Editor's Letter
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Bitch In
Books—Bitch reads. Plus: Trina Robbins on the legacy of Toni Cade Bambara.
Music—Suggested listening
The Back Page—Annals of the birthing room.
||| On Labor—Dora the Explorer and the dirty secrets of the global industrial economy.
||| On Magazines—When it comes to money, women’s mags continue to play dumb.
Editor's Letter
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Bitch In—Composting as performance art? Why not?
Books—Bitch reads
Music—Suggested listening. Plus: Ani DiFranco looks back on 20 years of righteousness.
The Back Page—Annals of addiction
||| On Porn—What makes feminist porn feminist?
||| On Screen—America the Beautiful director Darryl Roberts on the staying power of the beauty myth.
||| On Screen—Hollywood even has a double standard for dorks
||| On Education—Radical “unschooling” moms are changing the stay-at-home landscape
||| On Trends—Can the Spice Girls live up to their Girl Power legacy?
::: Rescue Me—Susan Faludi on American heroism and her new book, The Terror Dream
::: Big Trouble—Are eating disorders the Lavender Menace of the fat acceptance movement?
||| On Language—Who the hell uses gender-neutral pronouns?
||| On Collecting—Women, hoarding, and the fear of becoming a crazy cat lady
||| On Film—Should we be suspicious of Hollywood's latest baby boom?
::: Multiply and Conquer—How to have 17 children and still believe in Jesus
::: Double Vision—Can two artists share one body?
::: Bi Rite—Jennifer Baumgardner on the evolution of bisexual politics
||| On Breeding—Celebrities aren't just like us—especially when it comes to their perfect pregnancies
||| On Drugs—What—and who—is behind the marketing of Gardasil?
||| On The Page—In a new crop of romance novels, it's always midnight at the oasis
::: Ladies Beware—How fearmongering spam helps keep real threats out of the spotlight
::: Played in Full—In Pimps Up, Ho's Down, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting asks where hip hop went wrong for women
||| On Comics—Cold Shoulder: Saving superheroines from comic-book violence
||| On Campus—The Froshmaker: disorienting a new generation
||| On The Web—Lipstick Traces: blogging back to the beauty biz
||| On The Page—La Dolce Viva: the best dirty magazine you never read
::: Party Line—Thirty years later, Judy Chicago's Dinner Party has enough to go around
::: Wave Lengths—With its figureheads off TV and radio, does third-wave feminism need refreshing?
||| On Trends—Egos without borders: Mapping the new celebrity philanthropy
||| On Film—Tokin' females: Women who run with the weed
||| On Economics—Itty-bitty paycheck fun pages!
:::Talk of the Nation—An interview with Katha Pollitt
::: Knot in Our Name—Activism beyond the knitting circle profession
::: Green and Not Heard—Al, Rachel, and the feminizing of eco-activism
::: Banking on Women—Scrimping and sharing with Suze Orman
||| On Language—"Shiksa": From insult to irreverence ||| On Drugs—Bad medicine: Big Pharma's female trouble ||| On Activism—Tree so horny: Can sex sell environmentalism?
::: Female Bonding—The strange history of Wonder Woman ::: Hooking Up—The upwardly mobile new face of the world's oldest profession ::: Carnal Knowledge—Talking labor with sex work magazine $pread ::: Kicking and Shrugging—Why do we resist self-defense?
||| On Fraud—Designer impostor: Behind JT Leroy's literary spell
||| On TV—Ranch dressing: Five questions for Texas Ranch House's Maura Finkelstein
||| On Trends—The new breed: Defending the choice to be childfree
||| On the Page—American gothic: An interview with Fun Homeauthor Alison Bechdel
::: Shop in the Name of Love—Journalist Judith Levine explains why she's not buying it
::: Paper Dollhouse—Why can't style writers get any respect?
::: One Size Fits All—Sharp—dressed dykes battle for exposure
Editors' Letter
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
The Bitch List
Bitch Reads
Suggested Listening
Plus: In Praise of Patti Smith: An icon and an album, 30 years on
Back Page—Annals of the popular girl
||| On Film—The Grace Lee Project: What's in a name?
||| On the Page—In praise of zines: Pushing paper in the digital age
||| On Language—Coming out: The pandemic of personal disclosure
||| On TV—Weighing reality: Who's really the biggest loser?
