Having a voice for women and giving women a forum to talk about issues was the driving force behind Shannon Washington and Hillary Crosley’s decision to start their own blog called Parlour Magazine.
“This is not necessarily your traditional black girl blog,” said Shannon. “We are speaking to black women on a global level and it’s important because we have stories to tell.”
Both Shannon and Hillary are African-American professionals working in American media corporations, but they felt the stories that were relevant to them and women like themselves weren’t being told by the conventional media.
“Basically we both work in media, we have stories that we wanted to tell but we couldn’t tell them at our jobs,” Shannon said. “A lot of people didn’t necessarily believe in publications geared toward global black women rather than American black women.”
With Shannon and Hillary being raised all over the world and having willingly embraced other cultures, they felt that their perspective would be accepted by women of like minds.
“There are a lot of women like us that are into music that wasn’t just R&B or hip-hop, fashion and politics and who have families that are located on seven continents,” Shannon added.
Hillary said that they are both just critics at heart, so instead of finding fault with other publications, they decided to create their own.
Trying to carve out their own niche in the blogosphere has not been easy for Shannon and Hillary, especially when they often get lumped into categories with many traditional blogs.
“But I think when people see us they realize that we are not like all the other blogs out there,” Hillary said. “We really have no competition. The great thing about Parlour is that you can care about music and politics and travel and lifestyle issues because that’s who we are.”
According to Shannon, “that’s why we came up with the name Parlour because it’s a convergence of conversation. Our stories are really important. Our stories are a makeup of who we are and the diaspora is global and so we wanted to make sure that we are telling all of our stories. If you look at our traffic, the US of course is our biggest market, then London comes in and then Ghana and Nigeria. It’s all because women see a reflection of themselves in the content that we put out.”
Shannon and Hillary are both vocal when it’s comes to women’s issues particularly in terms of health and wellness.
“As an American I don’t feel that the government has to be all up in my ovaries, as was evidenced by this recent election,” Shannon said. “I think the biggest issue that women face is that the world has adapted a very specific beauty archetype and it’s easy for many women to not feel beautiful and when you don’t feel beautiful you’re not happy.”
Part of their mission with Parlour is trying to get black women to embrace their bodies and uniqueness.
“If you are not happy with what you have it changes how you live your life and how confident you are,” Shannon said.
What Parlour has given both Shannon and Hillary is a greater appreciation for their femininity, their beauty as black women and their place in the world.
“It’s been really inspirational when you have a voice in the conversation about how women are achieving and how we’re being seen,” Hillary said. “If I enjoy sex and sexuality I should be able to talk about it without being perceived as a slut. For me that’s what is cool about Parlour is that you can talk about things and we don’t have a perspective that is widely shared.”
