ISM by Rebecca Kelly

“The equality of the sexes.”

ISM is collaborative zine focusing on gender equality. Throughout it will look into feminism, male oppression, generation z and the possibility of living in a genderless society. Gender stereotypes are a socially constructive concept, this zine will show how you don’t have to fit into any social ‘norms’ or categories, just be.

FEMIN

ISTS

NEED

TO S T OP ING ISOLAT

FEMAL ES 4

Your students’ union may have tried to convince you otherwise, but burning your bra and refusing to shave your armpits doesn’t make you a feminist. Nor does telling other women how to think, feel, act and live. And wearing a t-shirt with a tampon on just makes you an idiot. I’m a woman, and I believe in equality. I also believe there is nothing wrong with a man holding the door open for me or paying me a compliment. These are things our radical feminist friends frequently condemn as patronizing and overpowering. I call it practical and polite. I consider myself part of a growing group of women who are frustrated by radical feminists damaging the very cause they claim to support and making a mockery out of a movement was created to promote the equality of men and women. For those that say there is no need for feminism today - I beg to differ. But I understand that the way the movement is being conveyed lends itself to that conclusion. The way I see it, while we have a pay gap, FGM, domestic abuse, female infanticide and child marriage, there is a very real need for feminism. This isn’t about not sweating the small stuff (I hate blatant sexism as much as the next woman), this is about refocusing our efforts. Sadly, the above causes rarely get the air time or print paragraphs they really deserve. Instead, we are exhausted by stories about a woman overreacting to a man paying her an ill-thought comment on a social networking website, and a display of vulvas because apparently being pressured to pluck your pubes is a thing (but telling your man you prefer him clean-shaven is just fine.. right). Unfortunately, at the moment radical feminists are shouting louder than actual feminists, those of us who strive for equality rather than a movement that is set on manhating and denying “non-believers” the freedom of speech. Campaigns such as HeforShe are helping, but they aren’t enough. We need He and She. We need men and women to come together in solidarity for a movement that places people at the heart of it, not a specific gender.

FIRST

E V A W FEMIN

-ISM 7

The first wave of feminism took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, emerging out of an environment of urban industrialism and liberal, socialist politics. The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on suffrage. The wave formally began at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 when three hundred

men and women rallied to the cause of equality for women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (d.1902) drafted the Seneca Falls Declaration outlining the new movement’s ideology and political strategies. In its early stages, feminism was interrelated with the temperance and abolitionist movements and gave voice to nowfamous activists like

the African-American Sojourner Truth (d. 1883), who demanded: “Ain’t I a woman?” Victorian America saw women acting in very “un-ladylike” ways (public speaking, demonstrating, stints in jail), which challenged the “cult of domesticity.” Discussions about the vote and women’s participation in politics led to an examination of the differences

between men and women as they were then viewed. Some claimed that women were morally superior to men, and so their presence in the civic sphere would improve public behavior and the political process.

The bedrock of the anti-suffrage movement was an appeal to women’s femininity and the ‘natural order’. Suffragettes supposedly fell foul of the ‘norm’ and engaged in ‘unladylike’

and public activities. They were presented as women who had failed to reach the ultimate female goal in life of marriage and motherhood. They were depicted as bitter spinsters and caricatured as masculine, plain and ‘unnatural’.

Their presence also apparently ‘feminized’ men, too. The suffragette represented a figure outside of the order of society; they supposedly lacked ‘womanliness’; were seen to be sexually repressed; and were even against ‘God’s order’. The campaign and particularly militancy is almost always presented as a protest by women

committed to the suffrage cause. Keir Hardie MP regularly raised questions in the House of Commons, and George Lansbury MP resigned his seat over the issue. Lansbury was also arrested at a suffrage rally in 1913 after speaking in support of the campaign of arson attacks. The forcefeeding of hunger-striking suffragettes was invasive, demeaning, and dangerous, and in some instances it damaged the long-term health of the victims. It should also be remembered that women were given

only. However, this is

untrue, as many men were

disproportionately long sentences for minor offences such as protesting, resisting arrest, or smashing a window.