Editors' Letter—We, Uh, Can't Handle the Truth
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
The Bitch List
Bitch Reads
Plus: Auto Show: Do memoirists need to get a life?
Suggested Listening
Back Page—Annals of the Other Woman
||| Open Letter—Dear GQ HQ: Where's your IQ?
||| On Film—The Education of Shelby Knox
||| On The Stage—Suneet Sethi's dress of a thousand secrets
||| On The Page—Confessions of a mad fact checker
Editors' Letter—Dude For Thought
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
The Bitch List
Bitch Reads
Suggested Listening
Plus: Cocksure: Who's rocking who?
Back Page—The incomplete annals: A beta male taxonomy
||| On TV—I want my men's TV
||| On Language—The other l-word
||| On The Record—Free to Be... You and Me—but for how long?
||| On Grooming—The waxing and waning of men's body hair
||| Undercover Brothers—The down low and the making of a media trend
Editors' Letter—Homeslice
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
The Bitch List
Bitch Reads
Suggested Listening
Plus: Sick lit: Teen trauma fiction
Back Page—The incomplete annals: Women and the Oscars
||| On Trends—It's not easy being mean
||| On TV—Aunt Flo, will you accept this rose?
||| Open Letter—Oh, America, up yours
||| On The Treadmill—Hoovers and shakers
||| On The Menu—Steaks is high: Class and the low-carb craze
Editors' Letter—We're Gonna Fake It After All
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
The Bitch List
Bitch Reads
Suggested Listening
Plus: Rock the belles: Rapper JenRO
Back Page—The incomplete annals: Jews on TV
||| On Trends—Humilitainment tonight
||| On The Web—Blogging faithfully
||| Open Letter—Gal pals sought for cosmo drinking and soul baring
||| On Film—One Stepford beyond
||| Janeane Garofalo's Patriot Act—An interview with our favorite crusading comedian
Editors' Letter—What we talk about when we talk about work
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
The Bitch List
Bitch Reads
Plus: Paper dolls—Chick lit's new dimension
Suggested Listening
Plus: Her life's a cabaret—An interview with Nellie McKay
Back Page—Lever 2004
||| On Politics—At the polls, it's a single sell
||| On Trends—Wedding-march madness
||| Open Letter—More for the motherhood mailbox
||| On the Page—Talk dirty, if you please
Editors' Letter—Smarty time
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
The Bitch List
Bitch Reads
Plus: Susan J. Douglas on the new momism
Suggested Listening
Plus: Hip-hop hooray for Northern State
Back Page—Start your own nonprofit organization
||| On the Page—Smart girls, foolish reporting
||| On Language—"Choice" of a new generation
||| Compulsory Publishing Watch—What would Jesus, like, do?
||| On Stage—gender-flipping rapper Katastrophe
Editors' Letter
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Where to Bitch
The Bitch List
Books—Reviews
Music—Reviews
Back Page—Revolution mom-style now
||| On TV: Design show or couples therapy?
||| On the Page: The male nude in a new light
||| On Trends: Lesbian kisses are the new black
||| Open Letter: The Belkin-ization of mothering
||| For External Use Only—Getting in a lather over the new trend in foodie beauty products
||| Free to R&B You and Me—Hip-hop and R&B battle for soul supremacy
Editors' Letter
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Book—reviews
Music—Reviews
Back Page—Curb your consumption with Buy Nothing Day.
||| Documenting "The Cucumber Incident"
||| an open letter to Carnie Wilson
||| An interview with author/web diarist/Anne Heche impersonator Pamela Ribon
||| The Golden Girls vs. Sex and the City
||| quiz: Which Coppola are you?
||| an annotated guide to boarding school movies
||| Telegenetics—A brief history of TV families Plus: Who let the family-values watchdogs out?
Editor's Letter
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Where to Bitch
The Bitch List
Books — The fate of the feminist bookstore; book reviews
Music — Growing Up Groupie; suggested listening
Back Page — Aging Activism
||| Like It or Not: A fluffy word with a hefty problem;
||| Voices Carry: Antiwar activist Kathy Kelly
||| House of Pain: Queen Latifah and Steve Martin's big mistake
||| High-School Confidential — Precocious young writer Zoe Trope holds forth
Editor's Letter — We're obsessed!
