BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism From the Pages of Bitch Magazine

by Lisa Jervis

  • PRIORITIZE MEDIA MESSAGING. Resolve to devote a certain amount of time, thought, and practical work every week to the goal of generating positive media coverage of the issues you care about. You could decide to send three letters to the editor, thank at least one reporter or producer by phone, and pitch at least one story idea to a booker or editor every week; if you’re a member of an activist group, you could initiate a weekly media messaging session to collectively discuss breaking news, deconstruct sexist framing, develop talking points, and generate story ideas.

  • INITIATE AND BUILD RELATIONSHIPS. Get in touch with reporters, editors, and producers by sending information-rich letters, press releases, and media advisories (with enough lead time to respect mediamakers’ deadlines). Communicate regularly with reporters about issues of concern to you that fall within their beat. Provide study/report data, compelling human-interest stories relevant to their audience, and connections to expert sources and new research in your area of expertise. If you work with an organization, request editorial board meetings to discuss your issues with your local news outlets. Develop catchy, persuasive, and understandable sound bites for the messages you want to convey.

  • GET CREATIVE. Organize a public informational or protest event and invite C-SPAN to cover it; use satire (à la Billionaires for More Media Mergers and the Guerrilla Girls) and action ripe for photo ops (à la Code Pink or ACT UP).

  • DON’T LIKE THE MEDIA? BE THE MEDIA. Attend or organize media skills—building training in your community. Do your own reporting on Indymedia.org websites, make your own films with PaperTiger.org, DykeTV.org, or the Media Education Foundation, and host your own college, community, or cable access TV or radio show.

  • DEFEND THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, passed under President Clinton, heralded the biggest wave of media mergers ever seen in the United States. Today, a tiny handful of multinational corporations owns the vast majority of American newspapers, magazines, TV networks, cable and online news and entertainment outlets, record labels, radio stations, TV and movie production companies, publishing houses, Internet and cable distribution chains, and billboards—not to mention sports teams, stadiums, theme parks, nuclear and weapons-manufacturing businesses, and lots more. The Federal Communications Commission has all but abdicated its responsibility to regulate the U.S. media industry in the public interest. Urge senators and representatives to fight against media concentration and support legislation for diverse, local, independent, and uncensored media. Corporate broadcasters who get to use the public airwaves for free should be required to provide news and entertainment programming that is diverse, informative, educational, and produced by a range of independent creative sources.

  • DEMAND FAIR HIRING AND PROMOTION PRACTICES AMONG MEDIA COMPANIES. Media conglomerates are not magnanimous; they will not change their priorities without major incentives. In the 1930s, Eleanor Roosevelt would speak only to female reporters at her press conferences, forcing newspapers to employ women journalists. In the 1970s, newspapers and TV networks had to be sued by women journalists before they’d stop discriminating against women in hiring and promotion. It’s time to reprioritize gender equity in the media industry as a major feminist issue and pressure media companies to address not only the glass ceiling but also the corporate climate that pushes many women and people of color to leave the field. Though biology certainly doesn’t determine politics—right-wing women like Ann Coulter, Peggy Noonan, and Laura Ingraham do maintain a high profile in the mainstream media, but they generally use that platform to bash feminist concerns and lobby against women’s rights protections—newsroom and media-boardroom populations that more closely reflect the general population are a necessary first step.

  • CLAIM THE AIRWAVES AND CABLE SYSTEMS FOR YOUR COMMUNITY. A variety of grassroots groups are organizing in local communities across the country to help set up low-power microradio stations, advocate fairer radio spectrum regulations that support diversity and access, offer legal and technical assistance, demand better programming and public accountability from radio and cable conglomerates, challenge cable license renewals, ensure equitable and affordable access to broadband networks, and more.

  • EDUCATE YOURSELF AND OTHERS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY POLICY’S EFFECTS ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION. Profit-hungry corporations are gunning to privatize and commercialize emerging technologies, which would restrict public access to means of communication and information, expanding the digital divide between wealthy white Americans and low-income people and people of color. Understanding how these forces affect your own community and our culture as a whole is key to standing up to Internet censorship and control, protecting bloggers’ rights, advocating privacy protections, and working to keep existing and emerging Internet, cable, and radio communications technologies broadly, affordably accessible as a public good.

  • FIGHT THE INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISING, COMMERCIALISM, AND GOVERNMENTAL PROPAGANDA. Combat the widespread use by media companies of misleading video news releases (VNRs), which appear indistinguishable from average news broadcasts but are actually propaganda pieces paid for, packaged, and promoted by corporations and the government. The Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration (in the case of pharmaceutical VNRs) have the power to force media companies to disclose product placements that masquerade as media content on reality TV, news programming, music, and more—but they have thus far refused to use this power in the public interest.

