Looks at feminist magazines for pre-teens and early teens
Phillips, Maxine
AT LEAST once a day I hear myself saying some version of the following to my two daughters, ages ten and thirteen: "We didn't have X when I was young." Depending on the situation, the...
...The magazine also betrays an occasional multicultural naivete— most outrageously when it printed, with no further comment, claims that Iraqi women "can vote and hold office," and "President Saddam Hussein supports women's rights more than some Iraqi politicians...
...there is a lot of poetry, even a section for love poetry...
...Figure out why you like them and how they live their lives...
...The circular scar (on my arm, near the shoulder) is an expression of coming of age...
...without the sex and violence...
...Although it carries no outside advertising, New Moon is a mini-industry...
...I know what you mean," Louise fumes...
...And with such tiny circulations, they make no pretense of challenging the cultural power of YM and Seventeen...
...Can any feminist magazine compete with the slick messages of the dominant media...
...The magazines I remember from my youth and their successors exist with essentially unchanged content (the lyrics have changed from don't kiss on the first date to don't have sex on the first date, but the tune is the same: get that date...
...I regret the day I slashed my leg, but smile every time I look at the circle on my arm...
...It would have named the unseen and unknown for me, perhaps better prepared me for the world from which I had been sheltered...
...The readers' letters and text are not broken up with as much art as in commercial magazines, and there is no outside advertising...
...Depending on the situation, the next sentence will be, "And we got along just fine without it" or "I sure wish I'd had that when I was your age...
...Plans are under way for a series of four books...
...It has 3,500 paid subscriptions, a lot of them bulk orders from organizations, and claims a readership of 70,000...
...and dispenses wisdom...
...That was one of the only reasons I told my mom about my experience...
...For instance, in a section on interracial dating a sixteen year old writes, "People say sometime in the future there will be a race war...
...In addition, the company recently acquired a multicultural feminist magazine for young adults called HUES (Hear Us Emerging Sisters...
...WHEN THE outrage at gender inequality comes from the girls it has the fresh "click" of understanding, as in a letter from a ten year old in Milwaukee: "I also want to thank all of the girls who wrote in about being sexually harassed and said that if anyone ever gets harassed they should tell someone...
...Would I like to buy that teen a subscription...
...NEW MOON, "The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams," claims to be "edited entirely by girls 8-14...
...Today, when I can't shelter my children in the same way my parents did me, I'm glad these magazines are in our mailbox...
...An article on science crafts (make your own mobile) can co-exist with such pieces as "Menstruation Myths" or a first-person report from an adult who talked with residents of an orphanage in Romania...
...How do you see yourself at age 18...
...I can understand that a fourteen year old in a Romanian orphanage might think her country would benefit from joining NATO, but the sidebar asks only "Who should belong to NATO...
...animals...
...On the other hand, without money for promotion, which has to come from foundations or individuals, they can't reach whatever audience does exist...
...Somewhere there are 23,000 people with subscriptions, which can't all be unsolicited gifts from parents and grandparents...
...Not all readers appreciate the openly feminist stance of the magazine...
...The issues started to arrive...
...I sent in a check...
...Animal rights are covered...
...Each issue has bound in it a sixteen-page catalog with "Resources for Schools, Girls' Groups, Libraries...
...If that does happen, DISSENT / Fall 1998 n 117 MAGAZINES we will have no one to blame but ourselves...
...astronomy, astrology,and mythology...
...Luna, the magazine's guiding spirit, receives what elsewhere would be letters to the editor...
...Reading New Moon is like reading a junior Ms...
...These zines, which are generally xeroxed and have circulations in the low three figures, avoid moralizing and awkwardness...
...Girls are encouraged to write in and voice their opinions: ("What do you like about Barbie...
...Three faces, two of them teenagers of color, smiled out at me...
...In the latter category are feminist magazines...
...A sibling newsletter, New Moon Network, speaks to adults about articles in NM and to issues on parents' and educators' minds...
...They live in a vastly different culture, one in which feminism has deeply influenced their lives but, as Mary Pipher describes in Reviving Ophelia, one in which both the backlash against feminism and the everpresent devaluation of women puts adolescent girls at risk in ways very different from the girls of my generation...
...I like to read it, skimming the didactic parts...
...Her description prompted sidebars that exceeded the length of her essay, offering multicultural perspectives on body modification and alternatives to scarring: Are you thinking about doing it because, as Addie writes, "I did not want to become a `grown-up' and say, 'That's the way life is.'" Figure out what you think the definition of a grown-up is, then find adults who defy the stereotypes...
