Jill Magazine: female-separatism in magazine form

I was reminded of the importance of respite recently through the “simple” pleasure of a magazine. I grew up in the 80's/90's/early 2000s in a time where magazines were a main form of marketing, advertising, and media consumption. A small group of powerful men controlled the magazines I read; all male-dominated corporations selling me body commodification and modification. Back then, reading magazines, books, or the back of a shampoo bottle was what you did when on the toilet. Not like my current life at 41 - staring at my phone as I take a shit. My bathroom books have collected dust for years now, rarely if ever touched.

A few months back, I discovered Jill Magazine, and on a whim of nostalgia I decided to purchase a copy. What drew me to the publication was that it was the first time I saw a magazine for lesbian women. Specifically, a magazine that honors the material reality of women and girls. In a time where my country’s president pretends to care about my material reality, only so he and fellow male supremacists can further commodify my femaleness, I really needed a space free from males. I needed a space proudly celebrating femaleness.

Jill is much needed respite and escapism. It’s female-separatism in magazine form. Unlike my childhood, I won’t quickly devour this magazine. Instead I’ll savor it; reading it slowly, carefully, thoughtfully. When I first opened its pages I got teary-eyed and I hadn’t even read a word. It was the experience that had me emotional. I thought how I’m an adult lesbian woman in 2025, and this is the first time I will read a magazine fully made by and for women. It’s startling when it sinks in. I’m only a few pages in, reading a wonderful piece on “maths” (as the Brits call it) written by professor Jo Boaler. And even more emotions well up in me...because never, not once in my entire life did a women’s or girls magazine talk to me about math. My heart warms at this beautiful reality. My heart also laments...what if this article was in my copy of Teen, YM, Seventeen, Glamour, Cosmopolitan? What kind of girl would I dream of being if there was a teen version of Jill magazine? What if we lived in a world where there was a diverse range of female-centered media? A world where women didn’t have to cobble together massive amounts of unpaid labor to publish a magazine, but instead have investors reaching out funding these important and desired forms of media? What could our collective girls, and our women, dream to be?

It serves as an important reminder that women and girls need to put our money into female-centered initiatives. Each time we support such endeavors we gain collective power through market-share and knowledge dissemination. Find the female entrepreneurs that speak to you, and put your money towards their labor. When you’re thinking of making any purchase, ask yourself, “who do I support with my purchase?” Take the time and find out. It’s hard work to do that, but pays off in dividends. By investing in women, we make space for more women (and girls) to be encouraged to share their skills. So invest money into groups like Jill Magazine or Sister Surge Media so that we can build the female separatist spaces that so many of us yearn for.

Male-only spaces have been the default since male supremacists gained control of the majority of societies. From that point, women and girls were systematically barred from most spaces. Women had to claw their way out of male imprisonment and create female spaces. Male supremacists deeply despise any right won by female freedom fighters. They have always been working to strip away every right that women gain - in each country, each creed, each color of male supremacist. They perpetually try to make the world male-only, imprisoning women who dare to reach for space.

But don’t get lost in the trees, pull back and see the forest. See that male supremacy transforms itself over and over and over again. The time of using our precious female energy on arguing with males is over. Now is the time for real-world action.

We must use every ounce of our power and control to gain back our female-only space. And we don’t do that by focusing our energies on the conservative and liberal man’s entitlement, gender ideology, war-mongering, insecurity, and propaganda. We do it by practicing laser-focus on creating our female-centered spaces in this world.

Who knew reading a magazine on the toilet could inspire me to stop giving a shit about the ways in which male supremacy tries to distract me? That’s the kind of shit you don’t forget;) That’s the power of respite. That’s the power of female media. That’s the power of female joy.