Contacting collectives for Case Studies

Girl Gang Collectives and many more reached out on Instagram unfortunately did not reply, and at a networking event attended I did not get a chance to speak to them properly and they said they would give me some responses if I messaged but must be very busy.

Girls That Gig have invited me along to an event to network, as there are a lot of female collectives attending so that is very soon, which I can hopefully get some case studies to support my writing for!

Lippy mag at University Of Leeds, which I have blogged about in the past in the hopes of meeting messaged me asking me to come to their launch to meet them in which I can hopefully get some stories. Although it is a magazine, the style is quite zine aesthetic and they will have other links.

She Does Digital were recommended to me at a networking event for statistics. Although I visited these sites statistics are never fully accurate and different geographically and often not updated so these will not be used.

Therefore, there are two network events coming up soon which I will go to investigate and try and obtain quotes and information for the writing piece from collectives and female creatives.

Feedback session 13/11

What legacy has girl power marketing had on contemporary collectives/zine culture?

Girl power is capitaising girl power
Up to us wether to decide

Look at Gentlewoman-Fantastic Man

Look at the aesthetic of zines
Contact See Red Women's workshop as they still do talks

Look in to and follow Magculture

Girl Power Slogans references

The amount I have seen the increase in these slogans on the high street, as well as many female collectives, got me inspired to write this essay and find out more about what others think about the slogans and what impact they are actually having, why they are being bought, and the origins of modern girl power.

Critical Writing last main body quotes/notes

‘What do you want readers to take away from it?

For young women especially, we want them to feel confident that they can make a career and build a sustainable life out of their creativity. And to just encourage them to keep creating and to keep submitting their work — the world needs to see the female perspective.’ https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/neenq8/girlgaze-photography-for-women-by-women

Zine inspo- ‘Typical Girls zine’
TIMES ARE TOUGH BUT WE ARE TOUGHER
As Jamila told i-D last year, the zine was launched in 2015 with the aim of "creating positive representations of women in the media,"
https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/59gb88/the-new-typical-girls-zine-features-generations-of-radical-creative-women


In 1986, activist art collective the Guerrilla Girls published a report card ranking New York's top art galleries based on how many solo shows by a female artist each had mounted that year. The results were pretty dismal (actually, they're still pretty dismal). Let's try the same for fashion.
https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/pabxwk/why-we-need-more-women-in-top-design-positions

Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers - By the Guerilla Girls 2003

WOMEN IN MUSIC INDUSTRY CURRENTLY
Howl emerged in 2014, the same time that male peers such as Tom Odell, James Bay, George Ezra, MNEK and Sam Smith were breaking through. “I was like: ‘Why are you able to be yourself and that’s fine?’” she says. “I felt like I constantly had to work on my image and be media-trained. Be a better performer. All the time, no chance to grow. Often, girls are expected to be the full package a lot sooner than guys . I see boys go on in jeans and a T-shirt and look a bit scruffy and they’re a bit awkward and people love it, but when you’re a female act you’re expected to be very polished very quickly. It can be daunting.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jul/21/pops-glass-ceiling-why-new-female-stars-cant-break-through

MEDIA,GENDER AND IDENTITY- DAVID GAUNTLETT 2008 OXON SECOND EDITION

217- ‘Young women want to prove they can do without feminism as a political movement, while enjoying the rewards of it’s success in culture and everyday life.’


Discuss marketing on Missguided/PLT ‘Girl Gang’ trend and relate to this quote

‘These people have reduced the message to a stereotype of women just needing to look pretty and love clothes. To us, the girl-gang image is supposed to go against the cutesy, delicate female stereotype and is a symbol of anger, violence and power. To put that stereotype back on the girl-gang image just goes against everything it’s about. It loses its meaning. It’s also quite insulting to the women who have worked their arses off creating in these male-dominated fields like art’(skinny girl diet)  is all still, in their opinion, about looking good, not actually active in making a change or working towards breaking the gap in gender equality.

