If you’re looking for a feminist magazine that looks good and contains some interesting and well-written articles, take a gawk at Girlistic Magazine. Jaymi Heimbuch, founder and editor, describes her magazine thus:
Girlistic Magazine is a blend of refined intellect and raw entertainment. Think Ms. Magazine and Bitch having a threesome with Bust, and the result is a bouncing baby Girlistic. We provide a well-rounded online magazine that shows what feminism looks like in all its cultures, colors and climates. Girlistic Magazine’s website is the ultimate feminist resource, where all things women-centred can be found within a few clicks. Providing education and entertainment, pop and politics, culture and community, resources and shopping, Girlistic is the first place to visit for women-centered information.
Girlistic Magazine can be downloaded by clicking here (if you want to print it out, please buy a printer, connect the printer to your computer, turn on the printer, put paper in printer, click print and then print).
You’ve got to hand it to the good folks at NW (New Weekly); they really care about people’s weight. One week they’re worried about tubby stars and the next about skinny celebrities. This week it’s Keira Knightley’s turn to feel NW’s love:
Keira Knightley drew gasps of horror as she revealed the full extent of her skeletal figure last week. Wearing a dress slashed to the waist that highlighted her concave stomach, the actress flaunted her prominent, protruding ribs and nonexistent bust.
Just a week after Keira revealed her bony shoulders and collarbone at the Venice Film Festival, fans didn’t believe it was possible for the star to get any thinner. But the 22-year-old appears to have proved everyone wrong by dropping even more weight in just seven days.
Worryingly, the Pirates Of The Caribbean star looked to be perfectly happy with her emaciated body as she walked the red carpet in London to promote her new film Atonement .
To read the full story, grab this week’s NW magazine.
I always thought hoarding was mostly for blokes incapable of getting rid of old car bodies and Batman comics. However, the latest edition of Bitch contains an article about hoarding and women. A few readers of this blog might be concerned to know that “thinking about getting a third cat” is mentioned as hoarding behaviour.
According to Rita Hao, the author of the article:
Hoarding might just be the ultimate nightmare of the failed modern female. You know, when they said you could have it all, they didn’t mean it quite so literally. It’s the dreaded result of falling off your expected social path. You don’t meet the right person; your job isn’t what you wanted it to be; and your friends all get married, have kids, and live their perfect little lives. Before you know it, everyone’s drifted away, you’re totally alone, the house is filled with cats, and you’re wearing an afghan/housecoat combo and screaming incoherently at people walking by on the street (Note by Darlene: So, what’s the problem?). Then you die, surrounded by hairballs and ceiling-high piles of the New York Times Escapes section. The cats manage to gnaw off your nose before your neighbours call the cops about the terrible smell.
As the owner of only one cat, I always have a chuckle at those mad cat ladies. Well, I’m off to pick up a copy of the latest edition of Cat Fan…err, The Economist.
Important update: Pictures of my cat (”Dotty”) can be found here.
Thanks, Darlene. Look forward to checking it out!
Feminist magazine seeks graphic designer for fun foursome.
(I know, I know but do they really want to end up looking like Quadrant?)
Mien Gawd there are still “feminst” mags….what do you chicks want more endless drivel for???
Mien Gawd there are still “feminst” mags….what do you women want more endless drivel for???
That was so important, you had to say it twice : ).
Of course we still need feminist magazine, probably because of blokes like…errr, you know the type.
“(I know, I know but do they really want to end up looking like Quadrant?)”
It’s Quadrant still going? Yikes. Is the Cold War still on?
The Culture Wars are. Apparently.
Internet commenter seeks sub-editor for tired commentary- must speak German, punctuation skills an advantage.
Anthony, don’t be ill-mannered young man. This is Ladies’ Corner. So be a bloody gent, mate.
The Culture Wars? Well that rules me out because I’m not at all cultural.
I liked the Cold War uniforms better anyway.
Yeah they’ll keep going as long as they can keep using the excess paper stocks of the Phantom.
Oops too late. Apologies ma’am!
I thought you were a culture correspondent, Darlene?
Can I please ask wtf is it with the “what a fatty!/what a skeleton!” thing with mags like NW?
Those magazines are just so rank. Women can’t win in those rags. They sell, though.
In the shopping queue last night two young women were avidly reading NW and making lots of comments about Amy Winehouse’s figure. It was bizarre and mean.
Shhhhh, Kim. Yes, I am. It’s true, but I am from Qld so culture is a funny word to me.
Is Ms still around?
We subscribed to it for years, constantly moaning how it could have been better and occasionally saying ‘Well that was a good article”.
Overall it was worthwhile and certainly the best, if not the only, example of it’s kind.
I suspect our switch to computer sources accounts for us not knowing whether it is still alive.
Yes, it is. It has a website as well.
Don’t read it much because I find it a bit dull.
