From quizzes to see which member of One Direction you should marry, to advice on how best to wear white denim, to Cosmopolitan’s memorable and well-documented article which suggested bringing donuts into the bedroom, anyone who’s ever had a haircut knows that women’s magazines run a brand of crazy that's all their own.

In January 2012, The Vagenda stepped into this soupy quagmire with a resounding WTF? and they haven’t stopped laughing since. We caught up with them in the run-up to the launch of their book to ask about funny feminism, Lena Dunham’s Girls and their feminist icons.

The Vagenda was set up by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter when they were living together after university. “We were very, very skint”, they explain. “We read a lot of women’s magazines in that period and they were demonstrably lacking so we started reading them out in silly voices to make them more entertaining then we thought that we could probably make a blog about it. A satirical kind of funny blog for our friends.”

The Vagenda may have started out as a blog for their friends, written by their friends—“We got together 8 friends from uni and bullied them into writing things” —but they couldn’t have expected the impact it would make. The site got 60,000 hits in its first night and has run from then on, taking submissions from all over the place on topics as various as miscarriages, being a stay-at-home mum, dating older men, fashion, Geordie Shore and Maria Miller— and that’s just this month.

Humour is at the heart of The Vagenda but "funny" probably isn’t the first word that would spring to mind when people think of feminism—“That’s why it’s successful. Humour is a really powerful weapon.

“Poking fun at feminists is how people got around talking about gender equality” Holly explains. “If you’re being the funny one and they can’t respond in that way then they have to respond angrily and they look like twats.”

I was once told off for saying that I like Caitlin Moran by a Cambridge feminist who informed me that The Female Eunuch was a very entertaining read, actually, and that more teenage girls should get into it. How does being funny and populist interact with the heavier theoretical stuff?

Both Rhiannon and Holly are aware of the importance and usefulness of academic feminism “But at the other end of the spectrum you have swathes of young women who don’t even know what feminism means so you need an accessible side to things as well as an academic one.”

To be a feminist by The Vagenda’s standards, all you need to do is believe in gender equality—“that’s the only requirement”. They argue that when the entry requirements are that low, “you’ll find that most people in your life are feminists and when they find that out, they’re really receptive.” They’re also keen that people apply a feminist ethos to wider society: “More and more people are using their personal feminism to investigate things they believe in. That doesn’t necessarily mean they feel they have to sign up to a checklist of ideologies.”

Fourth Wave Feminism has been called out for being nasty by a number of commentators. But isn’t that the nature of politics? “I think the reason it’s highlighted in the media around feminism is so people can say that feminism is like herding cats, you can never get those women to agree with each other.”
They are willing to concede, however, that the internet has made the trend within feminism of trashing other women, which has existed for decades, more visible— “We definitely experienced that first hand.”

Social media has had a positive impact too, and one that The Vagenda has profited from enormously. They describe it as “invaluable” from an awareness-raising perspective and for generating “a diversity of voices”, but are adamant that feminist engagement shouldn’t stop there: “it’s not just about that, there are things you can do in the offline world for the cause.”

In the offline world, Lena Dunham’s Girls seems to be picking up the mantle for voice of our generation, with the full backing of The Vagenda. They describe the show as an “honest portrayal of something that I haven’t seen before”, contrasting the “sugary or watered-down or really over the top” portrayals of women prior to Dunham with the grit and honesty of her show.

Although Dunham has been criticised in the press for the lack of diversity in her show. The Vagenda is keen to support her, saying the answer is more content and a bigger plurality of people “rather than tearing down the stuff that is attempting to do that.”

In terms of their feminist icons, they have a great respect for many female journalists and “women who make feminism interesting,” but Rhiannon says her ultimate feminist icon is her mum. “We were both raised by single mums so we both have that kind of unique relationship that you have as the single daughter of a single mum, that’s been really nice, to have them around."
And as for the book, released on 1st May, it was strictly embargoed when our interview took place, but they did let slip that it was “a continuation of the website” with all-new content.

Initial reviews have been a bit of a mixed bag, but based on my interview with Cosslett and Baxter we can rest assured that their book will echo the irreverent, funny and sharp voice of their website.