SARAH LEONARD : 'NO-ONE BELIEVES THAT THE WORLD WILL BE SAVED BY THE FEMALE CEO'

A new socialist feminist magazine is set to be launched in January. Editor Sarah Leonard says Lux will be an expression of a rising new feminism because no one believes anymore that 'the highest form of feminism is the girl boss.'

ONE OF the positive  spin offs caused by the upsurge of interest in socialism in the United Sates is that there has also been a strong growth in socialist inspired journalism. Whether it be via websites, blogs, podcasts or YouTube  channels the journalism, while sometimes of an uneven quality, has always been vibrant and challenging. While in New Zealand a continued misplaced support for the Labour Party has effectively stalled the development of socialist journalism to the point that some so-called 'left wing' or 'progressive' writers only seem to want to talk about socialism in order to attack it, that's certainly not the case in the United States. The journalism doesn't compromise. It certainly doesn't parade as something it isn't. It is the real deal.

Although still only in her 30s, Sarah Leonard is one of America's more senior socialist journos. An active member of the Democratic  Socialists of America, she is editor at large  at Dissent, a contributing editor to The Nation and she has written for publications as diverse  as Jacobin,  Teen Vogue, The New Republic  and the New York Times.  She also co-authored The Future We Want:  Radical Ideas for the New Century  with Jacobin publisher and editor  Bhaskar Sunkara.

Leonard has been relatively quiet of late and the regular email updates I used to receive from her dried up about two years ago. I read somewhere that she was working on a new project and this week the e-mail silence was broken and a new update from Sarah  appeared in my mailbox, announcing the launch early next year of a new and glossy socialist feminist magazine.

Named after socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, Lux will be published three times a year and will be available in both print and digital form.

Says Sarah : 'We started this magazine from the premise that top-down efforts to convince people that the highest form of feminism is the girl boss have been unsuccessful. No one believes today that we will be saved by the female CEO or presidential candidate. Instead, feminists are in pursuit of a new world.'

'The new feminism is on the rise. We've created a truly beautiful magazine to reflect that with original illustrations and photography by emerging artists. Lux riffs on the look of a traditional women's magazine but the content is subversive. Issue one features intimate profiles of activists, artists, and intellectuals, international reports from Mexico and Egypt, explorations of the politics of pleasure from Soviet perfume to socialist sex radicals, and glimpses into the deep archives of socialist feminist thought'.

For subscription details go here and be in to win because solidarity subscriptions come with special perks like totes,  t-shirts and a special edition 'quarantzine', with reflections from Lux writers on life under the coronavirus.