[4] The New Statesman described the magazine: "humorous and topical with a searing, critical streak, The Vagenda exposes the mainstream female press for its insidious elements - and its frequent ridiculousness.
[11] In September 2012, the publisher Square Peg, owned by the Random House group (Vintage Press), outbid 12 competitors to win rights to a book by the two editors of The Vagenda.
[12] Author Jeanette Winterson selected the book as one of her 2014 holiday reads,[13] saying "The Vagenda... is a brilliant exposé of women's mags and marketing – laugh-out-loud and painfully funny.
"[14] The site raised money for a relaunch after the book deal through Kickstarter, a decision that was criticised following Holly Baxter's article in The Guardian appeared to suggest that musician Dev Hynes should not receive donations following a house fire that destroyed his studio and in which his dog died, in which she called it an "undignified charity case.
It is often difficult to tell the difference between their comical hyperbole and examples of things that happened in print; these distinctions are important if you want to make a dent in an industry ... you cannot on the one hand accuse outlets such as the Daily Mail of poisoning women's relationship with themselves, while on the other using exactly their tactics – distortion, exaggeration, poor footnoting – to petrify people in the other direction.
"[17] Cosslett countered the criticism in a blog post, writing that "Much of this criticism (well, what which didn’t come from journalists who completely coincidentally ALSO WRITE FOR WOMEN’S MAGAZINES) came from middle class women in their late middle age who were lucky enough to have benefited from much feminist consciousness-raising when they were attending their progressive Russell Group Universities – talk to a state school educated girl who grew up in the feminist vacuum of the nineties (hiya!)
"[18] Baxter and Cosslett also addressed the criticisms in an article in the New Statesman, writing that: "vocally criticising the women’s magazine industry has not been an easy ride, and the media has not always been receptive.
She added: "It’s a book written as a gift for a teenage girl in an age that has long been confusing ... It’s unfair of us to ask too much of The Vagenda – to unravel the deeper causes of female insecurity, for instance, or to solve anything.