About Us

Who We Are

Bitch Media is a nonprofit feminist media organization best known for publishing the magazine Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture. Bitch Media’s mission is to provide and encourage an engaged, thoughtful feminist response to mainstream media and popular culture. We seek to be a fresh, revitalizing voice in contemporary feminism, one that welcomes complex arguments and refuses to ignore the contradictory and often uncomfortable realities of life in an unequivocally gendered world. 

Bitch Media has a diverse audience, which keeps the dialogue and the movement we’re a part of dynamic and strong. We are also uniquely situated to draw in young readers who are at a critical moment in their lives—a moment when they are discovering feminism and activism, finding answers to who they are, and questioning the definitions of gender, sexuality, power and agency prescribed by the mainstream media. Bitch not only plays a role in exploring these topics, it also provides a toolkit for engaging in analysis that promotes activism and impels social change. Bitch Media has a broad reach, with more than…

• 80,000 readers

• 68,000 people who like us on Facebook

• 40,000 Twitter followers

• 25,000 subscribers to B-Mail, our e-newsletter

• 23,000 registered users on bitchmedia.org

• 10,000 Bitch subscribers in 46 countries and all 50 states

• 9,000 unique visitors a day to bitchmedia.org

• 3,000 monthly podcast audio downloads

• 2,000 retail locations carrying Bitch across the U.S.

• 300 blog commenters weekly on bitchmedia.org

The Magazine

Since 1996, Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, has provided smart, witty, and thought-provoking commentary on and analysis of TV, film, music, advertising, books, and more. Each issue of Bitch offers a whip-smart collection of critical essays, thoughtful reported pieces, incisive reviews, and interviews with feminist artists, thinkers, culture-makers, and activists—a mix that readers simply won’t find anywhere else. In addition to a readership of 80,000 that loves having Bitch in their lives, the magazine has also received critical acclaim from other media outlets...

“Bitch’s honesty, thoughtfulness, modesty, and understated brilliance make it a must-read.” —San Francisco Review

“One of the best-written and edited girl-centric zines around.” —Spin

“Required reading for the modern feminist.” —Baltimore City Paper

“A breath of journalistic fresh air.” —Chicago Tribune

“Cheerfully attitudinous updated feminism.” —Katha Pollitt, The Nation

About Our Name

For as long as we’ve been publishing Bitch, there’s one question that gets asked over and over. And over. “Why did you choose that word as the name of your magazine?” While we’re aware that the magazine’s title, and the organization’s name, is off-putting to some people, we think it’s worth it. And here’s why. The writer Rebecca West said, “People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” We’d argue that the word “bitch” is usually deployed for the same purpose. When it’s being used as an insult, “bitch” is an epithet hurled at women who speak their minds, who have opinions and don’t shy away from expressing them, and who don’t sit by and smile uncomfortably if they’re bothered or offended. If being an outspoken woman means being a bitch, we’ll take that as a compliment. We know that not everyone’s down with the term. Believe us, we’ve heard all about it. But we stand firm in our belief that if we choose to reappropriate the word, it loses its power to hurt us. And if we can get people thinking about what they’re saying when they use the word, that’s even better. Bitch. It’s a noun. It’s a verb. It’s a magazine. It’s a feminist media organization.

Our Values

Bitch Media reflects the diverse politics and experiences of its staff and Board, values the individuality of its creators and audience, and encompasses many—and sometimes conflicting—points of view. That said, the organization and its programs are guided by core values that include community and activism; diversity; open communication, engagement, and mutual respect; that there is no one monolithic feminism; and conscious business practices.

Why Give to Bitch Media?

Bitch Media is proof that community-supported feminist media is possible. In our 17th year, we remain as committed as ever to independent, social justice–driven media and feminist criticism. We aim to do this in print through Bitch: Feminist Response to Popular Culture, as well as online at bitchmedia.org with the blog and podcasts. Over the past 17 years, our subscribers, donors, and contributors have told us again and again that they don’t just think of Bitch Media as another magazine publisher/media organization. They consider us part of their education, their community, and their life. Because our constituents attest to it, we feel confident saying that the voice of Bitch Media—a witty, smart, and thought-provoking feminist critique and analysis of pop culture—is encouraging discussion and critical thinking about the media and its influence on all of us, solidifying a link between engagement with pop culture and engagement in social-justice activism.

The past several years have been a time of flux for the magazine industry. It’s a heartless world out there on the newsstand, and more and more magazines simply aren’t surviving. We’ve been lucky enough to weather distribution troubles, a free-falling economy, and at least two rounds of proclamations that the end of print is nigh, and against all odds we’re still here. But in order to continue to sustain the magazine, our multimedia programs, and Bitch Media’s operations, we are planning for the organization’s smarter and more sustainable future. We are working to increase subscriptions and fundraising income in response to an era where declining newsstand sales are something no publication can ignore. When we say sustainable, we mean it. We are planning for Bitch Media’s sustainability. So if you value witty, smart, and thought-provoking feminist critique and analysis of pop culture, if you value media literacy, and if you see the need to connect engagement in pop culture with social-justice activism, please support us in this mission. Keep Bitch Media in your life, and keep it alive for many years to come. Support what you love. Support Bitch Media!

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