‘Whether these groups create a safe place for girls to party, or an inspiring environment to work in… they all serve a purpose with genuine authenticity.’ “I would say generally that female culture — if such a thing exists — does maybe facilitate these conversations a bit more,” Ione explains. “Especially if there’s a space that’s comfortable for other women, knowing that they’ll contribute to it and be treated right, then it may feel the same as having a chat with someone you knowcurrent girl collectives, more inclusive scene. Although they agree progress is evident in that they are given a platform to express these feelings, women are constantly being presented with new challenges such as pressures of social media and continuing to fight the pressures women face globally still to this day.
http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/30269/1/how-do-we-move-beyond-clickbait-feminism
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/ione-gamble-polyester-zine-publicatio-world-mental-health-day-101007

‘It’s a great time for feminism and for change, and it’s very exciting to be female and a part of the zine scene – it’s a real community which extends beyond London thanks to the internet. Whilst it’s positive that this movement has been recognised by the mainstream media, sometimes it worries me that feminism is seen as a trend. We’ve still got a long way to go in terms of the pay gap, the tampon tax and dated attitudes, but constantly talking about and promoting these issues will equate to change’ 2016   
Zine scene has risen rapidly within the last few years
http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/29843/1/the-girl-power-zines-to-read-this-month

Clickbait feminism??
‘And while I’m happy to talk about feminism and I’m happy that I’m a girl, I do sometimes feel like, ‘Why does everything I do have to be viewed through a lens of ‘feminist or not’?’ Like, can’t I ever do or create anything just as a person?’
http://www.dazeddigital.com/projects/article/22611/1/42-tavi-gevinson

There is a contradiction of not wanting to be labelled a ‘girl gang/girl band’ but still being necessary in attracting inspiring and empowering women ‘...Haley Shea, frontwoman of Norwegian punk band SLOTFACE. “I wish that we didn’t have to be called female-fronted, and that we could just be a band. That it isn’t anything special that we’re a band with a female. But on the other hand, it’s important for other girls to see themselves represented. I’d rather female-fronted bands make a point out of it, if that would help other girls to start rock bands.”

‘But in today’s music industry where misogyny is still deeply rooted and the gender divide is still prominent, the term “girl band” is needed more than ever.’

Sister: A Magazine For Girls A/W 2017
Hattie Stewart: ‘...I’ve been ignored, put down. Told I’m not good enough, been the token female on projects (directly said to me on numerous occasions).’ TOKEN FEMALE- DISCUSS
‘’Just ask any female illustrator and they’ll give you hundreds of stories of what they’ve had to face daily. I see more variation and quality in my female peers and male, yet I see more variation and quality in the projects given to my male peers.’

Polyester Issue Five 2016 Elidih Duffy
‘It becomes problematic when women or femme-identifying artists are branded as ‘feminist artists’ simply because their work comes from a place of feminism
CONCLUDE WHEN PRIMARY RESEARCH IS ATTAINED that the problem is still
there and perhaps more problematic than ever

‘No, a “girl band” is not a genre. A “girl band” is a revolution.’

http://www.polyesterzine.com/opinion/dont-call-us-a-girl-band

VISUAL ARTISTS PETRA COLLINS/MAISIE COUSINS
COLLECTIVES- GIRLGANG, I AM COLLECTIVE  GIRLS THAT GIG( IN LEEDS)
TOP GIRL STUDIO
DOCUMENTARIES-
‘THE F WORD AND ME’- CHARLI XCX BBC DOCUMENTARY
‘THE PUNK SINGER’- KATHLEEN HANNA RIOT GRRL STORY

Critical Writing second part main body quotes/notes

‘The third wave’s most visibly organized incarnation to date- the brief but fiery riot grrrl movement of the 1990’s - not only sketches out the contours of feminist youth culture today but gives us a sense of how the pin-up has become to the youngest  of contemporary feminists a kind of visual shorthand for their era.’ (STARTS 343 ABOUT RIOT GRRRLS)
‘..activities viewed as male-dominated, in which riot grrl felt women had always participated but where their contributions had been overlooked

KATHLEEN HANNA AND ‘RIOT GRRRL’

DISCUSS THE BANDS SUCH AS HOLE AND THEIR FOLLOWING

GIRL POWER- HILLARY CARLIP 1995
‘RG meant to be empowering, having a safe space, standing up for girls rights…’
Communication and inclusion is key.
‘Uninhibited, uncensored, and always unpredictable’


Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism Book by Alison Piepmeier 2009

Women were seen as accessories rather than co-creators, male counterparts in the frame of mind that ‘girls don’t do that.’
Zines are- Fragmented/incoherent/explorations/sources of creative energy
‘Many grrrl zines are concerned w/unrealistic beauty standards’ they challenge corporate ways of publishing whilst using the ‘safe space’ to discuss and challenge diverse topics such as race, class, history, ethnicity, body image and gender.