Second E V A W

FEMIN

-ISM 13

The second wave began in the 1960s and continued into the 90s. This wave unfolded in the context of the anti-war and civil rights movements and the growing selfconsciousness of a variety of minority groups around the world. The New Left was on the rise, and the voice of the second wave was increasingly radical. In this phase, sexuality and reproductive rights were dominant issues, and much of the movement’s energy was focused on passing the Equal Rights Amendment to the

Constitution guaranteeing social equality regardless of sex. This phase began with protests against the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City in 1968 and 1969. Feminists parodied what they held to be a degrading “cattle parade” that reduced women to objects of beauty dominated by a patriarchy that sought to keep them in the home or in dull, lowpaying jobs. The radical New York group called

the Redstockings staged a counter pageant in which they crowned a sheep as Miss America and threw “oppressive” feminine artifacts such as bras, girdles, highheels, makeup and false eyelashes into the trashcan. Because the second wave

of feminism found voice amid so many other social movements, it was easily marginalized and viewed as less pressing than, for example, Black Power or efforts to end the war in Vietnam. Feminists reacted by forming womenonly organizations

(such as NOW) and “consciousness raising” groups. In publications like “The BITCH Manifesto” and “Sisterhood is Powerful,” feminists advocated for their place in the sun. The second wave was increasingly theoretical, based on a fusion of neoMarxism and psychoanalytical theory, and began to associate

the subjugation of women with broader critiques of patriarchy, capitalism, normative heterosexuality, and the woman’s role as wife and mother. Sex and gender were differentiated— the former being biological, and the later a social construct that varies culture-toculture and over time. Whereas the first wave of feminism was

generally propelled by middle class, Western, cisgender, white women, the second phase drew in women of color and developing nations, seeking sisterhood and solidarity, claiming “Women’s struggle is class struggle.” Feminists spoke of women as a social class and coined phrases such as “the personal is political”

and “identity politics” in an effort to demonstrate that race, class, and gender oppression are all related. They initiated a concentrated effort to rid society top-to-bottom of sexism, from children’s cartoons to the highest levels of government. One of the strains of this complex and diverse “wave” was the development of womenonly spaces and the notion that women working together create a special dynamic that is not possible in mixed-groups,

which would ultimately work for the betterment of the entire planet. Women, due whether to their long “subjugation” or to their biology, were thought by some to be more humane, collaborative, inclusive, peaceful, nurturing, democratic, and holistic in their approach to problem solving than men. The term eco-feminism was coined to capture the sense that because of their biological connection to earth and lunar cycles, women were natural advocates of environmentalism.

third

E V A W FEMIN

-ISM 19

The third wave of feminism began in the mid-90’s and was informed by postcolonial and post-modern thinking. In this phase many constructs were destabilized, including the notions of “universal womanhood,” body, gender, sexuality and heteronormativity. An aspect of third wave feminism that mystified the mothers of the earlier feminist movement was the readoption by young feminists of the very lip-stick, high-heels, and cleavage proudly exposed by low cut necklines that the first two phases of the movement identified with male oppression. Pinkfloor expressed this new position when she said that it’s possible to have a push-up bra and a brain at the same time.

eschewing victimization and defining feminine beauty for themselves as subjects, not as objects of a sexist patriarchy. They developed a rhetoric of mimicry, which appropriated derogatory terms like “slut” and “bitch” in order to subvert sexist culture and deprive it of verbal weapons. The web is an important tool of “girlie feminism.” E-zines have provided “cybergrrls” and “netgrrls” another kind of women-only space. At the same time — rife with the irony of third-wave feminism because cyberspace is disembodied — it permits all users the opportunity to cross gender boundaries, and so the very notion of gender has been unbalanced in a way that encourages experimentation and creative thought.

