2021 Girl Culture Zine!

2021 girl culture class zine! featuring work by: baylee betts ainsley carter menaja ganesh adriana groeneveld aashi jhaveri amanda lee claire mermelstein sarah nassar jiayun qiu alex ramos melissa rodriguez carolyn tan yuyao wang chengyu zhang girl culture spring 2021 dr. melinda luisa de jesús california college of the arts oakland/ san francisco mdejesus@cca.edu peminist.com

Baylee Betts Professor Melinda Luisa De Jesùs Girl Culture 05 May 2021 Body Projects and Disordered Eating For my zine project, I wanted to focus on a topic this semester that resonated with my girlhood experiences the most, and unfortunately, that was body image issues and disordered eating. Taking into account the readings from Joan Jacob Brumberg’s “Body Project” chapter and Courtney Martin’s “Perfect Girls. Starving Daughters”, I wanted to focus on the intense scrutiny a girl may have for her body and appearance which can often stem from influences such as idealized bodies on social media and the sexualization of woman from the male gaze. Both Brumberg and Martin’s articles, although slightly dated, feel very relevant to today and I wanted to take the issues presented in these readings and navigate how girls today are still being affected by body issues.

When creating the zine I wanted to take a youthful and girl-empowered approach. If a young girl were to see this on the shelf, I would want it to pop out to them and feel relevant/relatable. I think it is important to have these types of conversations about body issues and disordered eating with teenage girls, as both Brumberg and Martin note, many girls don’t even realize they are participating in unhealthy eating habits or unhealthy thoughts around their body image. Throughout high school, I struggled with these issues and was unaware that it was harmful for me to be partaking.

Working on this zine project made me wish there were more outlets for girls entering puberty and in their teenage years to talk about these deep issues. I think it would be great to

have zines dedicated to girl culture and aimed at teen girls, especially in the midst of the very idealized social media landscape we are currently living in.

Works Cited Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. “Body Projects” The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010.

Martin, Courtney. “Perfect Girls. Starving Daughters.” Girl Culture Course Reader 2021.

Ainsley Carter Girl Culture Professor Melinda de Jesús 5 May 2021 Girl Culture Zine Page For me, Girl Culture was not just a learning opportunity, but a space for sharing experiences that I’d never had anywhere else. I can recall several occasions throughout our class discussions this semester where students shared that this class was the first time they felt that they were able to talk about girl culture and girl-centric issues. The atmosphere of this class was that of tremendous support and trust despite the fact that the topics we dealt with week after week were extremely close and personal. Throughout the course, I saw that different topics would resonate strongly with different people. For me, the week about bullying was cathartic and left me wishing that I’d had a space like this class and such a wonderful group of supportive peers when I was younger and going through these issues. I feel that I could see this sentiment echoed by my classmates regarding virtually all of the topics we addressed in class. I became interested in the idea of how we might create a space for girls to connect, support each other, and discover materials that introduce them to girls studies – essentially a digital recreation of the Girl Culture classroom.

With a background in interaction design, I chose to approach this through an app concept called Chatter. My goal was to design a concept for an online social community that facilitates connections and conversations between girls about girl-centric issues. I think prior to taking this course, I would have underestimated the extent to which girls’ experiences of girlhood can vary depending on other factors in their life. I wanted to explore ways in which this platform could accommodate any topic a girl might wish to explore or share about. There are two features being displayed on the zine page. Their purposes are to introduce girls to the field of girls’ studies, enable users to ask questions, share experiences, create polls, or just get things off their chests. Other users can respond to offer advice, insights, or words of encouragement. All users remain anonymous to ensure that everyone feels safe and secure sharing personal or sensitive experiences.

Adriana Groeneveld Dr. Melinda Luisa de Jesús May 5, 2021 Girl Culture Zine Description This zine page is meant to be a snapshot into the world of female athletes with eating disorders and body image issues as well as a message to end the stigma that someone has to look a certain way to be good at a sport. As an athlete myself I know that I have struggled with disordered eating habits and it does not seem like this was talked about much in the world of sports until recently. There is this idea that one must be skinny to perform well, but that simply is not true. Disordered eating habits not only impact one’s physical health, but also one’s mental health. There is a slippery slope to diet culture and even if it starts innocently, a snowball effect can occur with an athlete caught in a disordered avalanche. On a professional level, athlete are watched and analyzed. They wear tight clothing showing off every part of their appearance.

Coaches will comment on their athlete’s weight and body shame them, which is a form of verbal abuse. I referenced various articles from Outside Online, ESPN, and People where athletes have been interviewed about their past relationships with themselves, their training, and food.

