and policy changes. But as time went on, I began to notice something unsettling: most of what I was reading came from a male perspective. The articles and the comments—they were all deeply embedded in a worldview shaped by men, for men.

Men debating other men. Men declaring wars, justifying economic exploitation, and shaping the narratives of nations. And worse still, women’s issues—our autonomy and our safety—were either sidelined or entirely ignored.

Since then, I’ve made a conscious shift. Instead of centering my news intake on male-dominated subreddits or networks, I now follow spaces like r/WomenInNews and r/prochoice. These are places where the news centers us.

Why Female-Centric News Matters

Let’s be clear: the media is not neutral. The lens through which we consume information shapes how we see the world. If we are only fed news filtered through male interests, we begin to internalize their assumptions and their priorities. We start to believe that their wars matter more than our bodily autonomy. We start to accept that male violence is normal, inevitable—even justified.

But when we focus on female-centric news, the world looks very different.

We see headlines about the overturning of Roe v. Wade not as a legal debate, but as a violent act of control. We see stories about intimate partner violence not as isolated tragedies, but as part of a global epidemic. We learn about femicide, underreported assaults, anti-abortion extremism, and the quiet strength of women organizing worldwide.

We are no longer side characters in the plot of male history. We are the protagonists of our own reality.

Men’s Narratives Are Not Universal

One of the biggest mistakes we make is assuming that the dominant narrative—written by men, edited by men, and funded by men—speaks for everyone. It doesn’t.

Men present wars as necessary. They write about geopolitical rivalries with detached fascination. They uphold patriarchy’s rules while pretending to question them. Even in supposedly progressive spaces, women’s rights are often treated as “secondary issues”—something to be dealt with after the “real work” of revolution, economics, or political power.

But the truth is: there is no justice without gender justice. And we don’t need to wait for men to get it right.

By consuming male news, we are constantly asked to choose between two sides—two male-controlled ideologies, two male leaders, two sets of patriarchal interests. But we don’t have to choose. We can walk away. We can read differently. We can think independently.

Instagram Already Shows the Shift

Take a look at what women are sharing on Instagram: news about abortion bans, anti-femicide protests, domestic violence statistics, workplace discrimination, and women’s mental health. That’s the real news. It’s the news that affects our lives, our bodies, and our futures. It’s not diluted with male pride or sanitized with “both sides” framing.

So why not extend that to Reddit, newsletters, news sites, and YouTube? Why not build our own ecosystem of awareness?

Break Away and Recenter

The world is on fire—but it’s men who lit the match. It’s men who build the weapons, hoard the wealth, and silence dissent. And it’s male-run media that asks us to mourn their empires while ignoring our trauma.

We don’t have to keep listening.

We need to stop filtering our understanding of the world through the eyes of those who do not care about our liberation. Start with women-first news. Curate your feed with feminist perspectives. Unfollow those who dismiss our pain as “niche.” Block the voices who say our rights are less urgent than a war thousands of miles away led by men we’ll never meet.

We all have limited time and energy. We must focus this time and energy where it’s important, on our own issues.

We deserve our own lens. We deserve to read news that centers our truth. The shift isn’t just informational—it’s revolutionary. Let’s stop living in their narrative and start writing our own. ♀