[mouse]

exactly, hellotampon. i think the main reason that bust is popular is because many (most?) women view feminism as pleasureless, a point of view that excludes fun things one is used to and which makes one feel constantly guilty. we, of course, duh, know that's not the case, but here it's preaching to the choir--for many people out there, that's a huge revelation.

[hellotampon]

I don't see a reason to get all pissy either, just because the magazine isn't feminist ENOUGH to meet that blogger's standards. There's nothing wrong with getting a little pleasure out of your "fashion and fucking" and I don't see why they have to be mutually exclusive from feminism.I read Bust because it's fun and kinda mindless, like other women's magazines, only better. It isn't nearly my only source of feminist news and information.

[nickclick]

totally, Snafooey, Bust could be seen as a gateway to feminism. Many of us around here are seeing it thru the eyes of the conscious.

Here's my bit of activism when I go to Borders/BN/etc: shuffle a copy or two of Bust into the stack of Cosmos. a nice but otherwise sheepish girl may mistakenly grab it, read it, and realize sex/fashion/the earth is not only about what men want !!!

I read Bust because it's fun. It includes topics that interest me: cool women, crafts, and how to make my hair look pretty. These of course are not the only topics that interest me, so I look to other venues for news from a feminist POV or news about women. I'm just glad we're in a place in our history where there's more than one place for such. Let's not expect one publication to fulfill it all, or represent us all.

[snafooey]

I agree with most of Twisty's points, but I still think feminism can be fun - and it has to be as fun as it is serious if it's going to remain relevant. I'll quote the obvious line:

“If I can't dance - I don't want to be part of your revolution."
- Emma Goldman

But I think there's a difference between fun and unquestioned, rampant consumerism. I like to go concerts, buy independently made stuff (when I can afford it), and up until I curbed it a few years ago, I had a ridiculous books and CD habit (now I'm all about the library). . .but that's not what defines me as a feminist.

I haven't seen the new issue yet, but as I've noted in the past, when a lot of people criticize Bust, they always focus on the first thirty pages of the magazine and the fashion spreads. Admittedly those are what draw you into the magazine and they are usually the most problematic, but Bust also usually has at least three or more articles an issue that you either wouldn't see in a regular women's magazine or if you did, they'd be handled a lot differently. Similarly, their review section can be a little too cutesy (and not in depth) sometimes, but it's more extensive and with better titles than any other (mainstream) women's magazine.

A magazine like Bust will always be divisive. . .but I know that for a lot of people it's a gateway to "the harder stuff" rather than just more mindless bullshit. Without Bust, a lot of women wouldn't even be exposed to feminism as something positive that relates to them.

[msp]

More, this time from Salon's Broadsheet.

Feminists just want to have fun

This week, the sardonic, voluble blogger Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy laid into BUST magazine for being insufficiently feminist. Being both BUST and Twisty readers, we weren't sure how to feel. Did we have a provocative discussion on our hands, or a feminist pissing contest?

At first, it seemed more like the latter. Twisy contends that BUST is "written for what a wry blamer recently called 'fun feminists' -- that is, women who identify as sassysexy young urban consumers of femininity. You know. The Grand Acquisitors. Or Carrie Bradshaw." Still, some of Twisty's criticism seems warranted; she quotes BUST ed-in-chief Debbie Stoller describing feminism as if it's the broccoli that precedes dessert: "Of course," Stoller writes, "we devote space in our pages to typical 'feminist issues' such as abortion and equal pay, but we're also determined to create a truly embraceable women's culture, so that reading BUST can help you feel good about being a girl."

But the critique of BUST's credentials gives way to a bigger, more ascetic critique of material indulgence and sexuality. Twisty lists the BUST topics she finds silly, including Marcia Brady hair, vibrators and beauty products, and concludes that "more precisely, [BUST] can make you feel good about fashion, fucking, and shopping." Pursuits which Twisty suggests are at odds with feminism's purpose: "In printing 'all kinds of great girly stuff' BUST may be entertaining, but calling it 'feminism' is quite the howler. Feminism isn't 'fun.' It's not about shopping for cheap campy crap at the 'Boobtique' or getting off. It's about political action on behalf of a class of people who are culturally, socially, politically, intellectually, physically, and violently oppressed, impoverished, abused, enslaved, objectified, raped and murdered."

Quite the battle cry, and a succinct summation of the movement's raison d'etre. But BUST does cover issues of inequality; the point of contention seems to be that the magazine also covers other, fluffier topics. The question is whether fashion, fucking and shopping disqualify one from the feminist movement. Or, put another way: Is fun antifeminist?