The “grrls” of the third wave stepped onto the stage as strong and empowered,

This is in keeping with the third wave’s celebration of ambiguity and refusal to

think in terms of “us-them.” Most third-wavers refuse to identify as “feminists” and reject the word that they find limiting and exclusionary. Grrl-feminism tends to be global, multi-cultural, and it shuns simple answers or artificial categories of identity, gender, and sexuality. Its transversal politics means that differences such as those of ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, etc. are celebrated and recognized as dynamic, situational, and provisional. Reality is conceived not so much in terms of fixed structures and power relations, but in terms of performance within contingencies. Third wave feminism breaks boundaries.

free

the nippl

Ali Marsh is the 17-year-old student who’s been a victim of patriarchal bullshit ever since she first put on a bra. Teased for having breasts, bullied for trying to hide them, and then slut-shamed when she tried to show them off, growing up hasn’t always easy for Ali. But after years of intense self-loathing, Ali found feminism and was inspired her to stand up for what she believed in, not take no for an answer, redefine what it means to be a woman, and, ultimately, regain control over her own body. Through her research she discovered actress, filmmaker, and Free the Nipple founder Lina Esco, who promptly

took Ali under her wing. Fresh from staging her very own topless protest - with the newly founded Free the Nipple L.A. - we catch up with the young activist to talk tits, trolls, and why it’s so important to free the female nip. Why is Free the Nipple such an important

cause? It’s to get people talking about equality. We have a long way to go, but everyone needs a place to start. I choose to free my nipples to show I am not ashamed. I am proud of who I am, and I truly believe my body is of the same value as the next. Who is to tell us

one nipple is legal but another isn’t? What is the story behind Free the Nipple L.A. and what inspired you to found it? I started leading a group in Los Angeles around six months ago and it took off from there. Growing up is hard enough as it is, but Los Angeles added even more pressure. I couldn’t walk down the street without seeing photos of the “ideal woman”. In elementary school, I was always in boys clothes, but I developed breasts very early on and it became uncomfortable for me to play sports in a baggy shirt. People made

fun of me because I had boobs! I started a new middle school a few years later and everyone started to brag about their bras. It was now considered cool to push your boobs up as high as you could and wear the brightest bra possible. I started to wear normal bras and shirts that were a little less baggy. People started calling me a slut. I felt very confused. It was wrong for me to have boobs so I hid them, but then it was wrong to hide them. How did you overcome it all? The first step to learning to love myself was learning about feminism. People are often afraid of the

word for silly reasons. A feminist is someone who believes in gender equality. When I found Free The Nipple, I wanted to join it right away. I feel that women’s sexualities are taken at a young age and then sold directly back to us. We are not allowed to show our bodies yet every poster, ad, and movie has naked women trying to sell us something. The problem is our bodies are being portrayed as objects. Boobs, specifically, have been something women have been shamed for. Our bodies are made for living, not selling. Breasts are meant to feed babies, not to sell perfume bottles.

Could we

Defining your gender outside of the binary of female or male is something which can often feel rather redundant in mainstream space, for multiple reasons. While so many seek to package us into acceptable female/male categories, our gender identities are constantly tugged

and twisted into arbitrary categories designed to make others feel comfortable. When society demands that you, your body, your emotions, your skills, your dress, must fit within a binary, defining as

live

non-binary gender continues to be a tool of community and political empowerment in an otherwise impossibly constrictive gender environment into which we are born.

genderles Behind our bedroom doors, or within the four walls of our city’s ever dwindling queer spaces, we can find places where one can express, explore, and forget their gender - and these spaces, for the most part, feel safe. But in order to maintain this personal safety within public space one often has to be covert, and offer a much more ‘digestible’ presentation of our gender non-conforming selves in order to be received by the world.

Everyone’s binary understanding of the world begins the moment we’re born. We are all deprived of the skills — in language, in education, in aesthetics — to comprehend the body, and ultimately the person, outside of a female/male gendered system ‘what long, girly eyelashes they have’, ‘Wow you have muscular arms’, ‘your voice is so high, like a little girl!’, ‘Mummy what’s wrong with that boy, he’s wearing a skirt?’

Our gendered discourse is questioned incredibly infrequently in our developing years. Both home and school often feel like a fight to stay un-bullied; who has time to work on their personal gender definitions when battling through a rather perfunctory, yet voluminous, education and the complex social hierarchy that is school? So here we have it: we are birthed into, trained with, conditioned by, employed in, legalised via,

described using, binary gender categories. Exploring one’s own binary non-conformism is continuous throughout life and often has to be a process of self education. As we continue to come up against yet more structures that aim to tether us to the categories of one or the other gender we are constantly remodelling our own gender identities, while our critics remain un-questioning of their binary position. Continued education

