Cop Time Managment Plan

Cop 3 Briefing Notes and Personal Specification

Cop Briefing Notes:

Personal Cop Specification:

In order to make sure I cover each aspect of the brief ILOs in my work, I have created a condensed check list to measure against. Ensuring nothing is forgotten and I am conscious of what I need throughout the project. This could be something I photocopy and check off for each week of work.

Pracical - Mimeorgraph Printing

I briefly looked at printing methods that could be used for the practical work, one of the theories I had was to make an authentic feminist publication based on women's rights pamphlet made in previous years. This could be to re-brand one in a modern setting, or to use modern content in a publication created using old fashioned printing methods. This included mimeography, which I did some brief research into. This could be something I explore further for the practical work.

Risomania - The new spirit of printing by John Z. Komurki

From this I realised that mimeograph printing is a painstaking stencil process and could be difficult to recreate, however presses do still exist as they are relatively cheap to use as do not need electricity. Risograph printing is an interesting and more available evolution of this process. Mimeograph is more important in the sense of what it stands for, its memorable impact was on 'small-scale independent publishing. Being so cheap, easy to use and flexible, it enabled artists, writers and agitators to disseminate their work more quickly than ever before.' It created a revolution in printmaking and allowed people to spread their ideas, without having to spend lots of money.

'Each of these small press momeo-gangs participated in a 'collage' aesthetic. Working as tiny collectives they experimented patching new media together in unique designs and cobinations. Presentation, delivery, politics and authorship were challenged... Ideas that were soon spilling over into the contemporary art scene battled there way awkwardly and beautifully through the pages of these small journals.' - Detroit filmmaker and beat veteran Cary Loren.

Essay - Presentation Feedback

Presentation Feedback:

The focus of my essay was going to be on the history of women's magazines and their contextual relationship with the status of women. Generally the feedback for this was that it was too broad. Although each aspect of the history was well researched, it wouldn't be applicable to current practices of design. The advice was to look at more current and contemporary magazines in order for it to be more relevant. I can reference history, but it can't be the main focus. I should look at current feminist publications.

Tutorial Feedback:

The tutorial took the the idea of the essay in a different direction. We talked more about feminist graphic design and how feminist movements co-opt graphic design to express themselves. Moving away from the magazine focus. This could be interesting to explore and may actually be more relevant to my personal practice. However, all my research up to this point has been about magazines, so I may have to be very selective about what I can use. Some potential themes were:

• The aesthetic of feminism vs the ideology of feminism. Do people jump on it for how it looks more than the body of thought? E.g. Frida Kahlo phenomenon.
• How do contemporary feminist graphic designers communicate with their audiences? How do they use graphic design as a tool for influencing change?
• Zine culture/digital zines.
• How has the history of feminist magazine design influenced contemporary publications?
• How feminist movements co-opt graphic design to express themselves.

Essay - Presentation

For the presentation I decided to go through each type of magazine I've looked at throughout history and compare that to the state of women at the time. I made notes on each section of the presentation, detailing key points of interest and linking pieces of information.

 I chose this topic because I wanted to expand my knowledge of feminist theory, for future conversation and referencing. I also thought it would give me some historical insight as I am looking towards a career in historical curation or something similar. Next to this, I also have a keen interest in publication design and studying magazines seemed to give a good insight into this.

1. Initially I discussed the first magazines made, this included the Ladies Mercury, created 1693. This was a direct result of economic changes, causing upper and middle class women to have increased leisure time. The magazine had a problems page which is comparable to modern magazines today. I then discussed the English Woman's Domestic Magazine, produced 1853, which was again a result of status change, with more women becoming housewives. Their master stroke was affordable fashion, which is something that has been carried forward in magazines throughout time. Finally I mentioned Peg's Papers which was introduced in the 1920s which was a fictional magazine produced for working class women, usually about 'cross-class romance'. Previous to this they would have had 'Servant's Magazine', so Peg's Papers would have been a refreshing change.

2. I then discussed suffrage pamphlets. Quite a few were created underground in 1850s and one of the most well known was 'Suffragette' which was made by Emmeline Pankhurst's daughter, Christobel.  Publishers kept being shut down, the urgency and cheap quality, even the distribution reflects a lot about the status of women at the time. I also briefly mentioned health pamphlets made in the 1910s, in particular ones produced to inform on sex and contraception - which were illegal to distribute at the time.Once the pamphlets were produced the creators would sometimes flee the country.
I thought it was important to mention that at this time printing required a sizeable budget, so even though these publications were made from a position of subversion, they still don't entirely reflect the worries and thoughts of working class women.