  • THINK LONG-TERM. Finally, remember that your efforts won’t instantly reverse the tide of decades of right-wing media organizing, corporate consolidation, and commercialism run amok—but every action you take is important. Don’t get discouraged if your letters to the editor don’t see newsprint very often: Not only do outlets read and discuss critical communications from their audience, they count on multiple letters to measure public perception of key topics. If you read a letter similar to one you sent, yours may have helped it get published. And even with the perfect set of talking points, a well-tailored message, and many conversations with reporters, there will be times when your messages still get marginalized, misrepresented, or ignored. But your and others’ media outreach and advocacy efforts will still help generate informative, critical, accurate, authentic, positive, and influential coverage of women and the issues that most affect us—and our collective efforts can and will result in structural change. Learn from your mistakes, replicate your successes, and never give up. The fight for media and gender justice needs you.

  bitchfest

  Edited by Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler

  LISA JERVIS (right) is the founding editor and publisher of Bitch. She lectures regularly about media and feminism on college campuses nationwide and is a founding member of the training and advocacy organization Women in Media & News. Her writing has appeared in Ms., the San Francisco Chronicle, LiP: Informed Revolt, Salon, Punk Planet, The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order (Penguin), and Women Who Eat (Seal Press). ANDI ZEISLER (left) is Bitch’s founding editor and current editorial/creative director. Her writing has appeared in Ms., Mother Jones, Bust, Utne, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Women’s Review of Books, and the anthologies Young Wives’ Tales and Secrets and Confidences.

  Praise for bitchfest

  “Greatest-hits … from the pages of Bitch, the leading post-postfeminist culture-crit ’zine.”

  —The Atlantic

  “Bitch begins where … other magazines leave off, pointing out the not-sohidden sexist messages in … movies, television shows and other, less enlightened magazines, showing how the media shapes attitudes about women’s lives as well as reflecting them … While the anthology’s title suggests the anger for which feminists have long been known and reviled, it’s also funny. Many of the pieces in the book are filled with comic insights, proving that being a feminist is not antithetical to having a sense of humor.”

  —MALENA WATROUS, San Francis
co Chronicle

  “[Bitch] is one of the most consistently engaging and thought-provoking magazines out there, capable of covering serious topics without taking itself too seriously in the process, [and BITCHfest is] a sort of greatest hits collection [that will] keep you alternatively amused and outraged … There’s the occasional and always well-deserved finger-wagging, but BITCHfest is above all else a celebration of womanhood [that] will challenge the way you think.”

  —ANDREW ERVIN, The Miami Herald

  “With amplitude and spunk, BITCHfest provides a provocative study of contemporary culture viewed through a feminist lens … Those unfamiliar with Bitch may be surprised to discover how much humor exists between its covers. It’s refreshing to see that many of these men and women can author serious critiques without taking themselves too seriously.”

  —BETH ANN FENNELLY, Paste

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

  —GUERRILLA GIRLS

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

  —JOEL STEIN, Los Angeles Times

  “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.”

  —ROBIN MORGAN

  “Sharp, often funny feminist critiques.”

  —KATE BOLICK, The Boston Globe

  “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.”

  —JENNIFER BAUMGARDNER and AMY RICHARDS,

  coauthors of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future

  “A collection of eloquent postfeminism-pokin’ pieces.”

  —ANNELI RUFUS, East Bay Express

  “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.”

  —ARIEL LEVY, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs:

  Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

  “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.”

  —CRISTINA PAGE, author of How the Pro-Choice

  Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex

  “Smart, fierce and truly sassy, Bitch’s feminism is my brand of choice … and I’m raising my glass to another decade. At least.”

  —ERYN LOEB, Bookslut

  the BITCHfest resource list

  AS MUCH AS WE TRIED TO PACK INTO THIS BOOK, THERE’S always more to say. So here’s a wholly incomplete, purposely nonexhaustive, and all-too-brief guide to some of our favorite writers, thinkers, organizations, and more who shed further light on topics addressed throughout the book.

  Chapter 1. Hitting Puberty

  Amelia Bloomer Project (www.libr.org/FTF/bloomer.html) Every year, the Feminist Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association (say that three times fast!) puts together a list of the latest and greatest feminist books for kids and teens.

  Children’s Media Project (www.childrensmediaproject.org) An arts and educational organization that teaches “children and youth … to interact with the media arts as both creators and critical viewers,” the CMP features summer workshops, after-school programs, and DROP TV, an entirely youth-produced magazine-style show.

  Deal With It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a Gurl by Esther Drill, Heather McDonald, and Rebecca Odes (Pocket Books, 1999) By the creator of the cool-ass website gURL, this book tackles the perennial concerns of young womanhood—zits, sex, unexpected body hair—with frank advice that never talks down.