Additionally, I mentioned and used the documentary film “Light” which came out early 2021. I hope that this article not only sheds light on the secret world of athletic eating disorders, but also helps people feel more comfortable in their own skin. Skinny does not always equal strength.

anyBODY can be an athlete By: Adriana Groeneveld

It is no secret that women are judged on appearance more than their male counterparts, and women in sports are no exception. The win-at-all-costs attitude has led to eating disorders running rampant amongst athletes, but why? Could it be to perform better? Fulfill an idea of what an athlete should look like? Pressure from coaches?

Recently, a film was produced by Caroline Treadway called “Light” which revealed the hidden reality of eating disorders among professional rock climbers. Caroline has not been the first professional climber to speak of this topic. Beth Roden, known for her ascents in Yosemite, spoke in an Outside Online article about not getting her period until she was 19 and feeling like a failure when she did because that meant that she was gaining weight. Climbing is not the only sport that sees this type of attitude towards weight loss. Runner Mary Cain was signed to Nike in 2013 where she was urged by her coach to weigh 114lbs so she could run faster. She ended up with RED-S, suicidal thoughts, and running slower than she ever had before. Gymnast Katelyn Ohashi became a star after a floor routine went viral. This allowed her to use her platform to talk about her experience with normalized body shaming and eating disorders within the gymnastics community.

Traits such as excessive exercise and perfectionism can be warning signs of a possible eating disorder, but in the world of athletics, those same traits are “commitment to training” and “pursuits of excellence.” Yet, does one need to be thin to be a successful athlete? Athletes like Serena Williams, Lauren Chamberlain, Cheryl Haworth, and Dianne Bondy have proven strength does not equal thinness. As Angie Payne, one of the climbers interviewed in the Light documentary, said, “Feeling light feels amazing.

Everybody who’s felt that knows how amazing that feeling is. But what I realized once I started gaining weight again and getting healthier, was that you can get that feeling by being strong. And feeling really strong feels even better than feeling really light.”

Final Project: Zine | Aashi Jhaveri Through all the readings in the class, one of the things that I felt was a common denominator in the creation of a negative unsafe girl culture was mass media and the internet. Although the internet is often used to spread social initiatives and positive messages, for girls the internet can be a truly toxic place. Girls’ bodies, for instance, are policed the most on the internet. New social media sites give everyone a space to voice their opinions, and not all of them are valid or even justified. The internet gives rise to body complexes, a lack of self-confidence, and self-esteem, making young girls think they are less than because they do not fix a fixed image of an unachievable self.

There’s also a sense of voyeurism that comes into play. Mass media and the internet, since being accessible to everyone, becomes a space to view. This further fetishizes girlhood, adding to the sexualization of girls and creating a normalized culture of seeing girls as sexual objects. Once I started working on my zine page, I also realized that the internet is also a space where society commercializes girlhood, making it a commodity for sale. By making sure girls always feel less than, they create a market for products and services which are then proposed as the solution to all their problems.

The topic I chose to focus on for the zine is based on the week 24 readings “Body Projects” by Joan Jacobs Brumberg, “Being The Fat Girl in a Big Fat Asian Family” by Angela Hui and “Perfect Girls. Starving Daughters” by Courtney Martin. My goal for this zine was to convey the feelings I would have towards my experience with body issues and making readers realize and acknowledge that body shaming and self hatred doesn’t only affect you when you’re fat but also the other extreme, which is when you’re too skinny. I want people to understand that when I talk about how much hate I had for myself because of the body I had growing up, which was always considered super skinny, I don’t want to hear people sigh and say things like “oh, but everyone wants to be skinny” or “being too skinny is better than being too fat”. I’ve always known it was more normalized to hate yourself for being fat (unfortunately it’s very normalized), than for being too skinny because for the longest time being skinny was a sign of beauty… but…how would it make you feel if someone mistook you for a person with a mental/eating disorder? Probably not too good, which is what would happen to me all the time! The point of this zine is to show other girls that it’s more common than they think for girls in any body size to feel self conscious and get judgement for it. You don’t only have to be fat to get body shamed because it happens to girls who are skinnier than the average too. Skinny doesn’t mean having a perfect body like everyone seems to think.

I used vibrant colors to represent how powerful these feelings are and how sometimes they can overpower my mind and thoughts. I also used pastels because if I really try, I could remove the color almost completely, just how I could do with these feeling if I really try.

Sarah Nassar PHCRT 3000: Girl Culture Midterm Dr. de Jesús May 5, 2021 Gyms For Jim’s The goal of this zine was to express the frustrations that women experience through day to day life. Especially in a setting such as a gym where it is mostly male dominant in the weight section. Throughout this course, we have navigated through subjects such as body projects and patriarchy and how that all intertwines with each other. That being said women are often objectified by men. “Gym for Jim’s” is inspired by a TikTok song that goes… “She’s not with him tonight, she is not with Jim tonight, she’s in the gym tonight, workout in that pussy (ayy)”. And so I’ve seen and heard many stories of guys taking pictures of women in public without their permission, whether it be the gym or the grocery store. I personally think there should be more ‘all-girl’ gyms, so women feel safe and can actually focus on their workout.