3. I also wanted to mention that during the 20th Century, advertising became more prominent in women's magazines. It became the case that magazines had to appeal equally to advertisers and the female market. This explains why a lot of magazines aren't very political as advertisers don't want to associate with any kind of statement.

4. I then discussed modern day 'Glossies', which typically cover sexuality, fashion, careers and celebrities. I wanted to mention that there is a big debate about glossies and if they allow feminists to indulge in fashion, sex and appearance with independence or if they oppress women, suggesting they have to look a certain way to be accepted.

5. I also then did a study of feminst outlier publications, such as 'Nova' and 'Riposte'. These were more about design and liberation, they want to shock and intellectually provoke. Nova especially was very ahead of its time but only reflected the opinions of a niche amount of people. They were trying to sell to the 'new woman', which didn't quite exist yet.

6. Finally, I looked a participatory media and zine culture in the 1990s. Zines are interesting as they probably more reflective of women's views at the time, as they didn't have to go through editors, advertisers or publishing houses. Very raw. However they were only made by a select number of women and cannot be said to really reflect women's status at the time.

In terms of the practical I found several quotes that inspired an idea. Several writers were saying that the first historical magazines were being forgotten and it was important for young feminists to know about their roots. I was suggesting that I could create a delicate publication that would be in the style of one of the first women's magazines, with current content as its focus. I thought this could be inspiring and significant, indicating to women the importance of the past.

Essay - Initial Question and Essay Plan

In order to establish an essay question using the knowledge I have gathered so far, I wrote each topic that sprung to mind on a piece of paper, and then tried to arrange them by theme.

I then divided these into topics, what seemed most clear was to organise them into 1st wave, 2nd wave and 3rd wave publication topics. This meant that as an essay it could move chronologically and lead to question being formulated.

1st Wave Feminism

2nd Wave Feminism

3rd Wave Feminsim

What is the historical relationship between women's magazines and the role of women within society?

• Introduction
• Rise of the class system and the first magazines produced in response to this.
• Suffrage publications and health pamphlets – select women looking for liberation.
• The rise in necessity of advertisements, appeasing advertisers and the female market.
• Domestic side of women's magazines and their lack of political stance.
• Feminist outliers and alternative publications, such as Nova, Riposte.
• Participatory media such as zines in 'Riot Grrrl' era.
• 'Glossies'.
• Discernible characteristic from first magazines to current.
• Conclusion – strong relationship, but perhaps magazines are becoming outdated? Can magazines truly keep up with the current role of women, at the same speed as the internet.

Essay - Women's Magazines 1693-1968 by Cynthia L.White

This book was referenced in 'Inside Women's Magazines' by Janice Winship as a good source of historical overview and analysis. It's discusses a wide range of magazines coming from the very first in 1693 to trends in the 1960s. The book is slightly dated in its view as it was published in 1970, however this means it has an accurate and unclouded view of the magazines at the time.

First Experiments in Publishing for Women

• 'The publications characteristic of this period was entirely individual in their approach. Intended primarily 'to amuse and instruct' the female reading public, their contents were determined more by the caprice of the author than by any objective estimate of the requirements of the women reader.' pg 23
• The Ladies' Mercury set out to answer any questions they were sent, answers to 'all the most nice and curious questions concerning love, marriage behaviour, dress and honour of the female sex, whether virgins, wives or widows.' - run by a man, so potentially biased? Intimate problems were aired which was unusual for the time.
• Growth in female reading public at the turn of the century (1700) due to increased leisure forced upon upper and middle-class women by economic changes which reduced domestic tasks to a minimum. pg 24 Domestic servants were also becoming literate due to improved conditions.
• The Ladies' Diary made in 1704 by John Tipper who was determined that the contents of his diary should reflect 'what all women ought to be - innocent, modest, instructive and agreeable', an approach quite different to modern magazines (modern being the 1960s at the time of writing.) pg 25. The magazine did contain mathematical questions until 1707 when it was revised for cooking recipes.
• The Visitor created a magazine that was filled with knowledge for women, the Editor had high regard for female intellect and even called out a previous editor who had masqueraded as a man. pg 27
• Goodwill made a magazine called The Ladies' Magazine that whilst discussing crime, riddles, play reviews etc, also talked about the vulnerability of the female sex. 'It is the topical interest of such publications as Goodwill's which makes them unique in the history of publishing for women.' as many magazines already did this, but not ones aimed at women. pg 29-30 

The book also interestingly had a quiz from the 1950s about being the 'perfect housewife', it could definitely be something interesting to study further for practical work.