  GirlsFilmSchool (www.girlsfilmschool.csf.edu) This two-week summer program held at the College of Santa Fe gives high-school girls the opportunity to learn the basics of writing, producing, documentary techniques, editing, sound, cinematography, and more. The program prioritizes low-income and at-risk students, and more than two-thirds attend on scholarship.

  Scarleteen (www.scarleteen.com) All the more important in an age of abstinence-only “education,” Scarleteen provides info on everything from pregnancy and STDs to negotiations within relationships, all with the mission of “furnishing [teens] with the facts they need to know [in order to] develop their own systems of ethics and values.”

  Teen Voices (www.teenvoices.com) “Because you’re more than just a pretty face” is the tagline of this magazine by, for, and about teen girls. The contributors to Teen Voices cover everything from censorship to acne to birth control to same-sex marriage to girls in sports, with the help of a few adult editors.

  Chapter 2. Ladies and Gentlemen: Femininity, Masculinity, and Identity

  Dyke TV (www.dyketv.org) The first (and so far, only) cable-access program by and for the ladies who love ladies, Dyke TV offers vital documentation of lesbian culture and activism.

  GenderQueer: Voices from Beyond the Sexual Binary, edited by Joan Nestle, Clare Howell, and Riki Wilchins (Alyson Publications, 2002) An overview of radical gender theory and politics, plus a multitude of first-person narratives. This is a valuable collection that bridges the personal and political and doesn’t presume to define what a genderqueer looks like.

  Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls Will Be … , by Jacinta Bunnell and Irit Reinheimer (Soft Skull Press, 2004) This whimsical coloring book/zine offers sweet clip-art-inspired illustrations of, among others, crying boys and angry girls. Accompanying commentary says things like “Don’t let gender box you in.”

  My Gender Workbook, by Kate Bornstein (Routledge, 1997) A playful, accessible, and interactive exploration of what makes us “masculine,” “feminine,” both, and neither.

  Chapter 3. The F Word

  Angry Women, edited by V. Vale and Andrea Juno (RE/Search, 1991) A collection of some of the most radical female voices in art circa 1991, Angry Women’s interviews—with the none-too-shy likes of Annie Sprinkle, Karen Finley, sapphire, Holly Hughes, and Susie Bright—proffer performance and provocation as a heady refutation of everything women are “supposed” to be.

  Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, by Patricia Hill Collins (Routledge, 2000) Originally published in 1990, this instant classic draws on history, literature, and cultural movements to highlight previously sidelined African-American feminist intellectual traditions and provide a much-needed corrective to exclusive white feminist movements.

  Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism, edited by Daisy Hernández and Bushra Rehman (Seal Press, 2002) Feminist writers of color on how their backgrounds, cultures, and families have shaped their interest in and understanding of feminism and identity.

  Feminist International Radio Endeavor (www.radiofeminista.net) The first ever women’s Internet radio station, FIRE is where to go for English and Spanish coverage of feminist issues and events.

  hooks, bell She is one of the most insightful thinkers ever on the interlocking forces of race, class, gender, and how we can dismantle “the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy,” and her emphasis on coalition building, decolonization of the mind, and the power of love is always inspiring—yet she never lets anyone (including herself) evade her keen analytical eye.


  Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation, edited by Barbara Findlen (Seal Press, 2001) Now in its second edition, this vibrant collection was one of the first to give the lie to the greatly exaggerated reports of feminism’s death among the post-’70s crowd. Now it’s a third-wave classic.

  Pollitt, Katha Her biweekly column for The Nation is always intelligent, progressive, and provocative; it’s also often hilarious. She’s a consistent voice of feminist reason, backing up her articulate analysis with carefully researched facts that would otherwise be ignored.

  The Scholar and Feminist Online (www.barnard.edu/sfonline) This web-based journal of Barnard College’s Center for Research on Women includes contemporary scholarship, art, audio clips, and activist resources.

  Sisters of ’77 (www.pbs.org/independentlens/sistersof77) In November 1977, twenty thousand delegates converged on Houston for the National Women’s Conference, a federally funded gathering to hash out a platform for women’s rights that was then presented to President Jimmy Carter. Sisters, produced by Media Projects, Inc. (www.mediaprojects.org) and originally aired on PBS, is not just a valuable history of the event but also a vibrant reminder of the continuity of the feminist movement.

  Chapter 4. Desire: Love, Sex, and Marketing

  Alan Guttmacher Institute (www.agi-usa.org) This national nonprofit devoted to advancing reproductive choice and comprehensive sex education is a powerhouse of information on everything from public-policy analysis to social-science research.