is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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i just found out i'm not a woman.
My facebook status today:
Jill just found out that a library zine collection doesn't want back issues of h2so4 because they only collect zines by women.
And then I added:
this is DEEPLY hilarious because i started h2so4 in part in order to challenge prevalent definitions of feminism in the 80s and 90s. also, i and most of my writers were featured in a book called "Girls Guide to Taking Over the World: Writings from the Girl Zine Revolution..." And now it has come to this.
Then an h2so4 reader added:
How the HELL is h2so4 not a zine by a woman?
How ... ? I mean ... Jesus ...
Is this like back when whoever was pope at the time declared that rats were fish?
And then I was all:
i think the librarian meant that the zine is tainted by the excellent men who contributed. or we had a misunderstanding? i'm not sure. i just wrote her a diplomatic short essay about why i made the choices i made, and why i perceive other choices to be, possibly, damaging to the idea of feminism.
and, really, i wrote to her offering to DONATE a full run of the zine. why say no? mein gott!
And then a friend of mine wrote:
Well, as I recall, h2so4 did have an occasional column written by Nietzsche and another by Heidegger. Perhaps this disqualified you?
Then my old roommate The Bunny was, like:
oh wow, that IS good, jill. i would even say: SUCCESS! on the starting motivation for h2so4. well done, you!
And then a fellow rhetorician said:
I think I know this librarian. She's got some pretty hardline collection rules. *sigh*
But as a teacher of women's studies, I can tell you, no boys allowed!
But I was all:
i don't really care about whether or not they take the zine. but the larger meaning is sad and misguided.
Then the woman who told me about the collection to begin with added:
it *is* so weird. did she say she was rejecting your offer based on some knowledge or impression of h2so4? i assumed it was a misunderstanding. ?!? what did she say?
Me:
well, we'll see what she says. she gave me her list of guiding themes. i wrote back with my reasons for thinking that those themes didn't capture everything she ought to be collecting. but she's the boss and that's fair enough. however i'm bothered by this: she didn't want h2so4 but seemed willing to take my personal collection of zines from the 90s, many of which are authored by men. it all just didn't make sense to me. i guess she assumed there would be gems in there worth saving from the cock-ocracy. (that's a mary daly joke. i love 70s/80s radical feminism, even though i have my own ethical reasons for not wanting to go there.)
Then the h2so4 reader added:
I'M a zine library, send ME a full run!
*bats eyelashes*
*tries to look like a dewey decimal*
The Bunny:
yes, you're right jill. it is sad. i was enthusiastically applauding your critique of those feminisms that proliferated in the 80s, but i wasn't paying attention to her rejection of them, which does indicate a larger problem, likely still flowing from the misguided theories promulgated by those feminisms.
Then awesome Nick from Antarctica, whom I met at a zine conference in 1994 or something like that, wrote:
That'll teach you to challenge prevalent definitions of feminism.
Here's some other problems with h2so4 as a zine:
1.) Clear and legible layout: A zine with the reader's ease of use in mind cannot possibly reach the revolutionaries, who demand that a zine's hazardous layout challenge them like the jungles challenged Che.
2.) Self-reflective: Self-reflection is the staunch enemy of zeal. There is a direct correlation between the capacity to make fun of yourself, and the incapacity, say, to judge a book by its Dewey Decimal number rather than its content.
3.) Funny: Funny is not serious, and will get you nowhere.
Me:
ha! nicholas, you have pointed out where i've gone wrong all my life.
Bay Woods, writer for h2so4 piped in:
I guess we should have continued to let people think that "Bay Woods" was a pseudonym of JS. Sorry for spoiling the zine's archiveability with my cockocratic chromosones.
The awesome Gus adds a pivotal point:
Send her a link to the Amazon page for _Gender Trouble_. And say, "Most people who have read anything about feminism published in the past twenty years have been influenced by this book." That's still diplomatic, right?
Me, always trying to see the other side:
well, she says that she's leaving it up to authors to define what it means to be a woman. but i heard back and she still doesn't want any h2so4 in her library. it's theater-of-absurd funny. so, on the one hand, i respect her committedness to a focus, but on the other, i find the focus to be deeply misguided to the point of tragic (and when i use the word tragic, i don't mean sad, i mean destined to a bad ending that everyone already knows about).
Me again:
to be fair, here's her mission statement. she wants zines "written by New York City and other urban women with an emphasis on zines by women of color. A woman's gender is self-defined. We collect zines on feminism and femme identity by people of all genders. The zines are personal and political publications on activism, anarchism, body image, third wave feminism, gender, parenting, queer community, riot grrrl, sexual assault, and other topics."
i'd say that about 60% of that applies to h2so4, especially the early issues, when it was more political. but i'm well aware of the existence of a world that looks at me and everything i do and says: not quite on center. hello publishing world, hello academic job market, I AM OUT OF FOCUS and i wouldn't have it any other way.
however, i am well practiced on this particular soap box of arguing about what counts as woman-focused, so i registered some pronounced harumphs before moving on from a woman's right to curate a limited collection.
Me again:
one more thing. this is almost as good as the time some guy wrote an article for the utne reader about "trends in people not reading," and cited h2so4 because we had a column called "reviews of books i haven't read." BUT (and here's the delicious part), if he had ever read that column, he would know that it was about a deeply philosophical practice of making smart decisions about what to spend your time reading, because reading is a serious practice! it was gratifying when the bay guardian did a little piece on that particular theater of the absurd. oh, irony. you are lovely when you know your measure.
And then Nick adds:
"well, she says that she's leaving it up to authors to define what it means to be a woman.�
I agree that editorial and curation sensibilities are often best served by dictatorship; it's the squishiness that's maddening.
Alright, I've decided I'm a woman. Where do I send the shark zines?
And then a second rhetorician and male writer for h2so4 wraps it up:
I've decided I was a woman, too, at least when I contributed to H2SO4. And I've decided that particular librarian is a dude. You see, it's up to you yourself to decide if you're a woman, but only someone else can decide if you're a man.... for instance, a man who writes a Zine...
Me:
you know, i think i've just decided to do a mini-zine about this, and send it out to my subscribers. does anyone want to contribute art, words, or reviews of anything while i'm at it? i've got a photocopier and i still know how to use it.
so, well, maybe a woman who just made me have an argument i thought i ended in 1995 is a good spur to the comedic arts.
and, while we're on the topic of theater of the absurd, i finally get to write the fake Beckett play about the lost cat Tiger, who wouldn't come out of the trash heap.
10:14 p.m. - February 10, 2009
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