Essay - Zeal and Softness - Women's Magazines - Kathryn Hughes

• 'Women's magazines down the centuries have responded to their readers desires.' Threatened by the web they must refashion themselves in order to survive, adapting to modern desires and making a point of their physical aesthetic.
• Winship agrees that the Lady's Mercury was the first women's magazine to be created, she suggests the content was very much fictional entertainment. Hughes suggests for a brief few weeks the Ladies' Mercury promised to answer any questions relating to "Love etc" with "the Zeal and Softness becoming to the Sex". This can be compared to modern day quite directly, as many modern magazines tackle this issue. How does this relate to the state of women's rights at the time? The modern housewife was less established at this point.
• 'Titles such as the Lady's Magazine combined a gawping love of royalty with needlework patterns and sentimental fiction, all for the eminently affordable price of 6d. It also, inadvertently, awakened in its readers a hunger for authorship. Invited to send in their poems, translations and stories, the ladies obliged, so that by the end of the 18th century a third of the magazine's fiction was supplied by unpaid contributors.' - quite similar to zine culture?
•  1853 - Women's Domestic Magazine. A product targeted at a new market, the middle-class wife and mother who did most of her own housework. The evolution of women's situation.
• The master stroke of the magazine, however, was its coverage of fashion. By the 1860s, each issue featured a coloured plate showing anatomically impossible young women crammed into the latest Parisian fashion. Also contained a problems page that eventually turned slightly perverse, some say due to the editor.
• Contemporary to the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine was the Englishwoman's Journal, which explicitly campaigned for women to have a legal, economic and social identity outside the home. As a kind of forerunner of Spare Rib, the Englishwoman's Journal campaigned for girls to be trained as engravers, commercial artists, and schoolteachers. - Can be linked to spare rib.
• Aware of the potential offence of its message, the magazine was careful to take a high moral line, unlike its natural successor, the boldly named Freewoman, which was banned by WH Smith in 1911 for being "disgusting . . . indecent, immoral and filthy". 
• Magazines for the mill and shop girls, such as Peg's Papers. Often portraying fiction about cross-class romance. The modern day comparative would be the likes of Heat.
  

• 'magazines, rather than naturally occurring phenomena summoned up by their readers' desires, are in fact commodities of the most intricate kind. Few other artefacts, after all, have to be sold twice simultaneously to be considered successful. But this is exactly what a magazine editor must do, selling her product both to the reader via the cover price and to the advertisers through the rate card. As a result, women's magazines proliferate, clone and collapse according to a positively Darwinian model of the market.' It is just as much about the content as the advertisement, people often forget. There's an ever ending balance that needs to be made.
• 'women's magazines can only develop at the same rate as the culture itself, which means unevenly'
• 'Doomsayers point to the web as the eventual graveyard of the print magazine, while others emphasise that these products are consumed in places where access to a computer is either difficult or dangerous, the bus or the bath'
• 'Whether in stand-alone supplements or incorporated on to the feature pages, newspapers now roam through the familiar territories of love, sex, food, fashion and family. Sometimes they get it wrong, but more often they do it very well indeed. What exactly that leaves for women's magazines, and whether they will be able to fashion something new out of readers' residual desires, remains to be seen.' 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/dec/20/women-pressandpublishing

Essay - Zines: The Power of DIY Print by Belinda Cai - Video Research

'People don't have to go through all the layers of mainstream publishing. They can just get their words out there and their message out there without having to be mediated in any way.'

Essay - Suffrage Journals

http://womansuffragememorabilia.com/woman-suffrage-memorabilia/suffrage-journals/

In order to see how the zines of modern feminism link back to the 1st wave journals and pamphlets, I investigated the style and illustrations used in past journals.

