I find zines to be fascinating. The dedication and journalistic endeavours made by young females in making these zines is truly amazing. I am not sure how it is across the country, but going to high school in El Paso, only the really 'rebellious' girls made and read zines. These girls were into punk rock and rockabilly culture, didn't 'fit' into regular high school standards and thus produced tons on zines.
However, for the girls that felt so oppressed by high school society, it was strange that the zines were only for their group--they never reached out to the preppy, theater, band, athletic or apatheic kids--the zines were just for the rockabilly group, which numbered about 5 girls.
While I find a lot of great attributes in zine producers, such as time managment, creativity, and devotion, I feel that sometimes zines are for subgroups that seek to eliminate and alienate girls even more from eachother. While the article for today discusses how zines captured stories about puberty, sexual harrassment and mutiliation, it is my understanding (I was never able to see these zines up close at my old high school) that the zines being made were about music and underground art shows.
I'm not aware of other examples of zine-like quality going on today. It seems that our society wants things handed to them ASAP, so I am curious to if zines are rising or falling in production due to the pace of technology?
Zines have gone digital with some great consequenes. Many zines now can be downloaded to devices for a nominal fee. For a better idea of the Zine world check out www.lulu.com and in the search engine enter Zines. It will give a list of them from inspirational to fanatical.
ReplyDeleteI am not familiar at all with the Zine culture, but yes, I can see how they can be cliquish. I agree that if girls feel oppressed, I don't see them entering a clique type culture for help.
ReplyDeleteIn high school I noticed the same thing. The only zines I personally came across were relevant to both male and female alternative rock and punk rock cultures. I unfortunately didn't come across any zines like Schilt discussed in her article. I think that many girls found other outlets for resistance other than zines, whether they were covert types of resistance or "c/overt types of resistance" that helped girls express emotions and feminist topics that they were otherwise afraid to voice overtly. As a teen girl I wrote poetry and songs that portrayed deeply emotional feelings that dealt with issues of growing up and my sexuality.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information about lulu.com. Can old women start zines too? ( :
ReplyDeleteFirst, yes Colleen - we can all start zines!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd I wonder if zines now are actually going low-tech. I was struck at the camp by the girls' love of a craft project they could hold in their hands. Is that were girl zines are headed - back to DIY and staples and markers?