Andi Zeisler, co-founder of Bitch Magazine currently lives in Portland with her family.
Photo courtesy of Molly Klein / Special to The Leader
ALEXIS FORES
Special to The Leader
When one thinks of the word bitch, it can be interpreted as a negative term. However, Andi Ziesler, co-founder of feminist publication “Bitch Magazine” and keynote speaker, decided to reclaim the term.
“You know, it’s so specifically gendered that we felt like if we could reclaim that, that would be powerful,” said Ziesler. “And we were really inspired by the way that queer had been reclaimed by the LGBTQ community. That seems like a success story, taking something that was hurled at people who were different and embracing it and sort of defanging it, and that’s what we wanted to do.”
This was one of the pieces of advice that Ziesler presented to the SUNY Fredonia campus on March 6 when she visited for the Women’s Student Union’s series of events recognizing Women’s History Month.
“For the keynote talk, I’m hoping that I can let people know that critical thinking is really key to their experience in media. The talk is about not disregarding the power of media and not disregarding the way that popular culture kind of shapes us as people,” said Zeisler. “So I guess my hope is that people come from it feeling like they have tools to really understand and think critically about the media that they consume.”
“Bitch Magazine” is a feminist magazine shaped around media activism and feminism in pop culture.
“The magazine subtitle is a feminist response to pop culture, and that pretty much sums it up,” said Zeisler. “We started it basically to talk about the ways in which we saw feminist representation in media and pop culture lacking. So both the idea of what kinds of women and what kinds of attitude weren’t being portrayed in media and pop culture and also about how the idea of feminism in general is not portrayed fondly or positively in media and pop culture.”
The magazine was co-founded in 1996, produced, published and distributed by Andi and her co-workers for a few years until they were able to get the finances. These were also the years before the Internet; it was difficult to get word out about “Bitch.” However, Andi and her co-workers worked hard to receive publicity on the zine (early stages of a magazine).
“We took it to book and record stores and a lot of word of mouth came from the magazine buyers who would tell their distributors ‘you should take a look at this little magazine and should think about distributing it so they were like regional distributors who would then be involved with national distributors and there was this whole set of network of distribution,” said Zeisler.
Eighteen years later, “Bitch Magazine” now has various media sources in which includes podcast station, a website, campus program and the quarterly magazine itself. It even provided advice for those interested in beginning their own publication.
“Have an angle; have a very strong angle. Ours was responding from a feminist plea to media and popular culture. I think having that somewhat specific focus has kind of allowed us to have a very dependable voice and so I think finding your topic, finding something you’re really passionate about, and that you can imagine sort of living with as your main thing for a long time is really important.
“I think from a medium perspective a magazine may not be a right venue for everyone, because it is costly and it seems somewhat retro in these times, but if you want that that’s great. I think starting a magazine now in the age of blogs and twitter accounts is actually interesting way to stand out because you are this medium that people think is kind of somewhat obsolete.”
With various topics ranging from feminism in current TV shows to media activism, the keynote talk was well received by those who attended the event.
“I thought this was a really great opportunity to bring her to campus. I’m not in the Women’s Student Union; this is one of the first events that I’ve been to for them but I thought it was really well done,” said Kelly Foistbauei, a junior social work major. “I learned a lot and I thought it was really neat to have such a really powerful feminist speaker come to campus and be able to talk about something that not everyone feels comfortable talking about, like women in the media and pop culture and feminism, so I thought it was really cool.”
If you missed the keynote speaker, “Bitch Magazine” has various media in which you can receive your array of feminism. The Women’s Student Union will continue to host Women History Month events all of this week for an opportunity to still support the CMA group and women everywhere.
Upcoming events include a screening of “The Hunger Games” co-sponsored with the Fredonia Film Society on Monday, March 10 at 7:30 p.m. in Fenton 153; a screening of “Wonder Woman! The Untold Stories of American Superheroines” on Wednesday, March 12 at 6:30 p.m. in McEwen 209 and the closing ceremony for Women’s History Month will be on Wednesday, March 26 at 6 p.m. in the Horizon Room in the Williams Center.