Bitch Media | Feminist Response to Pop Culture

Issue:

Protest, Desire, and Cheap Dildos

A Q&A with Laurie Penny

An interview with Laurie Penny by emily_manuel, appeared in issue Frontier; published in 2012; filed under Social commentary.

A Q&A with Laurie Penny

Frontier

Image via @PennyRed

Laurie Penny is an British journalist and blogger who came to prominence with her riveting frontline coverage of the student protests in London in 2010 in The New Statesman, The Guardian, and other outlets. After releasing her first book, Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism (Zero Books) in April 2011, the prolific Penny recently followed up with a collection of her journalistic work, Penny Red: Notes from the New Age of Dissent (Pluto Press). Her third book will be published by Bloomsbury in 2013.

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Better Homes & Bloggers

Are lifestyle blogs a new way for women to compare themselves and come up short?

Article by Holly Hilgenberg, Illustrated by Leslie A. Wood, appeared in issue Frontier; published in 2012; filed under Internet culture.

Are lifestyle blogs a new way for women to compare themselves and come up short?

Frontier

Illustration by Leslie A. Wood — Better Homes & Bloggers tote now at Bitchmart!

Today, Elsie Larson is wearing gold. “I’m kinda obsessed with gold lately,” she writes, “Gold details, jewelry, even metallic fabrics like this gold skirt that [my sister] Emma wore.” Kaylah Doolan has decorated her home for Christmas and shares photos of the end result— reindeer lights and tinsel decorating hallways, a ceramic elf perched on top of a stack of DVDs, Christmas tins by her bright blue typewriter. Abbey Hendrickson has five new things she recently found “in blogland” to share, including knit sea urchins, Free People boots, and quirkily wrapped gifts. Anja Verdugo recently worked on a “soft goth” photo shoot and documented the event with pictures of yellow and pink roses and makeup brushes next to a container of various lip balms.

Such is a day in the world of lifestyle blogging, an increasingly popular genre that women dominate.

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Target Market

Black women with guns: frontier feminists or insurrectionists?

Article by J. Victoria Sanders, appeared in issue Frontier; published in 2012; filed under Consumer culture.

Black women with guns: frontier feminists or insurrectionists?

Frontier

When I was 6 years old, my mother and I were robbed at gunpoint by two men looking for cash. One of them placed the gun at my head until she gave them her mink coat, which looked real but wasn’t, and the bus fare she had in her pocket. Because of that experience, I grew up associating random violence with the crack-addled neighborhoods of 1980s New York City. But the incident was the first thing that came to mind when, more than 20 years later, I started the application process for a concealed handgun license.

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Headless Bodies Found in Shameless Media

When is it okay to cut off someone’s head? When she’s a fat person, and your news outlet is reporting on “the obesity epidemic,” apparently.

Article by Sarah Mirk, appeared in issue Underground; published in 2011; filed under Social commentary.

When is it okay to cut off someone’s head? When she’s a fat person, and your news outlet is reporting on “the obesity epidemic,” apparently.

Underground

Headless photos are only one of the rampant problems with mainstream news coverage of weight issues.

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Trade Secrets

The tough talk of the new anti-trafficking movement

Article by Emi Koyama, Illustrated by Paul Windle, appeared in issue Underground; published in 2011; filed under Activism.

The tough talk of the new anti-trafficking movement

Underground

Illustration by Paul Windle

In the 2008 film Taken, Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired CIA operative whose undercover past is called into action when his daughter is kidnapped while traveling abroad and sold into sexual slavery. Using his counterterrorism skills to torture and murder those who stand between him and his daughter’s captors, he eventually rescues his daughter and comes home a hero, with no consequences exacted for the violence he’s inflicted in the name of his daughter’s safety.

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Raise Your Glass If U R A Firework Who Was Born This Way

Who's to say what makes a gay anthem?

Article by Lauren Elmore, Illustrated by Kristin Rogers Brown, appeared in issue Underground; published in 2011; filed under Music.

Who's to say what makes a gay anthem?

Underground

Hey, guys.... Um, this is Ke$ha. I just wanted to say something. Um, to anyone who’s being bothered, or abused, or harassed, or bullied, I just wanted to tell you that, um...it will get better. It will. No matter if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, however you are choosing to live is beautiful, and you have my full support and all of my love. And to be yourself, and it will be better. When people are mean for no reason it’s...horrible. But, I swear to God, it will get better. So please don’t ever give up.

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Young, Awkward, and Black

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl's Issa Rae Gets Comfortable With Success

An interview with Issa Rae by Kjerstin Johnson, Illustrated by Erika Johnston, appeared in issue Underground; published in 2011; filed under Internet culture.

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl's Issa Rae Gets Comfortable With Success

Underground

Illustration by Erika Johnston

“Should I say hi again? She knows I’m here.” J slinks along the hallway of Gutbusters, the diet-pill company she works for, to avoid seeing the new hire she keeps running into. Growing impatient with the situation’s awkwardness, J wonders, “Does this girl live in the hallway?”

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Pink Scare

What's behind the media panic about "princess boys"?

Article by Avital Norman Nathman, Illustrated by JooHee Yoon, appeared in issue Red; published in 2011; filed under Social commentary.

What's behind the media panic about "princess boys"?

Red

Ever since the age of 2, when his hair first started growing in, my son Elijah has been mistaken for a girl. As he grew, so did his curls; they now frame his face and inch toward his shoulders, with every offer to trim them rebuffed. Elijah was 3 when he started painting his toenails; he had been watching me give myself pedicures, and decided that his toes needed some color as well. Now, at 4, he parades around his best friend’s house wearing her frilliest purple dress while they play detailed and intense games of “Princess.”

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Mothers of Intention

Five bloggers on race and erasure in the mommy blogosphere

An interview with Veronica Arreola, Shay Stewart-Bouley, Renee Martin, Arwyn Daemyir, Deesha Philyaw by Bitch Magazine, Illustrated by Jasmine Silver, appeared in issue Red; published in 2011; filed under Internet culture.

Five bloggers on race and erasure in the mommy blogosphere

Red

Several months ago, Bitch published a piece on the vexing economy of mom blogs and the contentious personalities that have come to define their corner of the Internet, for better or worse. The discussion it sparked wasn’t about whether mom blogs were, on balance, good or bad—it was about why they were so...white.

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Sealing the Deal

The wet and wild world of selkie romance novels

Article by Jessica Jernigan, Illustrated by Beth Austin, appeared in issue Red; published in 2011; filed under Books.

The wet and wild world of selkie romance novels

Red

In 1972, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss published The Flame and the Flower. With this novel, Woodiwiss transformed the romance genre by making explicit what had previously been implied—that is, sex—and created a formula for success that romance authors would follow for decades. The archetypal romance plot of the post-Woodiwiss era goes like this: An innocent young woman experiences sexual awakening when she succumbs to an older, very powerful man, who in turn is domesticated—but not in any way emasculated!—by the aforementioned innocent young woman.

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