Topic Discussion Among Young Women in Third-Wave Feminism
Alyssa Wickline
INTRODUCTION
Beginning with an interest in feminism, I came
across a movement that is considered to be the start
of third-wave feminism; the Riot Grrrl movement. I
began researching about the topic and came across a
creative outlet explored by many called zines. Zines
are a publication often created by one person
writing their ideas, art, and stories down, making
copies and handing them out. These were vital to the
beginning of feminism, and still are, just in a
different form. With the explosion of the Internet,
young women have turned to e-zines and blogs to be
creative and share ideas. I wanted to expand on this
and look for a change in feminism, based off what
young women are writing about in these publications.
METHODOLOGY
I conducted a comparative content analysis. I have
analyzed popular feminist zines written between
1990-1995 and popular feminist blogs written within
the last 5 years that are still active. Based on the
content, I placed the blogs and zines into five
different categories to compare the findings. I
found the blogs doing a snowball sampling starting
with one popular blog and then looking at that blogs
network to find another and continued this process.
I then gave all the blogs a number and used a random
number generator to choose 20 to analyze. I chose
the zines based on popularity as well as what I
could find in The Riot Grrrl collection; both the
archives at The Fales Library at NYU as well as the
book based on this collection. After categorizing
each blog and zine analyzed, I was able to see if
young women are still talking about the same things
in feminism. This could indicate if things have
changed within feminism or not.
History of Feminist
Communication Media
• Second-wave feminism – ended in the
1980’s
• Third-wave feminism
• Early 1990’s to today
• Each individual defines feminism
differently
• Different between generations
• Riot Grrrl movement
• Taboo topics like rape and
sexuality
• Music as a platform
• DIY (do it yourself) ethics
• Young women were empowered
to speak out
• Expressed themselves through
zines
• Zines
• Young women create/produce
culture and media
• Safe space to share ideas and
thoughts
• Had complete control of
content
• Included poetry, art,
stories, thoughts, among
other things
• Blogs
• Easier way to produce media
• Reach more people
• Use different websites
• Different types of blogs
(topical, collaborative)
• Expression of self and ideas
Comparative content analysis
of the topics discussed in
zines and blogs
Number of Zines RESULTS
After analyzing the blogs and zines, the most
mentioned topic of discussion in both was rape and
sexual assault. Nearly half of the blogs analyzed
focused on rape and sexual assault, where there
was less of a gap in the number of zines that
focused on that topic. The topics in the zines
were more spread out than they were in the blogs.
Number of Blogs CONCLUSION
Portrayal in Media The topics discussed among young women within
their media channels does not appear to have
changed. The main topic being rape and sexual
assault, with the rest slightly varying. This
hints at a lack of change in issues of rape and
sexual assault within feminism. Young women today
seem to care about the same issues as those did 20
years ago. Further research about the way in which
these topics are discussed could indicate past
issues that may or may not have been addressed.
ReproducCve Rights Sexuality BIBLIOGRAPHY
Derogatory Terms Rape/Sexual Harassment 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Klein, Melissa. “Duality and Redefinition: Young Feminism
and the Alternative Music Community”. Third Wave Agenda:
Being Feminist, Doing Feminism. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press. (Jan 1997). 207-225. Print.
Bell, Brandi Leigh-Ann. “Riding the Third Wave: WomenProduced Zines and Feminisms” Resources for Feminist
Research. 29.3/4. (Fall 2002). Pg 187-198.
Riordan, Ellen. "Commodified Agents and Empowered Girls:
Consuming and Producing Feminism." Journal of
Communication Inquiry 25.3 (2001): 279-97. Web.
Zobl, Elke. “Cultural Production, Transnational
Networking, and Critical Reflection in Feminist Zines.
Signs. 35.1 (Autumn 2009): 1-12. Web.
Garrison, Ednie Kaeh. “U.S. Feminism – Grrrl Style! Youth
(Sub)Culture and the Technologies of the Third Wave”
Feminist Studies. 26.1 (Spring, 2000): 141-170. Web.