Summer 2009 Issue of Ms Magazine
The summer 2009 issue of Ms Magazine received a decent amount of attention before the issue even hit newsstands due to the cover of the issue, which features a typical white, middle-class, American woman holding many items meant to signify life as a working woman and mother. Not too bad when you think about it in theory, but a great deal of people said that instead of showing a picture of what it is to be a multi-tasking mother in the age of technology, blogging, tweeting, cleaning, and making dinner, it inappropriately utilized Hindu iconography, mocked the religion, and diffused the imagery of it’s “true meaning.” However, Veronica Arreola of Viva la Feminista disagreed with the sentiment that the Ms cover was offensive by saying:
the image of a multi-armed woman in relation to motherhood is most likely as old as motherhood itself. I imagine this is why women papoosed or slung their infants to them as they worked the fields. As some in the comments of Mandy’s post pointed out, their own mothers use to say “I wish I had another set of arms!” or “I don’t have 8 arms missy!” I’ve always viewed the multi-armed image of motherhood as relating to an octopus. Again, growing up ignorant of Hindu deities, the octopus or spiders, especially in cartoons, were seen as having an ability us humans didn’t have – extreme multi-tasking. And today’s moms are pushing the boundaries of multi-tasking.
However, she also noted that she is in this issue of Ms Magazine (there is a picture of her speaking to an audience with the caption ‘Blogger Veronica Arreola brings feminist mothers to cyberspace’ and she also appears in the cover story ‘Cyberhood is Powerful’) so she could be a bit biased in her assessment.
But after reading this issue of Ms Magazine, I find myself absolutely flabbergasted as to why the ‘Cyberhood is Powerful’ story influenced Ms to put it on the cover, especially considering that there is another story that is far more important than a feminist-skewed story on mommy bloggers. It seems that over the summer, the stories about mommy bloggers have exploded all over the media and while this article is different in the respect that it is primarily about the online activism of feminist others who work hard to ensure that mom-friendly legislation goes through, the cover of the issue is very much off the mark in representing the story as something that is important to read and makes it look as if they are featuring yet another article on the lives of mommy bloggers. In my opinion, Ms Magazine downplayed the importance of their own article with their cover art.
The story that I would have liked to see even mentioned on the front cover of the issue is ‘Baghdad Underground,’ an article about an underground “railroad” that was founded in 2004 by feminist organizer Yanar Mohammed, who is also the head of OWFI (Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq) that provides the only escape for women victims of sexual and domestic violence. You can read a segment from the article here.
‘Baghdad Underground’ is a must-read article because it actually speaks out about the violence that is going on in Iraq right now that is so much worse than it had been under Saddam Hussein. It highlights that while Saddam Hussein’s regime persecuted political dissidents but allowed women personal rights and freedoms and what I enjoyed most about this article is its complete honesty; it shows how the American media has funneled through the facts of the Iraq war and have told us what they think we should know which of course, are only the parts of the story that makes America look like the good people. The fact of the matter however, is that after the US invasion of Iraq, violence was at an all-time high and women became “the easiest targets.” The life of women in Iraq has become unimaginably horrific and in fact, much worse than their lives pre-fall-of-Saddam-Hussein since Iraq now governs with much stricter Islamic Sharia law. Because of this, violence against women is at an all-time high violence against women goes virtually unchecked.
This is an article worthy of the front cover; in my opinion, of course.
The issue also has a great article on late Dr. George Tiller; his life, his work for women, his murder, and other abortion providers in the country who have been threatened and whose clinics have been vandalized by anti-choice extremists and who are at a very high risk of being the victims of domestic terrorism, just as George Tiller was. The article touched very deeply on the life that Dr. Tiller had lived and his commitment to women and their health and well-being. It was incredibly moving and paid an excellent tribute to the man he was; a man who trusted women. It was so moving, in fact, that I had a little tearing up action going on.
And of course, no magazine would be complete without book reviews and now I have to go out and buy Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood and When Gay People Get Married.
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Out Campaign
The OUT Campaign allows individuals to let others know they are not alone. It can also be a nice way of opening a conversation and help to demolish the negative stereotypes of atheists. Let the world know that we are not about to go away and that we are not going to allow those that would condemn us to push us into the shadows.
