On Jan. 19, the Exploring Feminism club at DHS released their first zine. The zine contained a variety of artwork, poetry and imagery, with a page designed by each club member.

“Everyone has their own page so they can express their own message of what it means for them to be a feminist,” club co-president Parker Condon said. 

“For this zine, the goal was just self-expression, and how everyone specifically identifies with feminism,” co-president Eleanor Cleveland said.

A zine is an original work of associated images and text that gets copied and circulated to a community. The distribution of zines was popularized during the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s, according to Cleveland. 

“There were hundreds of girls from their own homes sending out zines and mailing them for a dollar. It was a really big tactic in spreading the movement. But zines are also very easy to make and it’s a very easy way for everyone to work together,” Cleveland said.

Both co-presidents were significantly inspired by the riot grrrl movement. 

“I would say we’re inspired a lot by the way it was approached in the 90s with the riot grrrl and how they encouraged a lot of art, however, I think that some of the ideas within modern feminism with intersectionality are also very important. I think people are more aware that it’s not just white middle-class women within feminism and that it needs to expand,” Cleveland said.

“We’re taking the expression of art from the movement and applying it to the modern-day for what it means to be a feminist,” Condon added.

The club will continue exploring the zine idea with a second volume already in the works. The next issue will have a more cohesive focus on the top of self-expression. 

“A big topic that we’ve been discussing in our club was sex education because I think that topic has been brought up recently,” Cleveland said. “We’ve been discussing how there’s a lack of education and so we’re talking to the Planned Parenthood club at Agnes Scott for them to come in and talk to our club and we were hoping that with that education we would be able to bring that into the zines.”

Outside of zines, many club meetings have been centered around discussions and presentations.

“In the beginning, we would have presentations and we would usually present a famous woman photographer or artist, and we would talk about her and then have discussion points. We even talked about the Texas abortion law one club meeting,” Condon said.

Overall, the club is maintaining an awareness approach to their issues, with hopes to switch to a policy focus later on.

“[Awareness] is kind of the approach we’re taking now, but I’m hoping later on, once we leave, the leadership in our club will be able to change the policy in sex education in Decatur,” Cleveland said.