Issues

Genesis

Issue 40 | Summer 2008

In every issue

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.

Columns

||| 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.

Wired

Issue 39 | Spring 2008

In every issue

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

Columns

||| On Porn—What makes feminist porn feminist?
||| On Screen—America the Beautiful director Darryl Roberts on the staying power of the beauty myth.

Lost & Found

Issue 38 | Winter 2008

In every issue

Editor's Letter

Columns

||| 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?

Features

::: 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?

Singular + Plural

Issue 37 | Fall 2007

Columns

||| 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?

Features

::: 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

Risk

Issue 36 | Summer 2007

Columns

||| 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

Features

::: 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

Super

Issue 35 | Spring 2007

Columns

||| 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

Features

::: 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?

Green

Issue 34 | Winter 2007

Columns

||| 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!

Features

:::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

Hot & Bothered

Issue 33 | Fall 2006

Columns

||| 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?

Features

::: 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?

Style & Substance

Issue 32 | Summer 2006

Columns

||| 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

Features

::: 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

Anniversary

Issue 31 | 2006

In every issue

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

Columns

||| 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?

Features

Truth & Consequences

Issue 29 | Summer 2005

In every issue

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

Columns

||| 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

Features

Masculinity

Issue 28 | Spring 2005

In every issue

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

Columns

||| 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

Features

||| Undercover Brothers—The down low and the making of a media trend

Home & Away

Issue 27 | Winter 2005

In every issue

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

Columns

||| 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

Features

Fake

Issue 26 | Fall 2004

In every issue

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

Columns

||| 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

Features

||| Janeane Garofalo's Patriot Act—An interview with our favorite crusading comedian

Labor & Love

Issue 25 | Summer 2004

In every issue

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

Columns

||| 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

Features

Smart

Issue 24 | Spring 2004

In every issue

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

Columns

||| 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

Features

Taste & Appetite

Issue 23 | Winter 2004

In every issue

Editors' Letter
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Where to Bitch
The Bitch List
Books—Reviews
Music—Reviews
Back Page—Revolution mom-style now

Columns

||| 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

Features

||| 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

Family

Issue 22 | Fall 2003

In every issue

Editors' Letter
Dear Bitch
Love It/Shove It
Book—reviews
Music—Reviews
Back Page—Curb your consumption with Buy Nothing Day.

Columns

||| 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

Features

||| Telegenetics—A brief history of TV families Plus: Who let the family-values watchdogs out?

Maturity & Immaturity

Issue 21 | Summer 2003

In every issue

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

Columns

||| 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

Features

||| High-School Confidential — Precocious young writer Zoe Trope holds forth

Obsessions

Issue 20 | Spring 2003

In every issue

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

Columns

||| 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

Features

||| She Shoots, She Scores — An interview with Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha

Fame & Obscurity

Issue 19 | Winter 2003

In every issue

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

Columns

||| Everybody Wing Chun tonight
||| Another one rides the bus
||| Lady journalists stick it to 'em
||| Newsprint chivalry

Features

||| Secretary's Day-Taking a letter with screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson

Transformation & Reinvention

Issue 18 | Fall 2002

In every issue

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

Columns

||| these activists have their eyes on Jew
||| what's up with "you guys"
||| scrap hounds

Features

||| 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

Pink

Issue 17 | Summer 2002

In every issue

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?

Columns

||| maternity fashion shows some skin
||| Sarah Jones vs. the FCC
||| the Pocahontas principle in Native American film
||| a look back at Ladies Against Women

Insider/Outsider

Issue 16 | Spring 2002

In every issue

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

Columns

||| Stupid cell-phone tricks
||| bumping and grinding with the new breed of burlesque performers
||| positive bleeding; The Learning Channel's plastic fantastic programming

Features

Is Biology Destiny?

Issue 15 | Winter 2001

In every issue

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

Columns

||| 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.

Features

Music

Issue 14 | Summer 2001

In every issue

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

Plus

||| CosmoGIRL! Redux
||| Grrrls redux
||| Publishing drama
||| GhostWorld's Dan Clowes
||| Summer music-fest roundup

Features

||| The Dewey-Eyed Decimal System —Checking out librarians on film
||| Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific —Queering the story of female jealously

Interview

Issue 13 | Winter 2000

In every issue

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

Plus

||| Makeup madness
||| A simple plan
||| Big stinks about small sizes

Features

||| 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)

Issue #12

Issue 12 | Summer 2000

In every issue

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

Plus

||| A Natural History of Rape's shoddy science
||| the Rules redux and clothing-label hierarchies

Features

||| Ready, Aim, Dyer—An interview with Action Girl's Sarah Dyer
||| La Cage aux Follicles—Waxing conflicted on the subject of hair removal

Issue #11

Issue 11 | Winter 2000

In every issue

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

Features

||| 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

Issue #10

Issue 10 | Summer 1999

In every issue

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

Features

||| 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

Fighting Back

Issue 9 | Winter 1999

In every issue

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

Features

||| 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

Orange

Issue 8 | Fall 1998

In every issue

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?

Features

|||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

Puberty

Issue 7 | Spring 1998

In every issue

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

Features

||| 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

Masculinity

Issue 6 | Fall 1997

In every issue

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

Features

||| 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

Fashion

Issue 5 | Summer 1997

In every issue

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

Features

||| 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

Sex

Issue 4 | Spring 1997

In every issue

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

Features

||| 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

Issue #3

Issue 3 | Fall 1996

In every issue

Editor's Note—An apology
Love It/Shove It
Bitch Reads/Suggested Listening
The Cute Boy—An ode to Steve Buscemi

Features

||| 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

Premiere

Issue 1 | Winter 1996

In every issue

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

Features

||| Sassy: Then and Now—How the most original voice in teen girl mags got stifled by a big bad corporation