Authors: Lisa Jervis (Editor), Andi Zeisler (Editor), Margaret Cho
ISBN-13: 9780374113438, ISBN-10: 0374113432
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: August 2006
Edition: First Edition
Lisa Jervis is publisher of Bitch and a regular lecturer on media and feminism. Andi Zeisler is Bitch's editorial/creative director. Both women write regularly for newspapers and magazines nationwide.
In the wake of Sassy and as an alternative to the more staid reporting of Ms., Bitch was launched in the mid-nineties as a Xerox-and-staple zine covering the landscape of popular culture from a feminist perspective. Both unabashed in its love for the guilty pleasures of consumer culture and deeply thoughtful about the way the pop landscape reflects and impacts women's lives, Bitch grew to be a popular, full-scale magazine with a readership that stretched worldwide. Today it stands as a touchstone of hip, young feminist thought, looking with both wit and irreverence at the way pop culture informs feminismand vice versaand encouraging readers to think critically about the messages lurking behind our favorite television shows, movies, music, books, blogs, and the like. BITCHFest offers an assortment of the most provocative essays, reporting, rants, and raves from the magazine's first ten years, along with new pieces written especially for the collection. Smart, nuanced, cranky, outrageous, and clear-eyed, the anthology covers everything from a 1996 celebration of pre-scandal Martha Stewart to a more recent critical look at the "gayby boom"; from a time line of black women on sitcoms to an analysis of fat suits as the new blackface; from an attempt to fashion a feminist vulgarity to a reclamation of female virginity. It's a recent history of feminist pop-culture critique and an arrow toward feminism's future.
This often mind-stretching, occasionally predictable and generally entertaining collection of articles from Bitch magazine has something for every feminist, postfeminist and reactionary. Bitch was founded in 1996 in response to "post-feminism" by "freshly minted liberal arts graduates with crappy day jobs and a serious media jones." With refreshing depth, literacy and humor, these essays explore questions surrounding puberty, gender identity, sex, "domestic arrangements," beauty, pop culture and mainstream media, and media literacy/activism. Tammy Oler examines menarche and female puberty in horror films; Gaby Moss analyzes the media's obsession with "mean girls"; and Lisa Jervis gives a rundown of sex scenes and pride in YA lesbian novels. Leigh Shoemaker puts down Camille Paglia's contention that males are superior due to their urinary "arc of transcendence" by evoking the Virgin Mary's breasts squirting milk through the air into Jesus' mouth. Audry Bilger protests the use of "guys" as gender neutral. Conspicuously absent is any discussion of women and aging. Maybe we'll just have to wait for Bitch's 20th anniversary, when its editors will be pushing 50. (Aug. 15) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Ch. 1 | Hitting puberty | 3 |
Amazon women on the moon : remembering femininity in the video age | 6 | |
Rubyfruit jungle gym : an annotated bibliography of the Lesbian young adult novel | 11 | |
Stormin's norma : why I love the Queen of Teen | 19 | |
Sister outsider headbanger : on being a black feminist metalhead | 26 | |
Bloodletting : female adolescence in modern horror films | 31 | |
The, like, downfall of the English language : a fluffy word with a hefty problem | 38 | |
Teen mean fighting machine : why does the media love mean girls? | 43 | |
Ch. 2 | Ladies and gentlemen : femininity, masculinity, and identity | 49 |
Urinalysis : on standing up to pee | 52 | |
The collapsible woman : cultural response to rape and sexual abuse | 56 | |
The princess and the Prankster : two performers take on art, ethnicity, and sexuality | 62 | |
What happens to a Dyke deferred? : the trouble with Hasbians and the phenomenon of banishment | 71 | |
On language : you guys | 76 | |
Skirt chasers : why the media dresses the trans revolution in lipstick and heels | 81 | |
Fringe me up, fringe me down : on getting dressed in Jerusalem | 90 | |
Screen butch blues : the celluloid fate of female masculinity | 96 | |
Dead man walking : masculinity's troubling persistence | 101 | |
Ch. 3 | The F word | 106 |
And now a word from our sponsors : feminism for sale | 111 | |
I can't believe it's not feminism! : on the feminists who aren't | 116 | |
Celebrity jeopardy : the perils of feminist fame | 125 | |
Unnatural selection : questioning science's gender bias | 134 | |
On language : choice | 144 | |
Laugh riot : feminism and the problem of women's comedy | 148 | |
Girl, unreconstructed : why girl power is bad for feminism | 155 | |
Ch. 4 | Desire : love, sex, and marketing | 162 |
In re-mission : why does redbook want to keep us on our backs? | 166 | |
Hot and bothered : unmasking male lust | 170 | |
I heard it through the loveline : and misinformation just might make me lose my mind | 175 | |
The new sexual deviant : mapping virgin territory | 179 | |
Envy, a love story : queering female jealousy | 186 | |
Fan/tastic voyage : rewriting gender in the wide, wild world of slash fiction | 192 | |
Hot for teacher : on the erotics of pedagogy | 198 | |
Holy fratrimony : male bonding and the new homosociality | 207 | |
Ch. 5 | Domestic arrangements | 217 |
The paradox of Martha Stewart : goddess, desperate spouse-seeker, or feminist role model? | 221 | |
Double life : everyone wants to see your breasts - until your baby needs them | 227 | |
Queer and pleasant danger : what's up with the mainstreaming of gay parents? | 232 | |
Mother inferior : how Hollywood keeps single moms in their place | 240 | |
Hoovers and shakers : the new housework workout | 247 | |
Ch. 6 | Beauty myths and body projects | 252 |
Plastic passion : Tori Spelling's breasts and other results of cosmetic Darwinism | 256 | |
Vulva Goldmine : the new culture of vaginal reconstruction | 261 | |
Are fat suits the new blackface? : Hollywood's big new minstrel show | 267 | |
Busting the beige barrier : the limits of "ethnic" cosmetics | 270 | |
Your stomach's the size of a peanut, so shut up, already : an open letter to Carnie Wilson | 272 | |
Beyond the bearded lady : outgrowing the shame of female facial hair | 276 | |
Ch. 7 | Confronting the mainstream | 281 |
Pratt-fall : ten things to hate about Jane | 285 | |
Marketing miss right : meet the single girl, twenty-first-century style | 291 | |
The God of big trends : book publishing's ethnic cool quotient | 299 | |
The black and the beautiful : searching for signs of black life in prime-time comedy | 307 | |
I kissed a girl : the evolution of the prime-time Lesbian clinch | 313 | |
XXX offender : reality porn and the rise of humilitainment | 318 | |
Bias cut : old racism as new fashion | 322 | |
Ch. 8 | Talking back : activism and pop culture | 328 |
Please don't feed the models : a day in the life of an urban guerrilla | 331 | |
Refuse and resist with Jean Kilbourne : how to counteract ad messages | 335 | |
Full frontal offense : bringing abortion rights to the Ts | 337 | |
Meet Anne : a spunky, adventurous American Girl | 342 | |
How to reclaim, reframe, and reform the media : a feminist advocacy guide | 344 |