Girlistic Magazine debuted December 1 on Girlistic.com, “Your Ultimate Feminist Resource.� Based in the Central Coast of California, Jaymi Heimbuch and her partner April Weiland launched Girlistic.com in mid-July.
Described as being the end result of a threesome with Ms., Bitch, and Bust, Girlistic Magazine is available online and in a PDF format for free in-hand access. Features include: interviews, editorials, profiles, essays, and reviews.
Here’s Jaymi…
What motivated you and your partner April to launch Girlistic.com?
I guess it was half boredom and half passion. We both had something that we really wanted to pursue. April wanted to focus on learning more about computer programming and web design. I wanted to find out more about creating an online magazine. So, we combined those two and came up with Girlistic and the idea just grew and grew. We wanted to be able to be a catalyst for women to connect with one another.
Who would you say is your target audience?
Pretty much anyone who calls themselves a feminist, or is curious about feminism. But from what we’ve seen, the majority of people who visit the website tend to be women in their mid-20s or late-20s and 30s. They also tend to be already well educated about feminism and so are looking for a broader resource.
We’re hoping to attract people who are just starting to learn about feminism and want to find out more and connect with other resources.
What about women who do not identify as feminists but value Girlistic.com as a resource?
We’ve actually had quite a few people write into us saying, “I don’t think that I’m a feminist, but I’m really interested in what you’re doing.� We’ve had people say, “You’re a great website but you really shouldn’t say you’re feminist because that just turns people off and you’re not marketing yourselves well.� Part of what we want to do is take that word “feminist,� that seems scary to so many people, and show that it’s just another way to identify. It’s not something that is scary or something that’s cultish. It’s just another way of expressing your beliefs.
How would you describe the feminist scene on the internet? And where does Girlistic.com fit in?
Actually, one of the reasons why we ended up growing the website—we have a blog, we’re growing a clipart database—is for when you have a direction that you want to go but you don’t really know exactly what shape that direction takes. It can be very isolating to be on the Left. And to try to find what it is you are looking for; people who are like you and events that you can connect to. It can be hard to find websites that focus on a really broad range. It can be very easy to find websites in a local area, but maybe not your local area.
We’re hoping that we’ll eventually be one of the websites on the scale of Feminist Majority or Feminist.com, which are these huge resources with tons of information. One of the great things about Girlistic.com is instead of April and I providing the information, which we are doing right now because the website is in the process of growing, is that we want to include a lot of user participation. So users can add their own links to websites that they find really helpful, and add their own events that they’re hosting on the calendar. They can submit themselves to be featured feminists so they can tell everyone else what they’re doing and find a comraderie in reading about other women and activists who have had really empowering situations in their lives. We want users to be able to access the website and use it for whatever they want instead of us saying, “OK, here is what feminism is and here is what you can do with it.�
What about Girlistic’s blog, Feminist Pulse. Who blogs and what types of issues do you blog about?
We actually just started [blogging]. We have a few bloggers right now, and we’re looking for more. I tend to be the one most prolific in it because I have some time and I’m really interested in finding news across the globe that is of interest to women. I usually put in my own news bits and what I think about them in there. We have Micah, who is also a contributor to Girlistic Magazine. She’ll blog about something that particularly happened to her and what she thinks about it. Katie is another blogger that blogs really often and she finds really interesting things that are going on and she’ll write a snippet about an event.
You describe Girlistic Magazine as Ms. and Bitch having a threesome with Bust and the end result is Girlistic Magazine. Can you talk more about this? And what contributions do you feel Girlistic Magazine will make to feminist media?
It’s kind of a combination of the major magazines that are for the women’s movement. Ms. is very educational and focuses on news things like large-scale political happenings. Bitch is what it says, “a feminist response to pop culture,� and so it has a lot about pop culture and where feminism lies in that. Bust is about pop culture but it tends to be more light-hearted; not fluff, but on the lighter side of life. We wanted to combine all of that so that we had educational articles that could also be really light and fun and really encompass feminism and feminist culture.
We’re hoping that because we want it to be free for everyone and we have it on the web, we’re hoping that it will be easy access, and easy to spread around. The last time I went to the magazine store, I bought three magazines for like $17. We’re hoping that because it’s free, it will be a great resource for people. The writers are phenomenal, and I think the quality of writing is just exceptional. They’re all doing it for free right now because we don’t have any money to pay yet. We’re hoping that with advertisers coming through, that it will be enough revenue to pay them for the outstanding work that they’re doing.
How many writers do you have so far?
We probably have 20 or so contributors for the first issue and then even more for the second issue. There’s a handful of really dedicated women doing a lot of work for not only the first issue but several issues out. But we’re pretty much welcoming anyone who has any ideas, as long as it is legitimate and they have great follow-through, we’d be more than happy to have them.
What are some examples of issues and topics you foresee Girlistic Magazine discussing?
The first issue is pretty broad. It’s about artist entrepreneurs. I wanted to focus more on women who turned their craftsmanship into a business and who combined their artistic side with their entrepreneur side. We have quite a range of articles on different artists who are doing that in different ways as well as book reviews, music reviews, and several interesting poems. We have a woman who wanted to do an essay series, which is hilarious. It’s called “My Vagina and Me,� and that will be in every issue. A comic strip will also be in every issue.