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Where to Bitch
The Bitch List
Books — Photographer Lauren Greenfield's girl world; book reviews
Suggested Listening — music reviews
Back Page — How to write a protest letter
||| The U.S. government's hug-and-run affair with Afghan women
||| writer/activist Pagan Kennedy
||| dolly girl Dame Darcy
||| An open letter to the FOX network
||| She Shoots, She Scores — An interview with Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha
Editor's Letter — Living in oblivion
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Where to Bitch
The Bitch List
Bitch Reads — but first: When famous kids publish
Suggested Listening — but first: Princess Superstar
Back Page — The Street Harassment Project
||| Everybody Wing Chun tonight
||| Another one rides the bus
||| Lady journalists stick it to 'em
||| Newsprint chivalry
||| Secretary's Day-Taking a letter with screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson
Editor's Letter—"I thought this was a feminist magazine, not a lesbian magazine"
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Where to Bitch.
The Bitch List
Bitch Reads
Suggested Listening
Back Page—Dorian Solot and the Alternatives to Marriage Project
||| these activists have their eyes on Jew
||| what's up with "you guys"
||| scrap hounds
||| Women on the Wall—Putting the "us" back in museums
||| Dis-Orient Express—The Venus-flytrap performance art of Kristina Sheryl Wong and Gennifer Hirano
Editor's Letter—Big pink frosted cupcakes, tutus, and other formative experiences
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Where to Bitch.
Bitch Reads—Plus: Girls' guides to practically everything!
Suggested Listening—Plus: Sisterz of the Underground
Back Page—Kelly Osbourne: pink. Sharon Osbourne: not pink. See where we're going with this?
||| maternity fashion shows some skin
||| Sarah Jones vs. the FCC
||| the Pocahontas principle in Native American film
||| a look back at Ladies Against Women
Editor's Letter—The Insider/Outsider conundrum, and some other big words
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Where to Bitch.
The Bitch list—yes, even more of our favorite things
Books—The whole Oprah/Franzen hoo-ha
Bitch Reads
Music—Suggested Listening
Back Page—Ally Sheedy and nerd chic: our chart finds the mysterious connection
||| Stupid cell-phone tricks
||| bumping and grinding with the new breed of burlesque performers
||| positive bleeding; The Learning Channel's plastic fantastic programming
Editor's Letter
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
The Bitch list—a few more of our favorite things
Bitch Reads
Suggested Listening
Resistance Tips for Girls—Jean Kilbourne's six handy ways to say no to ad culture
||| Are fat suits the new blackface?
||| getting Lucky;A political poster family speaks
||| mary-kateandashley magazine (yup, that's the way they spell it) vs. My Evil Twin Sister
||| plus our resource guide for news, activism, and philanthropy in the aftermath of 9-11.
Editor's Letter — Why music?
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads
Suggested Listening
Where to Bitch
Field Testing — What a frat guy in an airport thinks of Bitch
||| CosmoGIRL! Redux
||| Grrrls redux
||| Publishing drama
||| GhostWorld's Dan Clowes
||| Summer music-fest roundup
||| The Dewey-Eyed Decimal System —Checking out librarians on film
||| Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific —Queering the story of female jealously
Editor's Letter—Eminem, teen dream
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It,
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
Where to Bitch—Don't just sit there, get active
Appendix—Six degrees of separation
||| Makeup madness
||| A simple plan
||| Big stinks about small sizes
||| Holy Balls, It's Lynda Barry—Getting the fax on the celebrated cartoonist
||| The Incredible Shrinking Women—A look at celebrity wasting syndrome
||| Vacationing as America's Sweetheart—A dominatrix gives up the whips (temporarily)
Editor's Note—Identity crisis
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Ask Yer Dead Foremama—Mary Wollstonecraft weighs in on domestic arrangements
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
Appendices: suffixes, Queens, and hairy armpits
||| A Natural History of Rape's shoddy science
||| the Rules redux and clothing-label hierarchies
||| Ready, Aim, Dyer—An interview with Action Girl's Sarah Dyer
||| La Cage aux Follicles—Waxing conflicted on the subject of hair removal
Editor's Note—A dialogue on discomfort
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Ask Yer Dead Foremama—New feature! Relationship advice from a feminist icon.