I also wanted to mention that I think nowadays I see a trend of girls wanting to gain muscle mass and just overall balance of health, whereas I feel back then and from what we’ve read from The Body Projects, the goal was to be stick skinny therefore resulting in a lot of girls having eating disorders. Though women still have the ideal beauty standards that will change with time and trends of up keeping one’s body. Also a continuation of beauty and hygiene products to make profit off of embedded insecurities by the media.

Jiayun Qiu The girl problem I would like to explore in this illustration is “women’s body image anxiety”.

Social media often presents unrealistic beauty standards through highly-edited pictures, affecting body image negatively. On one hand, females always find themselves comparing their bodies to those airbrushed ideals, so that they would have no confidence in their own body and would do anything to become ‘perfect’ or ‘flawless’.

On the other hand, anyone could post a comment on others’ appearance, body and private life when they are exposed to the public for open judgement. However, those comments are often negative and consist of malicious speculation from the males and jealousy from the females, contributing further to body image concerns and anxiety in females.

This illustration intends to demonstrate the desperation and bewilderment of an already attractive woman when receiving various negative comments on social media and in real life, criticizing her wardrobe choices and body-shaming her. Besides, beauty and fitness gurus always present themselves in those perfectly groomed images using filters, photo-retouching, lighting and camera angles, further adding to an illusion of the standard of beauty and rendering women to be more insecure about their bodies. In this light, it can be seen that, instead of appreciating and complimenting themselves, females are always doubting their own beauty in front of a mirror and striving to achieve those impossible and unrealistic beauty standards set by the societal environment and strangers online.

Ramos 1 Alex Ramos PHCRT 3000: Girl Culture Dr. Melinda De Jesús 5 May 2021 Final Project For my final project, I decided to draw something that honors an Asian American woman musician that I admire, whose work challenges many of the stereotypes and ideologies that we’ve discussed in class. Mitski Miyawaki, who is often only referred to as Mitski, makes music that can only be described as a mirror. Her songs are an endless internal dialogue, like short stories that look in. I’ve written extensively about Mitski as an artist — specifically on how she is racialized and then de-racialized in many scenarios, and how her work is consumed in those contexts. But, despite all that, she makes great music that approaches what it means to be socialized as an Asian girl in the West, and coming to accept your own relationship to your ethnic identity with honesty and deep introspection.

In one of our readings for the class, Anita Harris explains the role girls have as new consumer citizens — in one example, they are the main consumer group for the ‘Girl Power market’ (Harris 166). This construction of ‘Girl Power’ places value on “self-invention and anti-collectivism,” according to Harris. It sells girls individuality in place of solidarity. While the predominantly white riot grrrl activism may have curbed this effect for a select group of girls, these efforts do not try to encompass the complexities of what many girls of color have to

Ramos 2 contend with: a racialized identity and, oftentimes, a secondary culture they feel they must conform or rebel against.

In Mitski, I find a voice that speaks to all of those things. She reckons with her overlapping identities, but also performs her own ideas of what an artist should or could be, challenging whatever people project on to her based on their own experiences and emotional wounds. The lyrics I included in my zine page — “Maybe I'm the same as all those men / Writing songs of all they're dreaming” — are from “Come Into the Water,” a song off her 2018 album, Be the Cowboy. It boils her experiences down to a bittersweet sentiment. She recognizes how different she is to the men she’s often compared to by both critics and fans, but also how closely their work aligns with each other — making music about their dreams — once the former is stripped away.

Carolyne Tan DIY Girl For my zine page, I decided to focus on the expectations that are set upon us as women and girls.

Society often forces girls into molds of who they wish they were and ostracizes them if they were to express who they really were. We are constantly surrounded by the media, advertising what “true beauty” looks like, causing young girls to obsess over what society wants them to be enough to the point where it causes them more physical harm than happiness. The topics such as “consumerism and pop culture”, “body projects” and “odd girl out” all deal with how society shapes girls they way they want and forces them to feel as if their entire self worth is based on others perception of them.

My page is that of a doll taken apart in an exploded view. My intent for this piece was to bring attention to how society is the one who determines our looks, habits, and sometimes our future. Whether it’s strangers online, or even our own family, we are constantly criticized for the way we wish to look and feel. Growing up, even the toys we play with have a specific look that would be deemed as perfect or ideal. Being skinny, having long straight hair, and showcasing other features that are not always easily achievable or even achievable at all dictates the way girls see themselves and render their natural features as an imperfection.