The next issue will be out in March and it’s going to be about feminism and technology. It will focus on how the movement has been affected by technology, how women are working in technological jobs, and how they tend to dominate certain areas or not get enough access to certain areas. We have a huge range of articles that are going to be in that issue.
Do you have any critiques of feminism that you want to address in Girlistic Magazine?
We received a submission critiquing feminism but it was actually pretty harsh. [Laughs] We don’t want to start out with that quite yet. We want it to be more happy-go-lucky right now. Some of the articles that are coming in really take a strong look at what role feminism plays in women’s lives but we don’t have anything specific to feminism and its critique in mass media yet.
Is part of the reason why you’re doing this magazine is to provide another outlook to enhance feminism and the feminist movement? Is there something that you see as lacking in feminism?
Absolutely. I think because we are so small we have a really easy time picking out what we think should be out there. I do think some of the issues that we’re bringing up aren’t addressed in mainstream media at all. And they’re not addressed that much in feminist media, being other magazines, other websites. They are to an extent, but some of the issues just really aren’t covered.
The other thing that is really great about Girlistic Magazine is I have some writers who I can say, “Do you think you will be interested in writing about X topic?� And then there are writers who say, “I think this is really important and I want to write on this.� So, we let them go off in their own direction and that brings up so many interesting article ideas because it’s coming from a writer with her own experiences of what’s going on. I think just the fact that the writers have a lot of control over what they submit makes it really easy for us to address things that don’t get addressed in the mainstream media because the writers themselves have control over what is being said.
Do you have any long-term goals for the website and the magazine?
Our long-term goal [for the magazine] would be to be more like a mainstream magazine and be able to be found in bookstores and magazine stores.
For the website, we’d love for that to really grow and become its tag line, “Your Ultimate Feminist Resource.� While it sounds silly right now because we’re so small, we really look at that every day and say, what can we do to be that? We do eventually one day want to be the how-to within the feminist community—“Let’s go to Girlistic. I’m sure I’ll find that there.�
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I actually printed out the magazine on really nice paper and read it today while I was at work. (I work at a copy center, so my copy is on really nice paper and bound, since I was bored today.)
It's got a few interesting articles, but I didn't really like the The Omnipresent Feminist column. Here are some quotes:
I find myself in an unusual position being a woman in the 21st century. I am not considered a second class citizen.
Maybe not with the men that she has met, but in my experience (and coming from a state that has the highest domestic abuse rate against women), some men still have the misconception that the perfect women is someone chained to the kitchen with a mattress on her back. Maybe sexism today isn't as blatant as it was years ago to her, but one does not need to look hard to find it. Also, in many countries women are still considered second class citizens. So even if you don't feel like you have to fight for your own rights as a woman, fight for the rights of women who don't have that luxury.
I believe the irony of challenges that women face today is that we don't know how to do anything but fight to prove ourselves, to labor under the misconception that we must not only live up to a man's career and salary equivalent, but be better than them because we are women.
That makes it sound like she thinks all the major battles of feminism are basically over, which they aren't. I don't think feminism is about women fighting to prove themselves better than men, I think it's more about fighting to prove to men that we are not inferior to them. (Also, the statement she made is not very ironic.)
Sometimes I wonder where the guilt comes from when a woman earns her Master's degree then decides she would like to be a fulltime (sic) mother. Who better to raise a child than an educated adult?
This statement isn't bad. But the next one:
I would think that the guilt would be better placed on the shoulders of the mother who chooses to work when she is able to stay home and watch her children. [...] Have the priorities of women become so confused that money can outweigh helping a life develop?
What about the father who "chooses" to work instead of "helping a life develop"? To quote Gloria Steinem, "I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career." Are the priorities of women different from the priorities of men? Only if we rely on old stereotypes about women being "more nurturing" and more "domestic" than men. I understand that her point is that if it isn't necessary for one parent to work, that parent has the option of staying at home with the kids, but why is the woman the one who is automatically considered?
Girlistic added me to its MySpace friends list a few months back. I found that the bulletins I received didn't really fit my tastes, but I'm hesitant to say anything critical because I'm always glad to see another feminist resource, "Ultimate" or otherwise.
Cheers,
TH
TH:
Yeah me too. I'm always glad to see new feminist 'zines, and I'll read the upcoming issues. Which doesn't mean that I won't respectfully disagree with some articles. I support their overall cause.
For me, the most distressing aspect of most feminist writing that Y come upon these days is the lack of radical analysis. For example, why discuss whether or who should stay home to raise children when:
Most women are forced to work outside their homes.
A lot of the women who are forced to work at jobs are taking care of the other women's children.
Who talks about the quality of child care any children are suffering?
What is the effect on a baby who has been 'mothered' primarily by one person for a period of time, and that someone suddenly disappears and is replaced by someone else?
Why do we continue replenishing the population when most of our children look destined to die from malaria, hiv, etc., or to become cannon fodder, or wage slaves, or victims of abuse, suicide, or substance addiction....
?
Lebesquet, well said. And if there were not so much of a wage gap, it would be more of a viable option for either parent to stay home with the kid(s)--instead of the job almost always falling on the mother.
Cheers,
TH