ever

in ss

of those we interact with on a daily a basis is potentially a means toward feeling more accepted, but why does the onus of educating others fall upon those who do not benefit from fitting within the socially advantageous gender binary in the first place? In our own space, once we have battled with the apparent ‘failure to fit into the socially acceptable binary’ and have worked hard to create a safe space (perhaps alone, perhaps in a

wonderfully supportive group of allies) we can temporarily escape our body longing. It is the outside world’s categorisation and gendering of us that results in damaging, belittling and potentially traumatic gendering. And of course we can express our gender, or our rejection of it full stop, in any way we feel in public space, but it is others who will continue to jeopardise

our safety for as long as we are seen through their binary gender lens. While the media continue to paw over the same aspects of the gender conversation, it is our language and our categories which everyone should be questioning, in the on-going pursuit of demolishing gender stereotypes. Taken from i-D and written by Tom Rasmussen

society?

There are some practices and policies that are unfair to men. But this fact should unite men with feminists, not drive them apart.

An NPR Morning Edition report this week suggests strongly that the answer is “yes.” As Jennifer Ludden reports, after divorce men can face burdensome alimony payments even in situations where their exwives are capable of working and earning a substantial income. Even in cases where temporary alimony makes sense—as when a spouse has quit a job to raise the children—it’s hard to understand the need for lifetime alimony payments, given women’s current levels of workforce participation. As one alimony-paying exhusband says, “The theory behind this was fine back in the ‘50s, when everybody was a housewife and stayed home.” But today, it looks like an antiquated perpetuation of retrograde gender roles—a perpetuation

which, disproportionately, harms men.This isn’t the only case in which men can suffer from gender discrimination. David Benatar, in his 2012 monograph The Second Sexism discusses a whole range of other ways in which men as men are disadvantaged. Men, for example, receive custody of children in only about 10 percent of divorce cases in the United States. Men also, as Benatar writes, are subject to “a long history of social and legal pressure...to fight in war” —pressures which women do not generally experience in the same way. Along the same lines, physical violence against men is often minimized or seen as normal. Benatar refers to the history of corporal punishment, which has much more often been inflicted on boys than girls. Society’s scandalous

tolerance of rape in prison seems like it is also related to a general indifference to, or even amusement at, sexual violence committed against men. Many of these examplesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; particularly the points about custody inequities and conscriptionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;are popular with menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rights activists. MRAs tend to deploy the arguments as evidence that men are oppressed by women and, especially, by feminists.

“We dont need to be vulgar, overlyobnoxious or rude to get our point across. But we should stand up 30

to women who are damaging the cause, because after all, freedom of speech and having an opinion is what it’s all about.”

challenging ideals of

beauty, body,

shape, and

gender

Meet the kids who want to be their own kind of beautiful. A far cr y from the days when beauty only meant one thing, when models had to be of a certain size, shape, and skin colour, and when gender norms defined what society deemed acceptable, in 2015 anything can be beautiful. Tired of unrealistic ideals about body shape and beauty, and bored of racial stereotyping and gender binaries, Generation Z are leading the way for a new kind of beautiful that shines from within and stems from individuality. Like diamonds in the rough, we meet the kids who are putting their fingers up to Photoshopped per fection in a bid to be their own kind of beautiful.

binaries with generation z.

STEFAN FERRA

RIO

“Beauty is about exploring and embracing yourself and everything that makes you unique, physically and mentally. Also it’s about finding that in everyone else. I find beauty in everyone and that is such a liberating and satisfying thing. The media generally feeds narrow ideas of beauty, but once you open your mind to the beauty in everyone and everything, it’s magical ”

RAIN DOVE

“Beauty is an opinion - it is not a law. Like every opinion, its statement is both true and untrue contingent upon the perspective of the person considering it. We have to accept that we may not be beautiful to all people- because we cannot control their opinions. However we can control our own. As long as you understand that you are beautiful, and state it- then as much as it might be untrue to others, it is also truth because you believe it. The minute something is “truth” it’s real. Believe your truth, and your truth will become REAL change.”

“I have no intention in being anyone’s ideals. It’s much too exhausting.”

A PALOM ELSESS

“What I’ve seen is raw beauty happens when an individual is aware of who they are, who they aspire to be and their potential to be just that. Someone with that sense of selfawareness can’t help but radiate beautifully.”