'Depending on one’s definition of a “suffrage paper,” it is difficult to say which was the first.  Credit is sometimes given to Amelia Bloomer’s The Lily, which began on January 1, 1849 as a temperance journal, not as a voice for suffrage. Others credit Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis’ publication, The Una, which first appeared in February of 1853 as the first because of its focus on feminist issues.  Most, but not all, of these publications had a short life span, economics and debt overcoming the zeal of their founders.'

The ForeRunner (1906-1916) - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

She started her career as an artist but then became better know as an author. This combination of skills probably attributed to her skills. Over 7 years, Gilman produced 86 issues, each 28 pages long.  The magazine at its height, however, had but 1,500 subscribers. Because Gilman serialized many of her works in its pages, she felt that she lost out on book sales and income, but the sacrifice was worth it in terms of her ultimate purpose of reforming society along what she felt to be more humanistic values.

The Suffragette (1912-1915) - Christabel Pankhurst

'An advertising campaign was launched that included the introduction of several colorful art posters that promoted the new paper.' - the introduction of colourful posters to promote the publication was exciting and stood out against the advertising of the time. Perhaps this is something to consider for the practical project.

'Through such efforts, the paper in the best of times did reach a circulation of 17,000. However, the Home Office was determined to suppress the paper. On May 2, 1913, the manager of the Victoria Printing Company, which had printed that week’s issue, was arrested.  Another publisher was found and another publisher was arrested.' no matter how attuned to society a magazine can be, ultimately
the power lies with the publisher. It was eventually printed by progressive publishers in Glasgow.

Essay - Nova - Magazine Study

https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/catherine-losing-and-sarah-parker-for-riposte

Nova was a women's magazine published in the 60s/70s and was very ahead of its time and even now promoted content that can be consider risque.
 

'Nova was not a fashion magazine. Fashion was a small part of it. That was its selling strength—a magazine for “intelligent” women. There was lots to read—political, topical—addressing all the issues that were going on at that time, more like a Sunday supplement.
When I was appointed fashion editor of Nova my brief from then editor Dennis Hackett was to approach fashion differently from Vogue and Queen , so my stories and inspiration came more from what was happening out there on the streets and not following the fashion trends that were coming from Paris.' - Caroline Baker, assistant for

This is a classic minimalist style and would undoubtedly be popular today in an age where people are so taken with all things vintage. This magazine could be used as a visual reference to discuss its impact as a publication, a turning point for the industry, promoting the 'new woman'. For the practical work it could be interesting to develop a modern magazine in this style, although still using bits of influence from previous eras of feminism.

Janice Winships thoughts in Inside Women's Magazines:

• 'Nova aimed to shock, to intellectually provoke and to be witty. A large magazine, in contrast to She it luxuriated in empty space, bold print and experimental photography and copy.'
• 'Nova did not so much fail as bloom exotically and briefly.'
• 'There was a mismatch between the kinds of articles Nova carried and their message, and who they and the advertising were aimed at.'
• The 'new women' did not yet exist.

https://lwlies.com/articles/nova-magazine-film-kes-glozier/

• 'Inside Nova readers could expect to find innovative, stylised typography and monochrome pages that were revolutionary at the time. Beautifully designed and unlike any other publication, Nova epitomised the style and sophistication of Swinging London'
• 'The team behind Nova magazine took full advantage of this clear gap in a staid publishing landscape and ran with the creative licence provided by this collision of context: an invitation to reflect upon and even shape the zeitgeist, through attention to both rapidly evolving fashion and society. Hungry female readers seized upon this new source of visual and intellectual stimulation, in line with a long-overdue affirmation of their societal influence and equality by the largely male creators of culture.'
• 'The demise of Nova after a 19-year print-run can largely be attributed to a reduction in format in March 1974, instigated as a result of rising paper prices. A second reduction in size in May hindered the magazine’s sales further still, and five months later Nova disappeared from newsstands altogether.' - According to Wardle from Little White Lies, the demise of Nova was due to a demand on paper, a direct link to the printing industry. Whereas Winship seems to believe its lack of success was due to the under developed 'new woman'. This is something that can be used for a printing link to women's magazines, which could be the theme of the extended essay. 'How has the printing industry effected the course of women's magazines throughout history?'

Essay - Inside Women's Magazines by Janice Winship

Inside Women's Magazines by Janice Winship:

It's important to note that this was published in the 1980s, so the opinions and arcs do not take into account the 'internet age'. Which is undoubtedly linked to the success of magazines.

