Feminist/Feminist-Friendly Magazines, Journals and Periodicals

[BlueIris]

I believe someone here posted about liking "Bitch" magazine. I've seen a few other names come up. You don't have to be a subscriber, just a reader with an opinion.

[BlueIris]

1. "Kaliope" (journal of women's and women-friendly creative writing).

Not strictly feminist, but most feminists would be happy and comfortable with this journal's content, especially its poetry.

[Eloriel]

2. Can I recommend a TV show? Probably syndicated, day-time

It's called Starting Over and it features Iyanla Vanzant, whom some Oprah viewers of a few years back may remember (circa Oprah's Dr. Phil period).

It's the most remarkable TV I think I've ever seen. It's basically a reality show of group therapy. Six women at a time (some may come and go during the season) are together in a beautiful mansion in or near L.A., with Iyanla as a Life Coach and two therapists. Each woman's issue is clearly defined, they each set up goals to achieve, and then we get to watch them go through their therapeutic growing process -- day in and day out.

I am hooked on this show which comes on daily on one of my local network stations at 11 a.m., and I absolutely do arrange my schedule around it if at all possible.

While it's not feminist per se, all the main characters are most certainly feminist and/or at least highly women-affirming -- that alone makes it incredible, beautiful, powerful.

What is also incredible about it, beyond what some might think is the voyeurism potential, is that there can't help but be issues triggered by the healing processes that the participants are going through. I usually try to use these "triggering" instances to do some additional inner healing work on my own. But there've also been a number of things some of the coaches/therapists have said which are in themselves very worthwhile to hear, remember, remind oneself about --and wouldn't you KNOW that I can't think of a single one. I think I need to start writing them down.

Something else that happens is that you tend to become part of their little community, in that you get to know these women pretty well and feel like you're going through their experience with them, as the other housemates are.

I love the show, and recommend it highly.

[BlueIris]

4. Oh my God, I LOVE "Starting Over."

ITA with everything you posted, Eloriel.

[libodem]

3. Didn't NOW have a magazine?

It seems to me that some years back there was a good magazine that isn't around any more. It became controversial that the ads featured were geared toward women and some found them offensive. The magazine got rid of their advertisers and tried to function on subscriptions. I don't believe they lasted long after that. It seems to me that sometimes we attempt to be so politically correct that we end up defeating our purposes.

[shockra]

5. On a recent trip...

I bought Bust, Bitch, and Off Our Backs (at Barnes and Noble) to read on the plane.

Off Our Backs has been around for a while, and they have a website.

http://offourbacks.org

I just looked at their front page and there's a tribute to Andrea Dworkin, Radical Feminist Hero:

Andrea Dworkin was an incredibly courageous radical feminist thinker, writer, and activist. She played a crucial role in shaping feminist thought and setting forth the issues.

Dworkin never turned away from anyone else's pain. No matter how agonizing it was, she wanted to learn about all the most terrible things men do to women, tell the world about them, and force others to pay attention as she did. She challenged rape, prostitution, and pornography in a way that few feminists ever have. Andrea knew what it was to be battered, and she never forgot. In her autobiography, Heartbreak, she grieved that many other feminists were unwilling to keep pressing to change the lives of the most abused women.

Dworkin died in her sleep on April 9. She had gone through much pain in her last years-she had had both knees replaced- but she did not expect to die anytime soon.

She wrote many important books, including Woman Hating, Right-wing Women, Letters from a War Zone, Intercourse, and Love and Death. Perhaps her most well known book was Pornography: Men Possessing Women, which said that pornography shapes contemporary sexuality and is contemporary sexuality. Her book on anti-Semitism, Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel and Women's Liberation is a brilliant study of the Holocaust that was largely ignored, probably because she carefully compared men's violence against women to Nazis' treatment of Jewish women and men.

more...

[BlueIris]

6. "Northern Sun."

A fabulous little magazine I've been getting for awhile with hundereds of fun bumbper stickers, pins, magnets, what-have-you for leftists and particularly feminists. It might have a website, I haven't ever cared to check.

[BlueIris]

7. www.northernsun.com

Fun products. I'm getting my friend this shirt from their storehouse that reads, "Feminist Chicks Dig Me." Cute, no?

Okay. Just had to try.

[lukasahero]

8. Made me laugh. :-)

Thanks for the link. I think I have some shopping to do. ;)