ARI FITZ

“ Though we have the courage to raise our daughters more like our sons, we’ve rarely had the courage to raise our sons like our daughters ” Gloria Steinem

Flora Maclean

Poem Baker

e n i g ima s â&#x20AC;&#x2122; e r the

no gen der,

it’s easy if you try.

Recently I was at a dinner with a theatre lecturer and when I asked him what classes he teaches, he replied: “performance art and gender performance.” “Gender performance?” I questioned. His response, “Of course! Gender is a performance.” Later that night we played out an exercise that he does with his students; an imaginary line was set from wall to wall. One end was considered ultra masculine and the other, ultra feminine and our group had to stand where we saw ourselves on the gender spectrum. It was very fun and very drunken but even after the hangover faded it still really resonated with me. I later discussed it with my boyfriend and explained where I stood. He was surprised, and suggested I had a male personality and should have stood further down the male side, “what do you mean!” I yelled as I jokingly wrestled him into a headlock; evidently he was right. I present characteristics that are perceived as both traditionally male and traditionally female and when I think about it, so do most people I know. Yet, society suggests that we are to slot into a gender role and play that part for life. Yes, we can change it up and play on the opposite side but is that it? Are these our only options? For all its flaws, Facebook is one of the most progressive companies in the world when it comes to gender, offering users 58 options. Society stands to gain a lot from this; we’d like some more tick boxes, please. In reality, gender brings up a world of problems for males, females and transgender individuals. Women face sexism every day. The pay gap still exists; women encounter verbal harassment when they walk down the street; women are perceived as the clichéd “weaker sex”. According to women said.ork.uk, the vast majority of the

victims of domestic violence are women and children, and women are also considerably more likely to experience repeated and severe forms of violence. So what about life in other box? According to the ONS 2015, the male suicide rate is more than three times higher than the female rate, which paints a bleak picture of the pressure our society places on men. The term “man up” is a perfect example of this - what does it mean to man up? Be the breadwinner? Bottle up your feelings? Be strong and never express yourself? A Miami republican has filed a bill that bans transgender people from using single sex spaces, which means there is a theoretical possibility that in future Florida, transgender people will not be allowed to use public toilets, a basic human right. The fact that this is even a topic of conversation in 2015 is baffling. The gender stereotypes that exist are out-dated expectations left over from generations past. So why are they so engrained in us? Why do we still feel the pressure to feel or behave a certain way, “as a man”, or “as a woman”? In a perfect world wouldn’t we abolish gender and all just be people? Just think, there would be no “same sex marriage”, there would only be marriage. We wouldn’t have to create campaigns like “He for She”, we would all just be. We could become whatever versions of ourselves we wanted to and slide along the proverbial “gender spectrum” as we pleased.

47 Do you believe that all humans, male and female, should have equal political, economic and social rights? Congratulations you are a feminist. Feminism is seen as the equality of both sexes. Woman have come a long way in the battle against oppression, but we still need feminism. Women still have to deal with body-shaming, sex-shaming and slut-shaming. Women still live in a world where a woman doing the exact same job as a man is worth less by societies standards. And women are still misrepresented in politics. The whole blame the victim culture is a big problem, society see’s rape as the victims fault, they teach girls to cover up, to be less of a tease, rather than teaching people not to rape. A girl could be wearing nothing and still not ‘asking for it.’ Men too need feminism. People argue that men’s problems are nothing compared to women’s, but you can not compare the issues and hold the value of one over the other, men and women should be treated

with equal respect. Men are yet to gain equality. In the past, it would have been socially unacceptable for women to ever wear trousers, but times have changed and women can dress however they like. But how many men do you see wearing a skirt or a dress without people assuming they are gay or transgender? Women are free to wear trousers and still be seen as feminine, but men in dresses are not seen to be masculine. Gender stereotypes have a big effect on people, but a man can be as feminine as he wants to be and still be seen as a man. Just how women can be as butch and as masculine as they like and still be seen as a woman.Society has a problem with feminity and weakness, no matter what sex it is coming from. This is why feminism is still a vital cause to this day. Gender stereotypes are the root of the problems, we need to see people as people, not a gender. We should abolish the gender stereotypes and let people be who they want to be.