Looking back - with thoughts on the present:

• Winship believes that many women go through their live with only personal histories having meaning: life-time memories, the oral history passed on from generation to generation. She suggests that women's magazines have been short lived throughout time, often going out of print, so few people know what impact they had on their ancestors today. pg16 Feminists from other times have had to 'rescue' and 're-rescue' their past for it to be know. pg19
• 'Such collective knowledge can provide a strength for women to share; it is also an analytical tool with which to prise apart our present lives and begin to carve a different way into the future.' pg19
• Talks about how women's magazines have consistently tried not to take a political stance, in particular Woman. She suggests that 'Not accepting feminist politics is just as political in some sense as being an active feminist.' pg19
• Each magazine has an ideological pattern and these patterns are the 'product of many historical developments and are constantly being reworked to make sense and deal, as best they can, with the changing experience of women's lives' pg23

Women's magazines from the past:

• First significant women's magazine was 'The Ladies' Mercury' published 1693 and 'The Lady's Magazine' in 1770.
• This aimed to occupy upper class women with amusing fiction or 'autobiography' full of virgins, lovers, suicide and heroes. They also had educational pieces and were a far cry for the 'homemaking' magazines that were to come later. Perhaps this is something that could be explored in a modern context, as fiction appears far less in magazines. pg23
• Changes to industrial capitalism in the 1780s forward gave rise to a new kind of 'middle-class', where women were generally expected to be model homemakers. The most respectable wife in Victorian times was one that did not work outside of the home. 
• The 'English Woman's Domestic Magazine' contained some fiction but was very much about the practical and domestic: where to lunch, gardening and cooking tips, how to treat illness. This was a blueprint for the modern magazine industry. The mass publishing of this allowed by improved technology and invested capital meant literary and purchasing power of the working class increased. However so did production costs, causing a need for advertising.
• Beginning of the 20th century magazines available more than doubled.pg26
• Characteristics are still discernible in 1980s. Upper class: chronicling 'society', middle class: home and fashion and working class: romantic and melodramatic fiction. pg27

The Lady's Magazine

• Woman had added attraction because of its coloured pages of glamour, daydream and pleasure - significant in post-war Britain. Typically a time of austerity. pg27
• 'There is no doubt that the war stretched the women's magazine's and tested them as never before. And in this atmosphere of practicality, improvisation and strong comradely feeling the magazine throve... we were so short of paper that circulations were held down. As the papers developed more and more strongly their service approach and at the same time wisely kept up the entertainment value of their fiction, a tremendous unsatisfied demand built up.' - Mary Grieve, 1964, Millions Made My Story, pg134. The austerity of the war pushed the industry into a new era.

Essay - Understanding Women's Magazines by Anna Gough-Yates

Post-Fordism, Post-Feminism and the 'New Woman' in late 20th-Century Britain

• Woman's magazines are a 'culture industry', which has to be understood as both 'cultural' and 'economic.' pg 26
• Fordism = the use in manufacturing industry of the methods pioneered by Henry Ford, typified by large-scale mechanized mass production.
• Since the Second World War there has been a shift from a 'Fordist' era to 'post-Fordism'. Accounts vary as to what routes lead to this, but they share a common belief that the economic change which happened in the 1970s and 1980s brought about the transformation. Also in part a response and reproduction of cultural discourse. pg27
• The Fordism that grew after ww1 had 'working practices and systems of work relations that were inflexible, hierarchical, and de-skilling in character.' Monetary management and capitalist principles were vital in keeping it stable, as were the 'mass consumers' and mass advertising making mass consumption a norm. pg27
• The market became too fluid after ww2, the shifting patterns of taste were difficult to keep up with. Deregulation and the free market robbed Fordists of their 'safety net'. pg28
•  Fordism was resolved by greater economic flexibility and new technological innovations, maximising the use of the small and skilled (rather than the large and unskilled.) pg28 

• A major criticism of Fordism from a feminist perspective was that its labour market regulations and traditional ideologies about gender roles, clustered women at the bottom of the hierarchy. pg33
• In 1975, in upper socio-economic groups: women - 5% men - 20%. In lower socio-economic groups: women - 40% men - 22% pg33
• Women had lower pay, less occupational security, fewer promotional prospects and fewer employment rights. pg33 for more employment inequality stats.