The idea of a doll being put together relates to how those around us all wish we catered to their idea of perfection. As someone who is heading into the design field, the way i look and determine details to make the perfect project feels similar to the way society tries to “perfect” us as people. We should design to better a girl's future, not design her as a person.

Yuyao Wang Melinda de Jesus Girl Culture 5/5/2021 Zine Statement In many people's minds, menstruation has always been a shameful existence, and everything related to menstruation seems to be taboo. "Menstrual shame" has a negative impact on women in all aspects, the first of which is the physical condition. If there are no good sanitary conditions and protective measures during menstruation, the risk of gynecological inflammation will be greatly increased, and the more serious consequences may be infertility and even death.

Menstruation, which is considered filthy and taboo, makes many women ashamed to talk about, and what's behind this is it makes women feel ashamed and disgusted with their bodies. For every girl, menstruation is a growth that must be experienced and a sign of maturity. This physiological phenomenon, which should be worthy of happiness, makes countless girls frighten every month.

"Menstrual shame" not only threatens the girls' health, but also destroys girls' beautiful imagination of the world. More importantly, it also seriously affects their self-identity. In this zine project, I made a "period zine" for the purpose of education and health promotion.

Everyone's physical condition is a kind of privacy for them. Even if we are slowly starting to look at menstruation normally, there are still girls who are shy and dare not face their physical problems and do not seek medical attention. In this zine, I did some explanations of physiological phenomena, and I expressed all the colors that appears in an artistic way, presenting them in pantone color box, using them as a whole color theme including typography and comparing it with a makeup palette. Which means Every color is beautiful. This is a characteristic that is unique to women. The physical characteristics of each person are different, but everything is the embodiment of life. Women, especially girls should understand and learn how to treat our bodies well.

Perfect Body The concerns over their own figure and facial attractiveness have been troubling girls as badly as having nightmares. The related public opinions are being circulated through media. The girls living in the 21st century are told to be brave in presenting their true self while finding themselves on the receiving end of endless accusations of imperfect figure and appearance.

All girls are keen to be the goddess receiving admiration from their social circles. Consequently, they may face such problems as eating disorder and anxiousness. The most ironic and peculiar thing is that those carefully-crafted pictures present the distorted aesthetic views of human body, which are even adopted to judge female bodies.

Therefore, I choose an online celebrity from Douyin, the Chinese version of Tik Tok. She is widely known for her perfect figure and attractive appearance, which makes her extremely popular in a society where more importance is attached to women’s physical beauty rather than their inner merits. Her perfectness puts strain on not only herself but also other females. I keep saying “She is perfect”. These three words in this sentence are no different from curse. On the one hand, it suggests the requirements placed by males and society on how women should be, which severely restricts our bodies and personal freedom. We even lack the ability to decide what our bodies look like and what diet we should have. On the other hand, girls, after viewing the pictures of those so-called perfect goddess, may be made to feel jealous and pessimistic. With their self-value having been disregarded for so long, they believe that everything they own should be perfect to the extent that they can feel loved and respected by others. Those distorted thoughts will make them resent other girls who are more excellent than themselves while struggling due to self-blame.

I, as a graphic designer, am keen to present the unfair anesthetic views on females by combining words and graphics in the form of graphic visual arts.

Chenyu Zhang

Xiaomeng Li PHCRT 3000: Girl Culture Midterm Dr. de Jesús May 3, 2021

Looking back at when I was a little girl, I wasn’t a confident person at all. Acnes, overweight, skin color, body hair, feet size, everything that I can recall are full of painful memories. It wasn’t until college, that I started to look closely into the mirror, starting to appreciate this sad girl in the reflection.

I was wishing so devoutly maybe one day I will get a chance tell the young me walking home so frustratedly, that you are beautiful and great. And tell all the girls I know, or I don’t know who are suffering from the same dismay because they don’t fit a perfect girl image to take a minute to focus on themselves than looking at the outside world.

The media-driven culture is always idolizing a type of pretty skinny girl to advertise and profit., It is impossible to fit in that standard for every girl. As Courtney in her article perfect girls and starving daughters suggested, girls today are persuaded to believe that they are unhappy is, because of their weight and look, caused by lack of will power. Which is a wrong logic.

Throwing up after meal won’t make them any skinnier, it just a way to relief the guilt of eating, which girls should not feel guilty for. So keyed onto squeezing oneself into the perfect image will only make them loss conscious of their own body, without knowing, it is impossible to love and care for it.

Take a minute to appreciate yourself as how you are now, don’t let the “perfect expectation” ties you up and suffocate you. Your body are perfect as they are, respect it and love it as you love yourself.