EVEN MORE APRIL PRIZES DEALS AND Become a StudentCard PRIZES! member and be in to win. Sign up to StudentCard to go in to win 1 of 8 DVD prize packs 10% O all wines, Mobile calling $7.50 Traditional Save on broadband – spirits and and mobile Large Pizza or ditch the phone line. RTD’s broadband plans Pasta In A Box No min. Term Win a 1 of 3 - $250 credits on your next power bill 12% O everything $38.50 for two $21.95 for 10% O all Instore and WOF’s, a Tune Up, 8 DVD’s rentals + more Online + safety check per month benets Sign up to Compass and be in to win 12 months free home broadband 10% O All 10% O Instore 10% O all 10% O Value Meals Purchases full priced items already low # 1-11 + limited time prices specials Sign up to Studentcard and be in to win prizes Special rates: 30% O - CARD AVAILABLE FOR StudentCard Manage all your WOF’s and 20% O PURCHASE ONLINE servicing Specials at expenses all taxi fares Just $11.00 $50 or $100 10% O Open and use a credit to your next Ice-Skating Already low Campus Pack and $20 power bill Sessions prices get a free card Terms and Conditions apply to all deals, see website for more info www. .co.nz CONTENTS 6 – 7 — Loveliness & The Labia My Body My Self? — 23 8 — Is the Battle Over? When Feminism Walks Down the Aisle — 24 9 — Finding the 'Me' in Feminism Pimp My Vag — 25 10 – 12 — When Something Snaps Nanna's Nanas: Banana & Creamy Caramel Cupcakes — 25 13 — Poking the Nub: Lady Gaga does Feminism? So You Need an Abortion — 26 – 27 15 —Yes Means Yes! Fashion – Jimmy D & Madame Hawke — 28 – 29 16 – 17 — The Man who Created New Zealand Culture Top Five Ladies of the Old Testament — 30 18 — So You Want to Enrich Your Life by Getting Tattooed? Popping Your Cherry Beir — 30 20 – 22 — Counting Down Disney's Dames Tonight's Gonna be a Good Night — 31 Monday 3rd May to Friday 7th May Public Debate “That modelling is an affront to feminism” Wednesday 5th May 6.30pm OGGB5, Owen G Glenn Building Workshops by Family Planning Auckland Women’s Centre Eating Disorders Difficulty Network Rape Prevention Education Rainbow Youth Publication of Kate magazine See Student Central or visit www.ausa.org.nz for more information MAY 2010 EDITORIAL Editor: Rosabel Tan Designer: Aidan Turvey Advertising: Aaron Haugh Women’s Rights Officer: Soraiya Daud FEATURED ARTIST: or the longest time, I didn’t consider Ana Bagayan (www.anabagayan.com) elcome to this year’s edition myself a feminist. Whenever the of Kate. Putting this f-word came up in conversation, I PROOFERS: magazine together has been had visions of sweaty, overall-wearing men- Simon Coverdale, Joe Nunweek, quite a journey. When I first decided to get it haters who were bitter because they couldn’t Matthew Harnett, Hugh Lilly, Anna off the ground, I didn’t have any clue about the get laid. I had better things to do with my time Fay, Stephen Bier, Valentine Watkins, challenges involved in publishing a magazine. than paint angry placards or go protesting up Evan Blumgart, Soraiya Daud. To know that – despite all these challenges Queen St. Like shaving my legs, for instance, or – the magazine will go out to hundreds of wearing underwear. Besides, I wasn’t bitter. I CONTRIBUTORS: students is quite exciting. didn’t hate men. Alice Galletly, Mythily Meher, Tania Kate commemorates Kate Milligan Edgar But then I realised that the real reason I Sawicki Mead, Joe Nunweek, Valentine (who the information commons is named didn’t consider myself a feminist was because Watkins, Toni Haraldsen, Sylvia after). She was the first women in the British I didn’t actually know what feminism was. I’d Varnham O’Regan, Hans Hammond, Empire to gain a degree, graduating with a fallen prey to stereotypes in the same way that Ed Brownlee, Samuel Bowen Partridge, Bachelor of Arts in 1877. Edgar was pretty giggling tweens everywhere have succumbed Matthew Harnett, Emily Clark, Anna great. After completing her degree, she joined to Justin Bieber’s charms: with alarming ease. I Fay, Stephen Bier, Jono Aidney, Pete the suffrage movement, and worked to extend may as well have casually asked my dreadlocked Heckman, Sophia Blair, Charlotte educational opportunities to women. Kate neighbour where to get some sweet ganja, Stevens, Kirsty Kearney, Chelsea Jade also honours Kate Sheppard, the leader of the or demanded that my parents help me with Metcalf, Michael Stevens, Ben Jenkins, suffrage movement in New Zealand. my MATHS108 assignment “cos, like, you’re Soraiya Daud, Zara Sigglekow. This year’s Kate includes both female Chinese. Aren’t you people supposed to be good and male contributors. This approach is at this kind of thing?” Because feminism isn’t Our sincerest