UE S S I .2 O N
Gender equity discussions & art
GenZine
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY The GenZine Collective would like to acknowledge that this zine was created on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung Peoples. We would like to pay our respects to the elders of the Kulin nation - past, present and emerging. We want to acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded, that this land was stolen and no acknowledgement will give it back or right past wrongs. We would also like to recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, especially women or gender diverse people in Australia, continue to face social and economic disadvantage. We recognise the pain of genocide, assimilation practices, hate speech and structural disadvantage. We recognise the negative and misleading portrayals of Aboriginal Peoples, as well as the omission of their voices, that has been prevalent in mainstream media publications. We urge you to be aware of the ground you stand on, the air you breathe and the nuances of the world you engage with. You are standing on Aboriginal land.
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Parminder Kaur Earth Body
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Lily Nguyen Speak Up
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Hannah Veljanovska Home Sweet Home
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Mara Braun ‘The Power’ Book Review
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Maya Del Rio Reddan Deposing Power
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Hannah Veljanovska The Clit
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Jena Oakford Digital Portraits
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Karina Benbow Self-care Stickers
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Tanya Bocevski Nature
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Tara Mallia Legs
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Sylvia Tan My dance with life and death
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Moana Mourie To Sylvia, her baby and their dance together
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CONTENTS
About GenZine
GenZine
ABOUT GENZINE A huge hello to whoever’s stumbled across this issue of GenZine! Welcome! GenZine is a Melbourne-based zine exploring gender equity through art and conversation. We think that living self-reflective lives means examining the structures and ideas that we inherit, including ideas around gender and sexuality. GenZine delves into the struggles, joys and questions stirred up by living in a gendered world. We believe that young creatives taking an imaginative approach to these issues can open up new ways of being and connecting to each other in these divided times. This issue’s theme is POWER. Our contributors have done a stellar job capturing the versatility of this theme through poetry, paintings, a comic, a collage, photography and digital illustrations. The giving, taking and recognition of power are all considered with incredible nuance and sensitivity in the pieces submitted to this issue.
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Hannah (she/her), Emily (she/they) and Charlotte (she/her) are the three musketeers behind GenZine. After joining forces in the middle of 2021, we signed up for a social change program run by youth organisation YouthCAN, in partnership with Victoria University and supported by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The brief was to create a project that challenged polarisation and promoted inclusivity in our local communities. Over the rest of 2021, we busied ourselves with a number of workshops and meetings in order to bring this vision to life. The zine you’re holding in your hands (or looking at on a screen) is the culmination of months of zoom calls, countless google docs and a genuine love and devotion on the part of its editors. Something like GenZine doesn’t come about without many helping hands along the way. Huge thanks to YouthCAN and Vic Uni, whose program provided the invaluable training and funding necessary to bring GenZine Issue 2 into being. Our deepest gratitude to Jas, Chris and Alison for their abiding support - you folks are something else. Shoutout to the One Woman Project for the juicy collabs and general big-sis-organisation advice. A massive thank-you as well to Aleisha Earp (@aleisha.earp), the lovely (& astoundingly talented) graphic designer for this issue. And finally, a dedication. To our community of contributors Lily, Parminder, Maya, Tanya, Mara, Jena, Hannah, Tara, Sylvia, Moana, and Karina - we salute you. You’ve inspired us with your honesty, humour, imagination and vulnerability. Thank you for so bravely and skillfully stepping into the tangle of your own experiences so that we might all question why things are the way they are. This is for you. Yours in resistance, equity and love,
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Parminder Kaur (she/her) @1parminder1 Earth Body ‘Earth Body’ is a photographic collage series that explores the fluidity of the human body and the natural environment. This work re-centers a peripheral body that does not fit into a traditional gender narrative. For me, this series is about reclaiming power through the representation of an intersectional body (my own body).