...Which it is...
...Lesbianism is mentioned...
...There are great things about adulthood that don't include accepting the norms and conformity...
...A disgruntled thirteenyear-old reader writes, "Wes the 1990s...
...My daughters don't have to wait that long...
...and asserts, "There is no need to passively accept other people's pessimistic (negative) attitudes about race relations...
...j usT As I was trying to figure out how to promote a critical reading of YM ("Why don't we make a list of all the beauty products mentioned in the articles and then see if any of them are not advertised in this issue...
...This magazine is not aimed only at middleclass girls, and the voices in it come from a variety of ethnic and economic backgrounds...
...The sidebar underneath is headlined, "Who says there is going to be a race war...
...Readers send in reviews of books, music, and Web pages...
...It is an expansive, yet comforting, vision...
...Seventeen...
...Yes, and each for different reasons...
...I like it, my older daughter likes it...
...Okay, so we are sort of like your mom in that we think abstinence is best until you are much older and more physically and emotionally prepared to have sex," says the lead-in paragraph to a description of birth-control methods...
...Anyone older is thumbing through Vogue and Cosmopolitan...
...This article had an accompanying sidebar on NATO and former Warsaw Pact nations and some cultural information about Romania...
...Times have changed...
...Almost every article is written by teens, but the sidebars with the background information, the names of organizations to contact, the books to read, and often some editorial comments come from adults...
...If these magazines had been in my mailbox then, would I have read them...
...music and art...
...religion and spirituality...
...The fictional Louise's mother tells her that gender equality will be a long time coming and that "the deck is stacked in [Emile's] favor...
...The slashes on my legs were self-abuse...
...Even the tutor acts like he's the only one who counts...
...It makes me remember the first discovery of other times and other places...
...Founded in 1987 by two young women, Alison Amoroso and Christine Diamond, it is a notforprofit magazine linked to an organization, Women Express, which runs programs in the greater Boston area for teenage women...
...How do I feel about them...
...You don't have to scar yourself to live the way you want to...
...The products range from those created for New Moon (stationery, posters, pins, stickers, clothing) to New Age-type dream journals, jewelry, and bath oils to books for both adults and girls...
...My daughters and their friends read them avidly, and I hear myself saying, "At this stage of feminism how can they still print that stuff...
...their idiosyncratic voices carry power...
...Each issue has a theme (for example, sciDISSENT / Fall 1998 n 115 MAGAZINES ence...
...Given the way that advertising drives content in mass-market magazines, it's doubtful that teen feminist magazines can ever be as trendy as their mainstream competitors and stay true to their visions if they accept the big-money ads...
...Does it look a little too much like it's good for you rather than just plain good...
...But in the adults' contributions the "click" can be forced, as in a story about an eighteenth-century girl, sister to Emile, the son of a Madame Dupin who is writing a book on gender inequality...
...The intended audience, which includes educators, has money to spend...
...But this virtue is also their vice: they're unconnected to adult experience or wisdom...
...This was the junior Ms...
...Teen immigrants talk about their countries and their lives...
...The rule of thumb about teen magazines seems to be that teen now starts around age ten, so that that age group is looking at Teen and 16, while the twelve-to-fifteen year olds are looking at YM (Young and Modern), formerly Young Miss...
...The young woman in the center had braces...
...One of Women Express's goals is to teach media literacy, so that in addition to pointing out in articles how the mass media treat women, Teen Voices asks readers to deconstruct an outrageous ad in every issue ("This ad bites because...
...Teen Voices, also committed to a better world, enters much less comfortable territory...
...Girls are being pushed by the culture to "grow up" faster, so that there is a brief period, perhaps from eight to ten, when a girl might still be captivated by a magazine that doesn't deal with music, boys, clothes, makeup, and celebrities, but after that, unless she has strong support for alternatives, she wants to talk about what the other girls are talking about...
...listens...
...In fact, in the issues I looked at, the fiction by adults was less engaging and much 116 • D ISSENT / Fall 1998 more didactic than that by young people...
...I had to wait until I was in my twenties for that experience, when I opened the premier issue of Ms...
...They look at it, murmur approvingly, then say, "My daughter would never read it...
...What are your favorite myths...
...My friends and I read them avidly...
...After reading some of the other girls' comments .. . I would like to ask—What's wrong with wearing make-up, looking good for a boy, and liking clothes...