• 'Academic postfeminism draws inspiration not only from the intellectual heritage of the women's movement, but also from an engagement with the concepts of postmodernism,  post-structualism and post-colonialism, together with attention to the interests of 'marginalised, diasporic and colonised cultures.' (Brooks,1997:4) pg 35 
• Murray suggests the complex theoretical writing for accedemic postfeminism is meaningless and works to exclude for 'ordinary woman'

From Fordism to post-Fordism in the British magazine industry:

• Women's magazines are 'a place where the cultural meanings and representations of modern femininity are forged, fought over and understood.' They are also products of an industry, effected by production and consumption. Unlike zines we have to analyse magazines looking at their economic context and business imperative. pg 39
• The industrialisation of British magazine publishing was relatively slow, but by the 1890s a range of new technologies was being widely introduced to process of paper production, typesetting and printing. This was developed and refined over time, with specialised departments and bureaucratic work routines. pg41
• This dominated until the 1970s when in 1977 the market predictability fractured and there was a sharp drop in circulation of magazines like 'Woman'. pg42
• In the 1980s and 1990s there was much readjustment and increase of flexibility and technological innovation. (post-fordism)

Seriously Galmorous or Glamorously Serious? The 'Working Woman':

• Many publishers and advertisers like the idea of targeting young, professional, middle-class women but this came with questions. How was the 'new woman' to be represented in a way that was agreeable to both advertisers and readers. It's interesting how zines never had to consider an advertisers opinion, so were very honest and raw, deliberately causing offense for success.
• Advertising developed in this sense, feeling exclusive and matching the style of the new 'modern women' magazines. 'Visual benchmarks.'
• Advertisers relaunched their magazines rather than entirely rebranding, to go from the old 'mass-market' to the new 'lifestyle' market.

Essay - Girl Zines: Making Media and Doing Feminism by Alison Piepmeier

Girl Zines: Making Media and Doing Feminism by Alison Piepmeier

• 'How had I forgotten that this - this absorbed, tongue-between-the-teeth, little-girl feeling - was the essence of art.' - Pagan Kennedy 'Zine' pg xiii.
• 'Part of what makes girl zines remain so vital as a feminist project is that they are an ongoing conversation, a way to be achingly immediate yet also provide a link to the printed matter that came before.' -Andi Zeisler (in the forward) 
• 'Despite predictions of their demise in the mid-1990s due to the rise of the internet, they are part of a continuing trend in the late capitalist culture.' pg 2
• 'A material object that can be altered to mark the passage of time and changing opinions.' - an example of this is 'Riot Grrrl' terminology being crossed out in Jigsaw, as opinions change about it, pg 4
• 'Is it truly activism or simply immaturly absorbed?' - similarity between 3rd wave and zine phenomenon. pg 9

•  'The power of style must not be down played in terms of political mobilisation.' Tobi Vail, Jigsaw #4 (1991). Indicates that part of girl power is style and with this is a resource it should not be ignored. Style has often been portrayed as a weakness in the past! pg 1. Jigsaw was the front runner of zines by girls and Riot Grrrls, symbolises emergent third wave feminism
• 'Shove the booklet into their pockets and take it home to read about what it means to have a revolution not just by and for girls, but girl style - grounded in aesthetics, narratives and iconography' pg 2
• 'Scruffy, homemade little pamphlets. Little publications filled with rantings of high weirdness and exploding with chaotic design.' - Stephen Duncombe pg 2
• 'The jigsaw manifesto is so earnest it can seem sarcastic in the context of the girlish pictures and stars in the zine.' - The style is overpowering to make a point? pg 9

• Definition of a Zine: 'Zines are quirky, individualised booklets filled with diatribes, reworkings of pop culture iconography, and all variety of personal and political narratives.' Self-produced and anti-corporate! 
• 'May contain handwriting, collage art, and even stickers and glitter.' pg 2
• An estimated 50,000 zines in circulation in 1997. pg 2

• 'Grrrl Zines are often the mechanism that third wave feminists use to articulate theory and create community' pg 9-10 
• Third wave feminism is considered under theorised, Piepmeier believes the theories and vocabulary are unrecognised as they have been found in zines. It is unexpected and not academic. pg 10. It is 'intentionally low-brow'.
• ''Insubordinate Creativity': creative construction of the self using the cultural materials that are 'ready to hand.'' pg 10
• Bust - feminist magazine, started as a zine, has come under fire for offering cosmetic advice and its approval of pornography. A 'flattening representation of girls'. 
• Agency and victimisation, complicity and resistance are two approaches that bifurcate the cause. 