This time: Simone de Beauvoir
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
Appendices—Pie charts and fortunes and Twizzlers, oh my
||| Radio Sweetheart—An interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross
||| Starfucker Blues—Gender, power, rock stars
||| Go Forth and Multiply—Unwanted pregnancy on film
||| Pandering, a Love Story—The seamy underbelly of book marketing
Editor's Note—The results of our survey, and a little disquisition on porn
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
Not Least—When a star looks like a starlet, only her surgeon knows for sure
||| The Buffy Effect—A tale of cleavage and marketing
||| Planet Janice—An interview with author Janice Eidus
||| Slash + Earn—How serial killers and sex murderers are your excuse to watch
||| In Pursuit of Feminist Vulgarity—A call to arms for the female pottymouth
Editor's Note—Can you be a consumer of sexual entertainment without behaving like an overentitled lout?
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
Not Least—Credit card marketing hits a new low by selling political consciousness
||| My Cups Runneth Over—A full frontal attack on street harassment
||| Tales of a Small-Town Feminist—We're not in the city anymore, Toto
Editor's Note—The phone company finds us offensive while taking lots of our money
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
Not Least—Is an albinism fashion spread flattery or fetishism?
|||Padded Sell—When thin actors in fat suits put the mass in mass media, real fat people lose out
|||Silicone Valley—How plastic surgeons and the journalists who cover them are reshaping our bodies and our minds
|||Diary of an Urban Guerrilla—Thirteen hours in the life of a culture jammer
Editor's Note—Why girls need feminism most during those awkward pubescent years
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
Not Least—The last word on something that's under our skin. This time it's Rolling Stone
||| Heard It Through the Loveline—MTV's sex advice show lets two unqualified jokers steer the lives of impressionable viewers
||| High School Confidential—The life of comic artist, social commentator, and chemistry whiz Ariel Schrag is an open book
Editor's Note—What our culture expects of its men is the other half of the "women are," "women should," "women must" equation
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
The Cute Boy—An ode to Matthew Modine
||| Plastic Fantastic Lover—A roundtable on silicone sex dolls, scary marketing, and what men really want
||| Urinalysis—The way women pee makes them cumbersome and solipsistic, says Camille Paglia, the grande dame of pretentious pseudofeminism
Editor's Note—Given the ubiquity of fashion- and beauty-related images and messages in our lives, how can we sort the social imperatives from our individual opinions?
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listenings
The Cute Boy-An ode to Benicio del Toro
||| The Skinny on Mode-How does the new plus-size fashion rag stack up?
||| Bad Girl Rising—A look at feminist vigilantes on film
||| Face Matters-Can makeup ever be liberated?
||| Cybill Disobedience—Cybill Shepherd is one subversive babe
Editor's Note—On speaking our sexual truths
Dear Bitch—Reader letters
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
The Cute Boy—An ode to Chris Isaak
||| I Was a Cosmo Sex Deviant—A Cosmo quiz tells our reader a little more than she wanted to know
||| Is Pop Culture Ruining Your Sex Life?—Take our quiz and find out
||| Interview with Sarah Jacobson—The writer/producer/director of the groundbreaking film Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore
Editor's Note—An apology
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
The Cute Boy—An ode to Steve Buscemi
||| Wonderbooty—The political economy of your breasts
||| Barbie Can Just Bite Me—A trip to our local superstore reveals that gender segregation is thriving in the world of toy manufacturing and marketing
||| Martha My Dear—Is Martha Stewart a desperate wife wanna-be or a feminist role model? Depends on who you ask
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads
The Cute Boy—An ode to Peter Berg
||| Hail Harper's—Worshipping at fashion's altar
||| Digging for Dirt with Geraldo and Jenny—How talk shows pathologize female sexuality
||| Sassy Update—The staff of the new-and-not-improved Sassy get defensive in the face of their critics
Editor's Note—Our original mission statement
Love It/Shove It—A roundup of the best and the worst of the mediated culture
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening—Book and music reviews
The Cute Boy—An ode to John Travolta
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