SEX APPEAL- STEVEN HELLER 2000 NEW YORK
‘136- ‘...humour is a main weapon in the girlzines’ armoury...by poking fun at the situation, women take charge of the contexts in which they are viewed, and as a result, are empowered.’- MARKETING DOING THE SAME THING AS GIRLZINES? COMPARE SIMILARITIES


Girls- Catherine Driscoll 2002
‘Within girl culture there are many positions on the dominant late modern demand for  girls to (want to) be fashionable, encompassing many different modes of discipline and identification.’
‘Punk or riot grrl fashion, for example, is recognizable as not mainstream by producing a particular identifiable style’ subcultures such as these are also a way of marketing clothes to girls’ compare to girl zines quote (‘Girl power movement became a tool of resistance, but also a marketing stratedgy’ -Piepmeier 2009) discuss the roots of girl power how this continued to rise to mainstream and lead on to pop bands such as spice girls, girl power become mainstream etc
‘...girl readers of girls’ magazines are looking at eachother as desirable’ state this is a strong component and reason for positive girl zines opposed to corporate magazines, riot grrls were tired and bored of eroticized images of women in magazines and within western society girls and women are starting to reject the mainstream media’s beauty standards too.’

Rise in eating disorders and such are a contrast of the girl power movement perhaps?

‘The Spice Girls (suggest) that contestation over the meanings of girl culture and “girl power” surrounding and pervading popular culture, girls, and feminism’ marketed for girls. ‘..are figured as doing something in a place of all the girls who can’t- like kick over tables in a men’s social club in the “Wannabe” video clip’ Dridcoll questions if feminism can really be a mass produced and globally distributed ‘product’ DISCUSS
GIRL POWER SLOGAN- ‘Despite these stratedgies and slogans, the Spice Girls were widely discussed...as having no kind of authenticity at all.’
‘Hostile and destructive of a real girl culture, perhaps offering some expression of their desires, but encouraging passive conformity in the long term.’
Refer to marketing strategy quotes
‘While riot grrl zines and sites decry such pop phenomena as the Spice Girls, some of the Spice Girls fan material describes the riot grrls as dull and dour, whining, self pitying, and sexless- interestingly some of the same accusations riot grrls have leveled at second wave feminism.’



GIRLS THE FRONT- SARA MARCUS 2010 NEW YORK
327. (Late 90s post riot grrl) ‘Statements of female anger weren’t looking quite as revolutionary anymore either, now that major pop record labels were feeding it to the masses in the “angry women in pop” personas…’
‘Even “girl power”, a phrase that had probably debuted on the cover of the second Bikini Kill zine, transmogrified into a cheerleader’s refrain when the Spice Girls’ first record came out...these girls were so empowered, apparently, they didn’t even need to have real names or play instruments.’
‘Some wondered, was this the twenty-first-century rebirth of feminism the riot grrrls had wrought?’
‘Top-forty artists aren’t cultural movements; they’re ultra-homogenized and uber-marketed holographic projections...mass culture always contains cleaned-up, camera-ready variations on the underground, incorporating just enough of what’s “edgy” to maintain it’s own relevance.’

328- ‘...twenty-first-century feminism is alive in everyone who made it through the horror show of adolescence with the help of Riot Grrrl’s ideas about empowerment and DIY.’

MEDIA,GENDER AND IDENTITY- DAVID GAUNTLETT FIRST EDITION

GAUNTLETT ARGUES ‘The ‘girl power’ concept was a celebration of self-belief, independence and female friendship, and whilst cynics muttered that it was an empty ideology – sneering that its goals were only the right to shout “girl power” a lot – it nevertheless did seem to be empowering for young girls.’


Discuss difference of coverage comparing bands, spice girls were still mass produced for ‘teenyboppers’, riot grrls underground and for more mature. Feminism is now coming out of the underground.
‘Girl culture consists in circulating the things girls can do, be, have, and make, and in that process defining what processes are particular to girls’

SEX APPEAL- STEVEN HELLER 2000 NEW YORK

143- ‘Girl Power sexuality has become another advertising cliche, and the surburban housewife stereotype of the fifties has been suspended by the empowered party girl and the proud hooker’

DISCUSS, ARGUE AND GO FORWARD TO MODERN DAY ZINES, BOOKS MORE RECENT

Critical Writing first main body quotes/notes

Wet: Mira Schor 1997
‘These self styled guerillas chose as their subject and target, sexism and racism in the art world’

‘No spontaneously formed underground group could imagine that something done out of righteous anger and as a lark could last 5 years and counting.’ STILL TO THIS DAY. ARGUE AND NOTE THE EXISTING GUERILLA GIRLS AND HOW REVOLUTIONARIES STILL LIVE THROUGH COLLECTIVES/GROUPS/LATERAL LIKE ZINES INCREASING.