•  Zines are a nostalgic medium that harks back to the punk area. Are they perceived as quaint? pg14
• 'Zines do provide a kind of intimacy and demand a kind of effort, that seems to block some of the more opportunistic aggression that is prevalent online.' pg 16  
• It is easier to contextualise zines, they age, just as opinions do! pg 16-17 They have longevity and may be more precious in future.  

• 'Most studies of zines identify them as resistant media originating in male-dominated spaces. They are positioned as descendants of the pamphlets of the American Revolution and Dadists and Samizdat publishing, emerging from the fanzines of the 1930s and the punk community of the 1970s.' pg25
• However! Grrrl zines have predecessors in the first and second waves of feminism. Women are not often associated with resistant media. By suggesting their origin is male punk communities it implies women are making aberrations. pg6
• 'A recognition of the connection between incarnations of feminism is important in the name of historical accuracy; moreover, it will allow young feminists to learn from and build on the past, recognising work that has come before so that they aren't always having to act as pioneers, trailblazers.' pg 28
• Woman throughout the 19th and 20th centuries have created informed publications. Scrapbooks, woman's health brochures, mimeographed feminist pamphlets - direct historical predecessors of grrrl zines. - unsure if these are entirely direct? moreover that they share a similar sentiment but are they directly linked?
• Creative and resistant and they provide a platform for women speaking from disempowered positions. pg 29

First Wave Origins:

• Zines are participatory media (important!) made by individuals.
• Scrapbooking - 19th Century, 'a material manifestation of memory.' - 'offered a space to comment on mainstream culture and also construct community and solidarity' pg 30
• Allowed women to construct their own legacy and public identity. pg 30 Publications could reframe and reprioritise mainstream media reporting.
• 'While allowing space for personal expression, often served a more colonising interest, incorporating people into a commodity market place rather than providing a site for resisting the market place.' pg 32 - scapbooking also taught women how to read advertising and fitted the creators into capitalism. Or is this marketplace literacy that they can use to critise the marketplace?
• Margaret Sanger 1914, she published her own paper - 'woman rebel' offering information about sexuaity and contraception. Illegal under the comstock law so fled to Europe. 
• 100,000 copies of the pamphlet 'Family Limitation were produced and distributed, covering contraception, vaginal suppositories, woman's sexual pleasure. This was an outlet created outside of existing media. pg 34
• These pamphlets did require printers and a sizeable budget, as no inexpensive technology available. Changes in tech meant multiple copies could be made, similar to zine production.

Second Wave Origins:

•  Mimeograph Printing! Could be a useful technique to learn for authenticity. 
• 'The process was imperfect; the ink was often messy (as well as purple), only one page could be produced at one time, and it was easy to fold and ruin stencils during the process of reproduction.' It was inexpensive and accessible though. 
• 'Iconic significance of the movement' pg 36
• Many second wave texts began as pamphlets or fliers not unlike zines. E.g. The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm by Anne Koedt. pg 36
• 'Integral to the creation of feminist community'  pg 36 has lots of insight.
• Zines 'are created in the context of the available technologies, and they make use of cultural ephemera' pg 42

Essay - Potential Themes and Summer Reading

Potential Themes:

• How much did the aesthetic of zines contribute to their popularity?
• How do modes of feminist publication compare to those made in past waves of feminism? E.g. scrap-booking, pamphlets.
• How does participatory media compare to mainstream media within the representation of women?
• How have the production methods of publications aimed at women evolved over time and effect their content and style? 
• Is the history of women's magazines important or is it an ever evolving trade?
• How do women's publications of the past compare to current trends?
• Will magazines continue to survive within the age of the internet?

Things to look up:

• Mimeograph Printing - was used in the initial printing of feminist documents. Could I recreate?
• Quimby's (Zine/alt-publishing house) 
• Tobi Vail's Jigsaw Manifesto. 
• Insubordinate Creativity 
• Victimaisation and agency, complicity and resistance
• 19th Century scrapbooks
• Fordism 
• Spare Rib - Feminist Magazine 

Initial Reading:

Inside Women's Magazines by Janice Winship
Girl Zines by Alison Piepmeier
Feminist Media Studies by Van Zoonen
Gender and the Media by Rosalind Gill
Interrogating Postfeminsim: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture by Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra