On The Issues Magazine Launches Winter 2011 Issue: The Conning of the Feminists

NEW YORK -- For its Winter 2011 issue, “The Conning of the Feminists,” On The Issues Magazine looks at feminist icons, feminist values and the cons of both the Right- wing and media variety. Faced with contradictory rhetoric and imagery that are trying to snag women’s devotion, money and voting power, an incredible array of writers and artists dig in to uncover core values of feminism and how they are being perverted.

The articles in the edition take a hard look at the conning of feminism from conservative and neo-con women --Sarah Palin is but one-- now claiming feminism without a single teabag’s worth of feminist values. The issue looks at another “con” of feminists, as well, this from a consumerist media that is encouraging women to view their feminist selves in an ever-so-convenient patriarchal package.

Tanya Melich, the former Republican insider and author who showed us the inside of the GOP Party’s anti-woman agenda in her book The Republican War Against Women, is back in full-force with a compelling piece, “Next Chapter in the ‘Republican War Against Women’.” Melich breaks down the GOP’s tactic of putting women candidates like Sarah Palin on the front line, only to lead the same, longstanding efforts against women’s rights and freedoms.

In “Fighting the Black Anti-Abortion Campaign: Trusting Black Women,” SisterSong’s Loretta Ross tackles a growing threat facing the black community -- the anti-choice campaign pushing lies of racism to coerce and shame women of color into continuing their unwanted pregnancies. In response, Ross works with a collective of organizations to reframe the conversation by calling these groups out for what they’re actually doing: Attacking black women’s autonomy. And out of this, an exciting new coalition determined to fight these deceptive tactics, Trust Black Women, was born.

On The Issues Magazine Editor-in-Chief Merle Hoffman boldly takes on three proclaimed “feminist” figures in “Feminism is As Feminism Does,” in which she confronts the critical question: Is there a feminist litmus test? Are there feminist values that one needs to have to call themselves the f word? For Hoffman, women’s bodily integrity is not up for debate.

The magazine is honored that artist Judy Chicago has joined On The Issues to narrate a personal retrospective of her work in The Art Perspective, curated by Art Editor Linda Stein. Between her acclaimed pieces like The Dinner Party and other work that created her reputation as one of the great feminist artists of our time, this in-depth look at her mastery is not to miss.

On The Issues Magazine is a progressive, feminist, quarterly online magazine. Read more at the site -- free and with archives from 1983. Merle Hoffman is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief.

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Vanessa Valenti

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On The Issues Magazine

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