Bitch co-founder Lisa Jervis's official bio makes her sound far more official than she actually is. In addition to her many writings for Bitch, her work has appeared in Ms., the San Francisco Chronicle, Utne, Mother Jones, the Women's Review of Books, Bust, the late and much-lamented Hues, Salon, the late but not-so-lamented Girlfriends, the late and also-lamented Punk Planet, the late and lamented-by-the-few-people-who've-heard-of-it LiP: Informed Revolt, Body Outlaws (Seal Press), The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order (Penguin), and Tipping the Sacred Cow (AK Press). She is the co-editor of Young Wives' Tales: New Adventures in Love and Partnership (Seal Press) and (of course) Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). She’s currently working on a a cookbook with the working title "Cook Food: A Quick and Dirty Guide to Healthy Eating" and procrastinating on her research for a book about the intellectual legacy of gender essentialism and its effect on contemporary feminism.
She was born in Boston and partially raised in Los Angeles; she moved to New York City at age 8 and so considers herself a New Yorker by both chronology and temperament, though the transplant to Oakland, California, has worked out remarkably well.
In her spare time, she squeezes fruit at farmer's markets, bikes around Oakland, and resists adopting more cats.
A few of her favorite things are Buffy, Shortbus, cheese onion curry bread, Weeds, Alison Bechdel, Jane Austen, roasted brussels sprouts, Ben Lee, Ben Kweller, liar's dice, knitting, tattoos, Dexter, salacious memoirs, contemporary mystery novels about female PIs and investigative reporters, hammocks, vodka smoothies, The Philadelphia Story, terry-cloth hoodies, Liz Phair (yes, even the later "bad" stuff), sweet potatoes, Michael Pollan, bell hooks, Susan Faludi, and zine libraries.
I can't update this page as compulsively as I do my goodreads.com profile, so you should check that out if you are really curious.
What I'm listening to:
My pandora.com "avant pop" station.
What I'm watching:
My So-Called Life, newly borrowed on DVD
Great documentaries like Sir, No Sir and things by Errol Morris Buffy, 'cause I'm always watching Buffy
Silly summertime romantic comedies, because sometimes I am a sucker
The topic of women-only space, who belongs in it, and what kinds of safety it makes possible is a hot one in feminist communities, provoking vigorous debates and protests, particularly with regard to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and its controversial “womyn-born-womyn only” admissions policy. We asked a wide variety of folks—all with significant experience with different kinds of women-only space—to share their opinions on the value of women-only space, how to define it, and what kinds of risks it involves.
“Analysis is hard, it’s complicated, and it disturbs the comfortable simplicity of familiar worldviews.” So writes Susan Bordo, professor of English and women’s studies at the University of Kentucky. And she should know: Her incisive writings on a wide variety of topics cut through thickets of controversy and rhetoric to produce a fine, elegant, and, above all, resonant analysis.
“I never intended this book to be published,” writes Phoebe Gloeckner in the introduction to her new collection, A Child’s Lifeand Other Stories. Perusing these finely drawn, mostly autobiographical comic works, which span twenty years, it’s not difficult to see why its creator might be wary of foisting her stories on a public whose idea of an enjoyable narrative is Titanic. Gloeckner’s unsparing memory and painstakingly detailed pen-and-ink drawings of family dysfunction, childhood cruelty, and queasy sex make for seriously disquieting reading. The book takes us through the years with Gloeckner’s alter ego Minnie, whose childhood is dominated by her overbearing, ogling stepfather and whose adolescence is spent on the streets of San Francisco in a morass of unsavory drugs and even less savory men.
When we heard that Jane Pratt, the former editor of Sassy—the sharp, celebrated teen mag that above all was absolutely unwilling to pull its readers into the spiral of insecurity and product consumption so endemic to all others in the genre—was launching a new grown-up glossy, we, along with other feminist pop culture junkies nationwide, squealed with excitement. Then Jane launched. And we weren’t excited anymore. Here’s why.
Reviewed in this issue: Defending Pornography, by Nadine Strossen; Gender Wars, by Brian Fawcett; Talk Dirty To Me, by Sallie Tisdale; Going All the Way: Teenage Girls’ Tales of Sex, Romance, and Pregnancy, by Sharon Thompson; and Unnatural Dykes to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel
I'm up in Portland this week, visiting Debbie and hanging out at the Bitch office. I haven't been here in about a year, and it's amazing to see how bustling the office is—with interns and volunteers and new staffers (hi, Brian!)—while maintaining a relatively unfrenzied vibe, even though it's the middle of production on a new issue. This kind of calm, um, was never really achieved when I was working here. I'm going to try not to read anything into that.
Last night I co-hosted a fundraising house party for the kick-ass feminist media organization Women in Media and News. I've been involved in the organization since its planning and launch, and am proud to be its founding board chair.
NARAL's letter-writing link is here (goes to Congress). Planned Parenthood's is here (goes to the White House).
And, courtesy of commenter softpieces on yesterday's post, Department of Health and Human Services contact info:
Secretary Mike Leavitt's office: 202-690-7000
Someone on my favorite feminist- and media-related listserv just pointed me to this article, by the ever-knowledgable Cristina Page, about a new Health and Human Services Department proposal that would define the pill, the patch, the shot, the IUD, the ring, and Plan B as abortion rather than contraception.
This morning in my in box was an e-mail titled, "An Open Letter to the South End Press Community." I clicked right on it, before I read my daily-headlines e-mail or the note from Debbie asking my opinion on a Very Important Matter—and even before I read the note from the boy I am currently most crushed out on. Because I am a member of their Community Supported Publishing program, which means I get a copy of every single book they publish as a thank-you for my monthly donation, and that's how much I love South End, the publisher of some of the most important political books being pubished today. Just to make sure you know.
If you're not already familiar with South End, you should get to know them right now. They are, as their letter notes, "the nation's only unapologetically radical, feminist, mission-driven, and majority women of color publishing collective." Their list is tremendous: big names like bell hooks, Vandana Shiva, and Howard Zinn, plus less well-known but no less important books from Incite!, Andrea Smith, Kristian Williams, and many more.
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