Riding the Third Wave: Women-Produced Zines and Feminisms

This paper aims to provide insight into the role women play as cultural producers by examining women-produced zines. Zines (independently-produced magazines) provide an opportunity to explore cultural production by women which is unconstrained by corporate or institutional interests. The form and content of a selection of women-produced are analyzed with reference to third wave feminism. A movement within feminism generally associated with young women, third wave feminism provides a framework in which to examine cultural production by women to determine the possibilities and limitations may provide for feminist action.IntroductionResearch pertaining to North American women's popular culture has typically focussed on the role women play as consumers of cultural products. There is inadequate research concerning women as producers of popular culture and more work needs to be done in this area to better understand the role women play as producers of cultural products. Women's magazines have long been considered important in women's lives and have grown into a large cultural industry around the world. However, like studies of other forms of popular culture, those pertaining to women's magazines have traditionally neglected to consider the role of women as producers.Zines, however, are independently produced magazines that provide an opportunity to explore women's cultural production in a format unconstrained by commercial or organizational restrictions. Zines are an example of how women can create cultural products and they provide insight into the possibilities and limitations for feminist activism in the current North American cultural environment.There has been very little scholarly work that has focussed on the cultural phenomenon of zines. Stephen Duncombe has produced the most comprehensive scholarly look at in his book, Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture. He covers various issues related to the production of zines, its history, and the culture that has grown up around it. And while he briefly touches on women as zine producers, he offers a very limited analysis, focussing solely on coming out of the Riot Grrrl movement. He does address the possible implications of for feminism and opens a gateway to this study by acknowledging the importance of cultural production by women: By producing and networking with each other, Riot Grrrls become producers instead of merely consumers, creating their own spaces rather than living within the confines of those made for them (Duncombe, 1997, p. 70).Very few studies have emerged that examine the relationship of women to zine production. Electronic (or ezines) have more often been the focus for feminist scholars.(1) For the most part, the study of print by women has been neglected by feminist scholars, leaving an important part of women's culture unexamined.Zines and Zine HistoryDefining has been a difficult and highly problematic task. Both scholars and zine creators have struggled in their attempts to define what a zine is, often failing to arrive at a consensus on the issue. Problems arise concerning what characteristics define a zine and differentiate it from a magazine. Typical definitions of focus on their tendency to be noncommercial and amateur, and to have a small range of influence. Other definitions, however, focus on the reasons behind creating a zine, arguing that are created out of a pure desire or need to communicate, as opposed to magazines which may be created in order to make a profit.According to Duncombe, zines are noncommercial, nonprofessional, small-circulation magazines which their creators produce, publish, and distribute by themselves (Duncombe, 1997, p. 6). This definition contains abstract terms that make defining difficult; however, it is a useful definition, not only because it reminds us that there are many contentious issues around defining zines, but also because it points to many of the most common characteristics of zines. …

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