OBVIOUS from the first strains of a band playing thoroughly un-ironic covers of Avril Lavigne songs was the fact that the last week's release party for the University Women Center's Irismagazine wasn't about typical -- or at least not stereotypical -- feminism. Held at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar on the Downtown Mall, the event, like the magazine it promoted, wasn't quite what one expects out of feminist journalism. Iris has been a project of the Women's Center for the past 25 years; founded as an academic journal for women's affairs, it has since grown into a thoroughly modern mix of journalism, poetry, humor and art.
No quarter century run, however, is without growing pains, and the issues of publishing a feminist magazine in 2005 closely mirror the challenges facing the movement under which it came of age. When Sarah Whitney, the instructor of the SWAG 310 class which helps produce the magazine, acknowledges that "the struggle constantly is to get [Iris] in more people's hands," she's referring to the limited budget that prevents the publication from wider circulation, but could easily be talking about modern feminism in general. If the question is how to get feminism in more people's hands, or how to make the movement relevant in an age often described as "post-feminist," perhaps the minds behind Iris have the answer.
With the Iris interns -- students of the SWAG 310 course -- this new brand of feminism is inclusive and accessible; "mainstream" is the mission. "If you make feminism mainstream, that's a good thing for the movement" says third-year Becky Fall, a Web intern with the magazine. Her fellow intern and classmate Frank Michael Muñoz agrees that "if this magazine is something you find on your coffee table and not something you raise an eyebrow at, that's progress."
The magazine, which counts two men among its intern team and a handful of others among the many contributor hopefuls, has indeed progressed a long way from its founding as a niche market publication. A conscious decision was made to shift from a sometimes esoteric academic focus to a more accessible journal a few years ago, and the result has been a highly readable magazine without (as its producers are quick to point out) a specific agenda.
But all this mainstreaming has left Iris, and the modern feminists it targets, with something of an identity crisis. Whitney mentions the sense of bewilderment at seeing a copy of last semester's issue shelved with a stack of Glamour magazines in a Barnes and Noble store, but is quick to point out that it hardly belongs next to more manifestly political publications like Mother Jones or The Nation. As Fall puts it, "you see certain magazines on certain racks and have to wonder -- where does Iris fit in?" It's a fitting analogy for smart and worldly college-age feminists, who watch the O.C. and buy volumizing mascara, unencumbered by a fear of hypocrisy that might have given pause to an earlier generation. New York Times writer Maureen Dowd publicly worries about the sociological significance of a sex kitten resurgence, but our age cohort is pretty comfortably making a life out of seeming inconsistencies. Gone is the "personal is political" mentality of the 1970s. We've dismissed the binary wholesale; on the pages of Iris at least, the personal and political have met, melded and moved on. While the articles speak with an unmistakably feminist perspective, that voice is also sophisticated, intellectual and informed. The tone of the collection is much less about creating a place for oneself in the world than improving and changing it, and Coordinating Editor Annie Schutte's remark that "feminism is more than just women" seems to be something of a governing philosophy.
The University is well-served by a publication like Iris, and it is certainly disappointing to realize how few students are even aware of its presence. It merits a long look by students of both genders and all backgrounds, who are more than a little likely to seem themselves reflected in the sharp, funny and mainstream feminist perspective that is a little of everything, except for what one might expect.
Katie Cristol's column usually appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at kcristol@cavalierdaily.com.
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