Some would say yes, that going within a thousand yards of traditional femininity helps shore up the status quo, and that if you're having fun with feminism you're not doing it right. But I think there's a difference between engaging critically with our culture as it currently exists and buying into traditional gender mores. The BUST approach may not hit all the right notes -- the promise that it'll help me "feel good about being a girl" does make me recoil a little -- but its genuinely pro-woman approach still makes it a smarter read than many major mags. Even the fashion and beauty features, which run without emaciated models, thousand-dollar shoes and plastic-surgery advocacy, represent a small step in the right direction. And, like it or not, there are still women who are on the fence about feminism; BUST's light hand and inclusive stance may be a useful introduction to the great world of patriarchy blaming.

The bummer about debates like these is they often end up with feminists taking aim at each other rather than taking aim at oppression and double standards (this is particularly evident in the comments below Twisty's post). I'm all for openminded discussion of what a feminist is or whether pink is evil, but I wish we could reserve the heavy artillery for the political action itself.

[raisingirl]

Feh. It's a small point, but I do think the magazine focuses on (or used to focus on; I, too, haven't read the magazine in quite a while, but used to be a subscriber) the Hitachi vibrator too much, too. It's a fuckin' vibrator. It's another thing to acquire, you know? Glad to see SOMEONE else picked up on that as well (MsP, thanks for posting that -- I don't know about the blog it came from). I have to wonder if there was any exchange of money going on between BUST and Hitachi. Probably not, but it was mentioned so much over so many issues, it did give me pause for thought.

I miss the themed issues. They seemed more thought-out than the current mishmosh.

[msp]

Honestly, I haven't picked up an issue in years. It would just never occur to me. I read Bitch for articles on feminism and feminist analysis, and I'm too old for the hipper CosmoGirl feminism in Bust.

This one was the money line for me:

In printing “all kinds of great girly stuff” BUST may be entertaining, but calling it ‘feminism’ is quite the howler. Feminism isn’t ‘fun.’ It’s not about shopping for cheap campy crap at the ‘Boobtique’ or getting off. It’s about political action on behalf of a class of people who are culturally, socially, politically, inellectually, physically, and violently oppressed, impoverished, abused, enslaved, objectified, raped and murdered. I tell you whut.

[zora]

It seems to me that bust never touches any real issues anymore. I mean, "The Fashion Issue?" It made me feel bad that I was buying it. Bust has been making me feel decidedly un-cool these days and it wasn't that way when I first started reading it six years ago.

[msp]

Just wondering if anyone else read Twisty's post on Bust today...

BUSTed

The October issue of BUST rests on my table, next to an empty water buffalo yogurt container. I have to admit, buying it was a mistake. Because I am addled, I mistook the BUST for a Bitch. It didn’t occur to me to wonder “why is there an issue of Bitch magazine in the checkout lane at Whole Foods?” (Before chemo destroyed my brain, I was capable of differentiating between BUST and Bitch, and between the checkout lane at Whole Foods and the magazine rack at Book People. I tell you whut.)

Anyway. This episode reminds me: several years ago I purposely subscribed to BUST. I was intoxicated at the time. I mistook the magazine’s glossy indie-hip chick-centric schtick for feminism. I did this partly because BUST told me it was feminism, and partly because I wanted it to be feminism. At last! I said, a publication that doesn’t think ‘feminist’ means ‘humorless frigid ugly bitch who can’t get laid’.

My enthusiasm would wane after a couple of months, however. I had to bail when it became apparent that BUST couldn’t put out an issue that did not contain at least 57 heteronormative articles by ‘feminist’ porn stars on how empowered we all are now that we have our Hitachi Magic Wands (“What, you haven’t bought an Hitachi Magic Wand yet? Omigod, they’re so bodaciously empowerful! Nina Hartley says it, I believe it, and that settles it!”).

BUST, it turned out, was, and still is, written for what a wry blamer recently called ‘fun feminists’ — that is, women who identify as sassysexy young urban consumers of femininity. You know. The Grand Acquisitors. Or Carrie Bradshaw.

As BUST editor Debbie Stoller sez, in the highly imitable girlfriend-to-girlfriend style of women’s fashion magazines the world over, “Of course, we devote space in our pages to typical ‘feminist issues’ such as abortion and equal pay, but we’re also determined to create a truly embraceable women’s culture, so that reading BUST can help you feel good about being a girl.”

