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Sites, 'Zines, Books, and Guides for [fierce] Women in General
Reviewed by Lisa Okey
The BUST Guide to the New Girl Order, edited by Marcelle Karp & Debbie
Stoller, Penguin Books, $15.95
I subscribe to BUST magazine so naturally my predilection was to love this
new girl guide thang. The word guide is a little misleading since its not really a how-to book. But it is a guide in the sense of the word map. Lots of different places to go and different ways to see our society. This collection of essays is a must-read, mixing in-your-face feminist literature with the bass beat of personal prose found in 'zines. The articles in this book will give you hope that there is a strong girl culture throwing it's head back and laughing at the stereotypes created by women and men in our society. The subjects range from girl kleptomaniacs to Hitachi magic wands to the herstory of feminism to Don'ts for boys (don't kiss and tell, don't lie, don't call if you haven't gotten over your last girlfriend, don't monopolize the conversation with anecdotes about yourself) to an interview with a porn star. In one of my favorite essays, Be A Model, or Just Act Like One, Lu Cashmere writes about filling in as a Donna Karan runway model: "Ever since that day I've found myself less able to handle the mob mentality of beauty. I used to think that whatever her strengths were, a woman should use her abilities to the greatest advantage as long as no harm came to others. Now I feel that if Anna Nicole Smith's low-IQ cleavage ruins it for the rest of us who are trying to elevate a chap's perception of an attractive woman as a thinking human being, then I will place my vote with Susan Faludi." I too, have always believed that the fallout from non-stop images of über models is that men will tell women to smile as you pass them on the street and look at all women, expecting mannequins with pouting red lips and a skinny yet voluptuous body without a brain parading around for their pleasure.
Seconds in a first-rate cast of writing would have to be My Keanu: A Fantasy
(any woman writing with a heavy crush on Keanu Reeves is in trouble from the beginning) and a badly written bad girl rant called Bad Like Me, by big bad
glam girl Courtney Love. Who knows what she is trying to say? I thought it was a waste of space. There are several good interviews which can be a little dry to most readers, but when the subject matter is Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth or Iggy Pop or Nina Hartley, the porn star, you will sit up and pay attention.
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