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Lily Nguyen (she/her) @comicsbylily Speak Up The comic piece titled, ‘Speak Up’, is inspired by the reflections of the nuances of my Vietnamese-Australian identity navigating through my childhood. When I was young I always believed that we should talk only when spoken to or asked to. I believed this way of living until high school. My perspective shifted when I saw other Vietnamese-Australians on Youtube such as Natalie Tran or Mychonny. I felt that we had a voice and opinion in the world. By seeing representation online, this inspired me to be confident to take up space online and in real life to say what I want!
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Hannah Veljanovska (she/her) @hannahveljanovska Home Sweet Home Collage Representations of the home in mainstream Australian lifestyle magazines conform to a heterosexual, white, binary cisgendered narrative. This collage critiques the construction of these representations and power dynamics in the home.
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IF GIRLS RAN THE POWER BY NAOMI ALDERMAN Content warning: This book contains graphic scenes of violence and sexual violence.
This book explores the idea that the patriarchy and it’s subsequent power dynamics do not result from a hierarchy of ‘masculine’ attributes over ‘feminine’. Rather, that it is human nature to have such attributes in this hierarchy regardless of how they are culturally gendered.
The story begins in a patriarchal world, like ours. Suddenly, women and girls all over the world develop a power. They realise they have a biological ability to electrocute… should they choose. This catalyses a shift in power structures all over the world.
Now, many vehemently disagree with this book’s portrayal of human nature. Particularly it’s conclusion - that the assumption that attributes such as compassion are inherently female or aggression inherently male - is a social construct.
Margot states: “Nothing that either of these men says is really of any great significance, because she could kill them in three moves…It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t, that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted. The power to hurt is a kind of wealth.” (Chapter 10)
If we take a step back from this emotional interrogation of our identities, and instead, analyse the fictional universe, we can enjoy some enticing brain food. The book concludes in a world with the same problems as ours but with one (in) significant difference. Women are on top and men… are the fairer sex.
The book begins in a patriarchy and ends in a matriarchy. The story unfolds over the course of that transition.
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THE WORLD...
Photo by Mara Braun (she/her)
When they look back to prehistoric times, they rationalize that men cared for the family and home. Their physical strength made the work of hoisting babies and laundry easy. While women, with their power to electrocute, were clearly best suited to hunting and protecting the home from threat. In the modern day, they have issues such as: the gender pay gap, one sex considered too emotional to hold a position of power and rape culture; but here: men are the overwhelming victims. What this book allows us to inspect is not just the patriarchy; but more specifically, having power structures based on the idea that one gender has supremacy over the other.
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Through the weaving of these stories, we see many changes in societal organisation. Religion, oppression, safety, sex, politics and more are all investigated in this action-packed read.
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The book centres five narratives, allowing the book’s varying perspective to be quite intersectional, however it is mostly western-centric (unsurprising given the author’s English background). The Power follows the change in behaviour and perspective of: Margot and her political career, Tunde and his journalistic career, Roxy and her families criminal organisation, Ali and her ascension from forgotten orphan into religious messiah, and Jos and her military career. Of note is Tunde’s story. Not only does his journalism take us all over the world, but he is also the only recurring man whose perspective is explored within the book. At the beginning, Tunde is a cocky journalism student whose relationship to sex is that he is dominant. Being male, this assumption is reinforced by societies frequent portrayal of relationships. However, as women begin to develop the power, this assertion begins to warp and shift into something else. Tunde is no longer so domineering, he begins to have a heightened awareness of his body and safety. Through the weaving of these stories, we see many changes in societal organisation. Religion, oppression, safety, sex, politics and more are all investigated in this action-packed read. I see this book as a warning, the world should not be ruled by a single gender. Instead we should be working together to create a future where we can all thrive equitably. Written by Mara Braun (she/her)
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Maya Verena (she/her) Brunswick West
Photo by Mara Braun (she/her)
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DEPOSING POWER CW: Themes of sexual assault Power imprisons you from within It’s the thing that forces, coerces, convinces Decreeing what is Real, what is True and what is Common Sense What he has to say is more trustworthy, believable What she says is unreliable, dubious It demands no further explanation, no further justification, it is the way it is, because that’s How Things Are Power silences survivors for years Even when they know it’s ‘victim blaming’ Even if they’ve written essays on it But did I encourage it? Power deceives it lies through carefully spun tales But am I remembering that right? It fucks with who you think you are, gripping your guts etching itself in your cellular memory, without permission Power claims to be unimpeachable But power is always afraid That you’ll root it out and refuse its sovereignty That you’ll find your own That you’ll feel, finally What you know to be real and true and common sense. by Maya Del Rio Reddan (she/her)
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THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CLITORIS IN DISRUPTING THE PHALLIC PHANTASY The Clit for so long has been omitted from the public imagination and narrative. Yet approximately 50% of our population has one and derives pleasure from it. Conversely, visual representation of the phallus is omnipresent, with the phallus often represented as being synonymous with strength and power. Representation of the clit aims to bring the Clit back into the public discourse, so the Clit can embody its true power; not as a foil or contrast to the phallus, but powerful in its own right.
