Trivia

The other day, Feminist Peace Network on Facebook posted a link to Issue 9 of the online journal TRIVIA - Voices of Feminism. This is the issue on goddesses from March 2009. It looks really interesting. I've read the editors' introduction and an article by Carolyn Gage on how the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by US forces in 1898 might have been stopped if Queen Liliuokalani has listened to her native shamans instead of  following Episcopalian teachings.

This is how I discovered that the feminist journal Trivia still survives after all these years. Or, more accurately, it was revived in 2004 as an online publication. Their dedication to their most recent issue, Are Lesbians Going Extinct? tells the story:

This issue of Trivia is dedicated to Mary Daly, without whom this online journal simply would not be. Trivia, a Journal of Ideas, its predecessor, published in print from 1982 to 1995, grew out of a study group that spun off from Mary's classes at Boston College. It was named after the Triple Goddess TRIVIA—whom we first encountered in the pages of Daly's Gyn/Ecology. While the journal developed its own identity over the years, it remained, and in this online version remains, rooted in her steadfast vision of female power and possibility. The word "lesbian" did not go far enough for Mary. She preferred to talk of "Terrible Women"—women who break the "Terrible Taboo: the universal, unnatural patriarchal taboo against Women Intimately/Ultimately Touching each Other."

Not only do they have an archive of all of their online issues, but you can order copies of most of the old print issues as well.

As I've said before, the existence of small independent feminist periodicals played a crucial role in creating radical feminist and lesbian movements that challenged patriarchy and all forms of oppression. Each time I discover another surviving feminist or lesbian periodical, I gain new hope that those movements can continue to move forward.