A few years ago the IWF’s Women’s Quarterly ran an article wondering what on earth a gal could do to make a living if she decided to major in women’s studies in college. Now, finally, we have the answer: Edit a gross and graphically ugly feminist webzine.
Yup, that’s the F-Word (hat tip to National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez), and do click here to check the ‘zine’s amateur-night masthead, a poorly drawn ripoff of an old Rolling Stones logo. And here’s a welcome from F-Word editor Melody Berger (warning: more hideous art):
“…I’m a senior majoring in Women’s Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. The F-WORD is my baby. I’d been planning this magazine for a while… kind of as a continuation of the feminist theory workshops that I taught teens for the past three summers at Appel Farm Arts and Music Center. Things got put on the back burner because of the ELECTION and everything… but right after NOVEMBER 2nd… I stepped things up a bit.”
That should give you an idea of the F-Word’s general tone and political tenor. Elsewhere, the magazine asks this important question: “What Causes Heterosexuality?” That should pull in the readers!
My favorite F-Word article so far (thanks again, Kathryn) is this interview by editor Berger with Gloria Steinem. The subject (natch!): George W. Bush the Evil:
“Gloria: …He wasn’t born that way. As a baby, he probably had a whole person inside him! But that family is enough to turn anybody into a raving power maniac, and they certainly did it with him…..
“Melody: When I saw the picture, the famous picture of him, with a bunch of other white guys, gleefully signing away our rights as women [My note: That would be the ban on partial-birth abortion that Congress passed]… all I could think was, ‘ok, how is that not just pure evil?’
“Gloria: Well, you know, there is certainly evil effect. There are certainly going to be millions of women and a lot of men who simply are not alive because he’s in the White House. There are going to be whole species of animals, and living things, and plants that are not alive anymore, and will never come back, because: he killed them. So, that’s an evil impact. I don’t think it’s inevitable. He wasn’t born that way.”
Whew! I think the F-Word is aimed at teen-agers, and if so, I’ve got some advice for Ms. Berger: Can’t you find someone a little younger than Steinem or those has-been “third-wave feminists” Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner to interview?