‘...in response to the Guerilla Girls’ protests, that they have suffered from a “chip that some women have on their shoulders. There is absolutely no discrimination against good women artists. There are just fewer women artists.”- ARGUE, DISCUSS EXISTING ISSUES SINCE 80S AND OWN RESEARCH
‘The art world would certainly need a conscience- especially a gendered one.’

‘The Guerilla Girls work for me and countless other women artists, by keeping the voice of feminism and social justice alive with a leavening sense of humour.’



Pretty In Punk: Lauraine Leblanc 2006

‘Like me she felt troubled about the male-dominated gender dynamics in the punk subculture, a subculture that portrays itself as being egalitarian, and even feminist, but is actually far from being either.’ punk was for a lot of women, an instrument of self empowerment and self liberation to express themselves in an alternative way to how women were expected to look and behave.



Pin Up Grrls- Maria Buszek 2006

MADONNA- page 326 ‘First,Madonna embraced queer culture (reference back to drag queens of 80’s) which produced her most adoring audience...She also paid a homage to to black and Latin American culture in her appropriation of disco and dance sounds, hip hop street gear and dance moves (such as voguing).’

Style aesthetic ‘hallmarks of a postmodern commodity culture where modernist notions of authenticity surrender to postmodern fabrication leading feminists to entertain multiple styles, surfaces, sexualities, and identities that may move us from the margin to the center in coalition acts of resistance and disruption’

Manifesta- Baumgardner and Richards
“Today, the feminist movement has such a firm grip and organic toehold in women’s lives that walking down the street (talking back to harassers), sitting in our offices (refusing to make coffee), nursing the baby (defying people who quail at the sight), or watching tv shows(Xena!Buffy!) can all contain feminism in action” 342

‘...Feminists who came of age in the third wave have an outrageous array of and access to media that their mothers could have hardly imagined-photocopy machines, personal computers, and the internet. ‘

MOVE ON TO RIOT GRRL MOVEMENT. RIOT GRRL MOVEMENT WAS INFLUENCED BY PUNK

Critical Writing introductory quotes and questions

How has ‘girl power’ impacted contemporary culture in the creative industries?
What legacy has ‘girl power’ left on contemporary culture within the creative industries?
What affect has ‘girl power’ had on contemporary popular culture?

CREATE RIOT GRRL STYLE CAMPAIGN FOR FEMALE DESIGNERS AS DESIGN FIELD IS OVERPOWERED BY MEN
ALSO LOOK AT SEE RED PROTEST POSTER STYLES

BEGIN WITH ‘MEN & MEDIA ARE OUR ENEMIES’ IMAGE FROM ‘SEE RED’ BOOK


Pin-Up Grrrls- Maria Elena Buszek 2006
In reference to the 60’s/70’s, ‘...the pressure building on the lid that had been placed on women’s progress in the postwar era exploded as women in unprescendented numbers began questioning their limited roles in society’
-began with pin ups from bettie page
‘...women working within artists’ communities became increasingly interested in establishing a feminine voice in their artwork- a voice that would eventually evolve to become a feminist voice’ (within second wave feminism and beyond)
‘...many feminine artists would look for inspiration to pop-cultural conventions of representing women’s sexuality’
(Can look back at Mulvey’s male gaze essay)

See Red Women's Workshop: Feminist Posters 1974-1990- 2017 Sheila Rowbotham
‘See red decided that the new paid positions should only be for black or working class women or lesbians, on the premise that it was harder for them to get paid employment and the kind of training opportunity  the workshop offered.’ 1984
‘By the mid  1980’s, screen printing itself was increasingly seen as being  an expensive way to produce publicity. Photocopying had become much more widely accessible and creatively used and desktop publishing was in its ascendance.’


PARIS IS BURNING, DRAG QUEENS IN THE 80S- HOW THEY USED TRADITIONAL FEMALE ROLES

BRIEFLY DISCUSS GUERILLA GIRLS