Hannah Veljanovska (she/her) @The_Lost_Lynx The Clit Spray Paint
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Jena Oakford (she/her) @OakyJoaky Shaking the Lockdown Blues Digital Illustration Gal Pals Digital Illustration Loud & Proud Digital Illustration These three portraits explore concepts around power and joy in being yourself through a colourful queer lens. ‘Shaking the Lockdown Blues’ is a self reflective work while ‘Loud & Proud’ and ‘Gal Pals’ are focusing on the power of being yourself in a public setting and the joy this can bring when connecting with others.
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Karina Benbow (she/her) @karinabenbow.art www.karinabenbow.com
Self-Care Stickers We deserve recognition for nurturing ourselves and facilitating growth. Self-care is powerful.
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Tanya Bocevski (she/her)
Nature Watercolour & fineliner
The female body is inherently powerful. My artwork is a representation of bearing our vulnerability, honesty and the importance of connection to self. To hear, to embrace, to accept, to draw balance from nature’s perfect imperfections.
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LEGS I thought I was powerless, once upon a time. I opened my eyes and saw their dominance. I opened my arms and they chained me to the wall. I opened my chest and gave them my heart in submission. I opened my mouth but my words were frail, and gutless. I opened my mind and they fed me lies of their strength and vigour. I laid myself bare at their feet and they told me I was powerless so that I would stay there. But I’ve discovered the one thing they never wanted me to. When I open my legs, nothing but power seeps out. by Tara Mallia (she/her)
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MY DANCE WITH LIFE AND DEATH I crossed between two realms once. I went to the other side in the climax of pleasure and bliss. There, she handed me the keys to safeguard. Then, she whispered to me the secret and told me to go back. I shall hand her the keys when she arrives. That night, I returned with the weight of life in me. But what was the secret? I heard it but I didn’t understand. It didn’t matter at the time. I imagined multiple universes with her. For the first time, I truly believed that I was not alone. Even so, this dance with life was heavy. So heavy I didn’t think I could carry it by myself. I tried to speak to her, ask her for guidance. But I could only hear the echoes of my own cries and the silence that followed. And my fears eventually got to me. But I didn’t give up because of fear. But because fear showed me I wouldn’t be ready for her when she arrived. So I dug a hole in my heart and buried her keys deep within. I didn’t know the dance with death was thunderstorms until then. And in my weeping, I heard the secret again. I understood it this time. My daughter whispered to me, “Dance with me, mama. The life of my death will hold your hands forever.”
Words by Sylvia Tan (she/her) @imrongamirite
Artwork by Moana Mourie (she/her) To Sylvia, her baby and their dance together Watercolour
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If you’re even slightly curious about what it might be like to contribute to a zine, please consider sending something in for GenZine’s next issue! We love hearing from people who are new to this whole gender/art/zine thing and would be happy to chat should you have any questions. Keep up with all things GenZine on the socials:
@gen_zine_
genzineteam@gmail.com
