Bitchfest reviews

Publishers Weekly

With refreshing depth, literacy and humor, these essays explore questions surrounding puberty, gender identity, sex, "domestic arrangements," beauty, pop culture and mainstream media, and media literacy/activism. see full review

Booklist - Allison Block

Positioned as an antidote to the patronizing pages of Cosmopolitan and Vogue, Bitch revels in its power to provoke as it ponders the landscape of popular culture from a feminist perspective. [...]From transsexuality to body image to gender-bending "slash fiction" that amorously pairs the likes of Captain Kirk and Spock, there's plenty here to amuse and enlighten the target audience--and plenty to rattle the cages of card-carrying macho men and women who might find the racy rants a bit over the top. see full review

Guerrilla Girls

“We love Bitch and think BITCHfest is an essential component of any feminist’s library.”

Cristina Page, author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics and the War on Sex

“As delicious as a day spent with your funniest, smartest friend, this collection is also a call to action, inspiring readers to fight the fear of female power. As the many writers in here show, few wrongs are righted without a bitchfest first.”

Robin Morgan

“In a society as celebrity-obsessed and fad-saturated as ours, we ignore pop culture at our peril. Hurray for the women of Bitch, who raised their banner of intelligence right at the intersection of pop culture and feminism. They’ve done so with humor, vision, fire, and guts, as this book of selections from their first decade proves. Read it, learn from it, enjoy it, argue with it, revel in it.”

Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

"With humor and insight Lisa Jervis, Andi Zeisler, and their contributors explore what it means to be female, a feminist, a lover of pop culture, and that other thing that rhymes with rich but is so much more fun.”

Joel Stein, columnist, Los Angeles Times

“Bitch is my favorite magazine. It makes feminism fun, relevant and approachable—it’s like the Marlo Thomas of our time.”

Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, co-authors of Manifesta

“We were working at Ms. magazine in 1996 when a xeroxed pamphlet arrived at the office bearing the name Bitch. We opened the zine and found what we’d been fearing didn’t exist: feminist writing that was funny, engaged with pop culture, and yet intellectually rigorous. Eureka! BITCHfest is the greatest hits, and reading them is like hanging out with the smartest people you know.”

Margaret Cho

“Essential reading for the modern woman.”

Library Journal

“This work represents an alternating mix of the most hilarious, alarming, and unexpected essays from Bitch magazine’s first ten years. [...]Readers new to this feminist quarterly will find the articles, almost without exception, original, intelligent, and well written. This compilation has staying power. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.” see full review

Kirkus Reviews

“Feminist-energized pop-culture essays that appeal to a wide array of tastes and reading preferences as they celebrate Bitch’s tenth anniversary. [...]Smartly written, socio-cultural vignettes that speak to everyone, loud and clear.” see full review

BOOK REVIEW: BITCHFEST NEW YORK PRESS - Jessalynn Keller

"Bitch editors Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler celebrate the diversity of modern day feminism with the release of Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine, a 350-page critical offensive that dissects contemporary American pop culture with intelligence, wit, and, of course, a little bit of sassy feminist theory." see full review

BOOK LOUNGE REVIEW - Jennifer O'Connor

"What Bitchfest offers is an insightful and extensive feminist critique of pop culture in the last ten years." see full review

ROLE MOMMY BOOK CLUB - Joanne Rendell

"But, as the fantastic new book Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine shows, there is nothing unnecessary about feminism. In fact, we need it today as much as we needed suffragettes fighting for our right to vote at the beginning of the 20th Century or Betty Friedan telling us in the sixties that staying at home and washing dishes wasn’t our inherent destiny. […]So read Bitchfest for your own sake and the sake of your daughters, sisters, and mothers." see full review

THE BROOKLYN RAIL: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ARTS, POLITICS AND CULTURE - Erica Wetter

"With a new season of Nip/Tuck just around the corner, gay marriage in the courts, and who knows what other appalling, gender-biased material the media will trot out next, BITCHfest should prompt a flurry of subscriptions to Bitch. I’ll definitely be renewing mine." see full review

BUZZ EAST TEXAS - Dave Eggers

BITCHfest doesn't hold back. And, if we're lucky, they won't let it rest until pop culture and the world it reflects resembles something that fully represents the history and struggle that is humankind, rather than simply "man".

LIBERTAS.CO.UK

Smart, nuanced, cranky, outrageous and clear-eyed, the anthology covers everything from an analysis of pre-scandal Martha Stewart to a more recent critical look at the "gayby boom"; from a time line of black women on sitcoms to an analysis of fat suits as the new blackface; from an attempt to fashion a feminist vulgarity to a reclamation of female virginity. It's a recent history of feminist pop culture and an arrow towards feminism's future.

TIME OUT - Hillary Chute

"BITCHfest draws on a deep range of cultural references and is often quite funny—even uproariously so […] this collection provides clearheaded, refreshingly unsnarky perspectives on problems that the authors—male and female alike—worry are becoming more entrenched. Mixing passionate writing and a fix-things ethos, BITCHfest is an excellent primer on how consumers of culture can also become its producers." see full review

THE LESBIAN EDITION

"This book can be a fun trip down memory lane for those who've been along for Bitch's ten-year ride or an opportunity to see what you've been missing – and can look forward to in the future – if you haven't yet seen Bitch."