Or, more precisely, it can make you feel good about fashion, fucking, and shopping. In this month’s issue the sassy fun feminine feminists can

• find out where “to stock up on gorgeous cotton pajamas and lingerie.”
• read quotations from celebrities (get a load of Kiera Knightley: ‘I was like, “I don’t mind you making them bigger, but don’t give me fucking droopy breasts! They look like your grandmother’s tits!’”).
• take a nostalgic look back at AT&T’s ‘iconic’ Princess phone.
• peruse hundreds and hundreds of ads for jewelry (like a bracelet engraved with the word ‘money’), purses, shoes, pink (I kid you not) tools, sex toys, scented panties, cosmetics, and clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes.
• find out where to buy a ‘prosthetic neck wound’ for ‘thrills’ as a ‘realistic’ Halloween murder victim.
• learn how to “spruce up last years wedge [heels]” with blue swan appliqués.
• find out that ‘Marcia Brady hair’ is once again coveted, and how to get it for yourself (Marcia Brady hair requires half a page of instructions and seven ‘tools of the trade’, including several chemical products and two electric appliances).
• enjoy an 8-page fashion spread featuring cheap crap from China, complete with prices and stores, depicting how to dress like a Teddy Girl (“In 1950’s Britain, the tomboyish Teddy Girl style drove the rocker boys wild”).
• read reviews of beauty products with fake French names (“Spongellé buffed my skin like a mini Zamboni, and the roughness really appealed to my inner masochist.”).
• jerk off while reading softcore (“Grabbing my tit with his left hand and my crotch with his right, he’s panting heavily into my ear. ‘How’s that pussy doin’, baby?’” ). Booya.

In printing “all kinds of great girly stuff” BUST may be entertaining, but calling it ‘feminism’ is quite the howler. Feminism isn’t ‘fun.’ It’s not about shopping for cheap campy crap at the ‘Boobtique’ or getting off. It’s about political action on behalf of a class of people who are culturally, socially, politically, inellectually, physically, and violently oppressed, impoverished, abused, enslaved, objectified, raped and murdered. I tell you whut.*

In her interview with Amy Poehler, Jill Soloway,** an avowed fan of BUST, inadvertently reveals the grim truth about all this fun-fake-feminism when she admits, “Well, I’ve always been super-sex-positive and everything, but sometimes I feel like I want to be a Muslim woman in a burka; I feel like the only way I can get my power back is to peer at the world through a strip. Because I feel like women aren’t looking at all anymore - there’s no looking left. We’re only looked at.”

[grrrlyouwant]

will i be really shallow if i say that the one-handed read this month made up for the rather lackluster offerings the previous months and for that i heart gwen masters to the nth degree?

i really liked the women terrorists article, and if my grandma were still alive, i know she'd be so down for granny basketball. the indie wedding article was really good advice for anyone, not just crunchy granola hipster types; the way the wedding industry cons people into the idea that $3000 flower arrangements=happy marriage forevah just disgusts me. but that's another thread. up for today: the yeah yeah yeahs and prison moms.

[battygurl]

The newest one is the first issue where I've read almost all the articles in a long time. I really liked the women terrorists and mothers in prison articles, and even the indie wedding article was interesting to me, despite my not planning on marriage. Yay!

[whammy_bar]

I like the yeah yeah yeahs okay and Karen O is okay but she BETTER give credit for her NEW LOOK to PEGGY MOFFAT in PRINT sometime soon!!

Peggy Moffat was the original woman who worked with Rudi Gernreich, a real artist and writer and dancer who modeled his clothes and traveled with him and was his friend. She even made her own typeface! I have a book about her. Questionable to just knick someones look and not mention the influence.

[raisingirl]

I hate the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Hate hate hate.

[jane007]

the indie weddings!

[sugarhiccup81]

Things I hated about the new BUST: The big Camel ciggs add, and Poppy Z. Brites commentary about creating a believable female character.

Things I loved: Granny Basketball!, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs article, despite her bad hair I have such a girl crush on Karen O.

[jemisoutrageous]

Oh, it's horrible, horrible, horrible! NO BOWL CUT! NO! BAD! BAD!

[designermedusa]

I got the new isue last night at Borders. For some reason they had the Bettie Page issue in the culture section, and the YYY's issue in the Fashion magazine section. Good thing I looked in that area. I flippd through it, and it looks like there are some good stories.

Only thing is I don't like Karen O's haircut.

[alligator]

Is THAT why I keep finding Bust when I go to pick up the latest Cosmo?

[heylady]

guerilla feminist makeup artistry - slipping 2 issues of BUST in with the stack of magazines i gave to the 17/18-year-olds I have for prom apointments this weekend. "just go through these and see if any of the looks inspire you."

i can just see my little goslings sifting through the one-handed-reads experiencing their awakenings.

oh the keys we hold in this industry! a little shimmer on the inner corners and a little toughness in the whatever-ya-wants!

cross posting in the "make me gorgeous" thread.

[beheretoloveme]

i really liked the new BUST, they have atoned for the douche review.

i think Karen O seemed interesting. i'm a little over her music, but she seemed much more, uh, multi-facted than i expected.