Anthony, it is to keep women abject about their own “inadequacies” so they will keep buying the magazine — with its endless promises of self-improvement plus pics of fat Kirstie Alley and skinny Keira Knightley to make yourself feel better with, as per Darlene’s supermarket scenario.
Buying the magazine is, in turn, only a means to the end of buying the sponsors’ products, which include everything from magical ’slimming teas’ to Size 32 kaftans from the Great Big Girl Shop. As Darlene says, women can’t win. We are not supposed to win. It’s the same kind of Catch-22 as the Zoo magazine competition to win a new pair of plastic breasts by having nice real ones, except in reverse.
Also as per Darlene’s supermarket scenario, there’s an additional element of the ‘elicit intoxicating self-righteousness from consumer’ thing that the commercial TV “current affairs” shows do so well.
I think they were illustrating the concept of “endless drivel.”
Now back to cats; I see nothing wrong with the stately progression towards multicatitude, as exemplified by my favourite heroine.
You know, I just wish as women we wouldn’t buy into so much. Having said that, I have looked at those mags in the same way those young women were, and I’ve done the diet merry go-round.
“I think they were illustrating the concept of “endless drivel.â€?
That’s funny.
Wow, what a great picture on that site. She rocks. The original mad cat madam.
“Countess of Groan
…half asleep and half aware: with the awareness of anger, the detachment of trance. A furlong of white cats trails after her. A bullfinch has a nest in her red hair. She is the Countess Gertrude of huge clay”.
“A furlong of white cats trails after her.”
Hmmm, I’ve got one white and tortie cat. I don’t know if that could be related in such a poetic way.
Not quite true. Provided you’re moving from one of the extremes towards the ever-shifting and possibly mythical ideal centre, you get mad props.
“Not quite true. Provided you’re moving from one of the extremes towards the ever-shifting and possibly mythical ideal centre, you get mad props.”
Sounds confusing.
Yeah, it wasn’t meant to be a defence of the mags, just a slightly more nuanced DENUNCIATION!!
They run these “isn’t she radiant now she’s back up to a size ten”, “shows off her healthy new curves” stories, or “wins her battle with the bulge” stories, so they can always say they’re really just concerned for the women’s health. But with the goalpost-shifting and other inconsistencies this naturally doesn’t help the confused-body-image teen one jot.
Yes, the goal post is all over the place these days.
I’m going to own up to reading these rags from time to time and I’ve seen them celebrate a star for being thin, and then give her a hard time because she’s too thin, and then have a go at her because she’s gaining too much weight. It does one’s head in.
Thanks PC. It’s really nasty bit of work isn’t it?
You build a culture of dependency by working up reader’s anxieties and reducing self-esteem and then make them feel better about themselves by slagging someone else off.
I mean even the joy of slagging - there’s a brief thrill of “Ha! Sucks! Keira Knightly!” Before returing to the sad reality that she’s Keira Knightley and you’re reading about her in a supermarket queue.
Howard’s demise is imminent and we have two posts on trivial issues (the second is from Tigtog) to put the Left off its game. You are obviously not a feminist, Darlene. Who are you working for?
My goodness silkworm, you’ve been lured away from your unwavering task of bringing down Howard into commenting on a trivial post. Stay brave and true!
Howard’s demise is immiment thus we absolutely must not speak about anything else until he is, errr, demised. Yeah, right. What a hoot if every post was about the same subject (and was totally lacking in humour).
I suspect you’re deliberately trying to bait me or you have a sexist and stereotypical notion of what it is to be a feminist and you also have a traditional idea of what can be considered political.
This post is proudly trivial (although I am happy to point to efforts by young feminists to self-publish), Tigtog’s is not.
That’s a contradiction in terms.
Even if it were, Silkworm [incidentally it’s not], it’s funny and neatly expresses the intended meaning. Meanwhile you continue to be irrellevant and carping on a thread which you claim to have found beneath you.
If it was pointless and trivial before, it’s well fucked now.
For god’s sake your name is being called on the tannoy silkworm; there’s a push on at 1700hrs.
What are you, a dangerous instrument of war or some sort of pale flaccid invertebrate? Dismissed.
“That’s a contradiction in terms.”
As FDB points out, nope it’s not.
“What are you, a dangerous instrument of war or some sort of pale flaccid invertebrate? Dismissed.”
Perhaps the best way to defeat Howard is by, errr, doing whatever it is silkworms do (ask a kid with a shoe box full of them what it is they do).
I’m off to stock up on supplies and await the end of Howard. Either that or I’m going to write my next post in which I rate the superhunks (as per that lawyer in the episode of The Simpsons in which Marge is caught shoplifting).
Contradictions in terms do not neatly express their intended meanings. They muddy the waters, just like this post.
Crikey, you must be cracking company. If you don’t like what I write, don’t read it.
Silkworm’s comments remind me of someone I used to know in the ISO who said that it was a political crime to party before the revolution. Emma Goldman’s famous remarks come to mind.