...II 8 n DISSENT /Fall 1998 However, as I was writing this article and discussing it with her, this same daughter asked, "I know the stuff in YM is stupid, but I still want to read it...
...No celebrities, makeovers, or articles on how to get a guy...
...two young poets write about their desire to run away...
...Women are treated just as well as men now for the most part...
...As I remember them, the magazines of the fifties and early sixties aimed at girls were all about celebrities, looking good, being nice, and snaring a guy...
...The promotional letter suggested that I, as a feminist, might know a teenager for whom this magazine, written almost entirely by teens and purporting to cut across class and race lines, would be appropriate...
...there is a feature on friendship...
...Although it was a four-color glossy and had the same jumbled look to it as the mainstream teen magazines, there were few ads and the typefaces and colors gave it a low-budget look...
...and the new Teen People, which is not targeted only to girls but certainly appeals to them...
...MAXINE PHILLIPS is the managing editor of Dissent...
...However, even with my unscientific sample of two, I can see what some of the problems are, and they MAGAZINES go beyond naiveté and pedantry to the issues raised by the unhappy reader quoted above...
...New Moon and Teen Voices may suffer from naiveté, uneven writing, preachiness, but they fill a need that I didn't know existed forty years ago...
...The articles featured on the front included "The Way Out: Surviving Depression," "Top 10 Reasons Not to Shave," and "Life in Foster Care...
...a sixteen-year-old writes about her mother's death from breast cancer (sidebars, written by adults, give information on teens and breast cancer and breast self-examination...
...New Moon and Teen Voices face the tension common to all alternative magazines of trying to reach the audience they believe is out there but not compromising their vision in order to attract the money to market themselves...
...Inside were regular feature sections on racism (later changed to "cultural awareness"), sexual assault, health, arts and culture, media, and another country...
...Less than half the magazine is written by adults, and presumably all of it is voted on and edited by the all-girl editorial board...
...Do you believe that stars affect your daily life...
...and a fourteen year old cautions against it, describing her life on the streets after running from an abusive home...
...It's won a lot of awards from, among others, the Parents' Choice Foundation, the National Women's History Project, the NOW Foundation, and the Educational Press Association of America...
...In the "How Aggravating" column, readers talk about everything from their distaste at watching women Olympic figure skaters "skate in bikinis" to having to sit out recess because the school gives boys priority for the basketball court and only allows girls to use it if the boys agree...
...At times I found such an adult voice jarring despite its common sense and useful information...
...I've given it as a gift and not been asked to renew and I've told other mothers of daughters about it...
...Two teens from different families describe their homeschooling experiences and another talks about her transition from public school to homeschool and back...
...The target audience is girls from ages twelve up, and it reflects the wide gap in interests that such an age range suggests...
...A teen talked about scarring herself: Why don't people ask me how I feel about my scars...
...with sex and violence...
...not, "Why should NATO exist...
...Yet there are alternatives out there, struggling to compete in a culture that constantly promotes consumerism, commodifies sex, and reinforces girls' negative images of themselves...
...Why is that...
...Founded in 1993 by a husband-wife team in Minnesota, New Moon is a lyrical four-color glossy that packs a lot in about girls all over the world...
...There are critiques of society's obsession with weight and lots of reader input about eating disorders...
...What don't you like...
...asks readers questions ("What excites you about coming of age...
...On a still smaller scale are feminist zines like the Jellybean and Wild Honey Pie that are produced directly by individual adolescent women...
...Teen Voices appeared in my mail...
...How much is New Moon willing to compromise...
...The one on the end had moles...
...Adults seem to care only about gender issues, for the wider political questions raised by some of the articles are not touched...
...As an adult and a parent I was glad to see the broader viewpoints, but I wondered if they might not seem too preachy to a young person...
...New Moon, appealing to younger readers, speaks of a world in which it is possible for girls to combat injustice, dream big dreams, and live in harmony with others...
...What would it have meant to receive a magazine that told me it was OK not to look like a movie star, that I could be a politician rather than a politician's wife, that asked why boys could wear pants to school and girls couldn't, a magazine that named—and questioned— a system so much a part of my life that it was as natural as the sunrise...
...I couldn't remember ever seeing such an obviously untouched photo on a magazine...
...There has been great progress through this country's civil rights movements ......everyone who reads Teen Voices joins the movement for civil rights— against all discrimination—we will be even closer to social and economic justice...
Vol. 45 • September 1998 • No. 4