apologies to those we unconventional for a women’s magazine, but about being angry. It isn’t about hating men. It’s couldn’t fit in due to space constraints: it means we have articles written from a broad about equality. Sarah Robson, Ed Miller, Sean Sturm, range of perspectives. What’s important is Feminism has fought for a lot of things Freddy Woodhouse, Joon Yang, Candy that the purpose and feel of the magazine stays throughout history: for the right of women Cho, Abe Kunin, Aimee-Jane Hudson, true to debating, recognising, and celebrating to vote and to own (and not be) property; Clara Chon, Ryan Sproull, Lesley our feminist ideals. for equality in the workplace; for access to Wright, Mhairi-Clare Fitzpatrick. Kate is conveniently published the same contraception and abortion; and for an end to week as the AUSA Womensfest. There is a both sexual and physical violence. What sound debate organised by the Debating Society and like basic human rights, and what we take for a series of workshops being hosted by local granted, was something people once had to fight organisations - to find out more, check out for – and what some are still fighting for today. www.ausa.org.nz or visit Student Central. Over the years, feminism has become Here’s to many more years of Kate! increasingly sensitive to the ways in which — Soraiya gender intersects with other facets of social inequality, including age, ethnicity, religion, class, and sexuality. Feminism today also recognises that gender is socially constructed —that, in the words of Simone de Beauvoir, "one Visit our website! is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" — www.kate-magazine. and exists on a continuum. It recognises that it blogspot.com isn't irreconcilable with femininity. It celebrates female sexuality. Kate showcases the work of some of the most talented feminists I know, and without them, this magazine would never have been possible. Hopefully you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it: moderately. — Rosabel Aidan helped. The End. P.S. I am kidding. It was the best time. 5 learnt of my vagina long before I knew it penile augmentation, skin grafts, hair grafts, the A History of Cosmetic Surgery, remarks that had a name. It wasn’t through inquisition reassignation of gender, and brazilians for men “before crotch shots were published, nobody was or sexual awakening; I simply became and women alike, and that’s just naming a few. interested in this.” Dr Gary Alter, the fittingly conscious of it pressing against itself as I stood, Over time, more and more aspects of the human named plastic surgeon famously associated with sat, moved. I didn’t dwell on what it meant, but body have come under vanity’s gaze and become vaginal ‘rejuvenation’, calls it the ‘Penthouse Effect’. enjoyed its existence as I enjoyed all the bodily candidates for perfection. His clients allegedly come in wielding glossy porn faculties available to me. If vaginal rescaping was formerly deemed magazines, demanding that he “make mine look Growing older, one’s own skin and body impossible or unpalatable, things have since like that.” too easily become templates for all sorts of Like many of you, I’m not one to pander projections. Culture, as they say, gets in. slavishly after genital ideals propagated I learnt as one does that vaginas are by porn. Big dicks, big tits: big deal. political. They mean something, and But possessing a pussy, one is bound that meaning is mapped out by their to wonder (hopefully casually): what’s functions and uses, most prominently good? Am I okay? Even people who first those related to heterosexual relations hear of vulval reconstruction through (the word ‘vagina’ is Latin for sheath. As criticism of it are startled into wondering in, for a sword). how their goods measure up to what’s I also learnt that women’s genitalia ‘good’. It goes to show how easily seeds are as varied as their faces. Some of ‘what to want’ and ‘what to tolerate or are frilly, some flare out, some are change’ can be sown. voluptuous, some are dainty. There Judging by the before-and-after shots are ‘innies’ and there are ‘outies’. Their boasted by plastic surgery websites, it colours range over pinks, mauves and seems what everybody wants is the same: slim, browns, and each responds to touch differently, changed. Put it down to the mainstreaming of straight and narrow, minimal ornamentation. each a loveliness unto itself. pornography: these days, even straight women Reduction of the labia minora, the inner lips of I was taken aback for a moment when I learnt and monogamists of whatever sexual preference the vulva, is the most requested procedure.