Hard Candy Magazine editors Jessica Pruett and Jessica Duckworth base their publication off of art that is driven by feminist ideals, and equality for women. (photo by Dominic Valente.)Two ASU seniors are all about sugar, spice and everything nice, but with a scoop of feminism and pinch of attitude thrown in, they have created their very own student-run feminist publication, Hard Candy.
This local magazine, which challenges social norms through writing and various artworks, first published last school year, but editors-in-chief Jessica Pruett and Jessica Duckworth plan on expanding their circulation and creativity this summer and coming semester.
Jessica Pruett, a creative writing and women and gender studies major, said that ever since her freshman year, she saw a gap between feminist ideas and community involvement.
“I was involved in all of these exciting and creative communities online that I felt weren’t translating into my real life, and I feel like a problem for a lot of young feminists is that you really get into and talk about it, but people don’t know where to start with involvement,” Pruett said. “I feel like since we have all these resources right now, if we don’t get something started it won’t ever begin.”
The publication prints once a semester through The Alternative and is currently funded through ASU and received financial help from the Women’s Coalition last semester. As an Undergraduate Student Government-appropriated club, Hard Candy members meet once every couple of weeks until it comes time to publish, collage and collaborate more intensively.
“We can’t run like a normal club, because zines just don’t work like that,” Pruett said. “It isn’t some weird formal thing, because at the beginning of the semester, we don’t need to work on it a lot.”
Jessica Duckworth, an accounting and computer information systems major, claims Pruett seriously influenced her to get involved in the project and the expansion of feminist ideals on campus.
“Especially on this (Tempe) campus, it’s not always the most friendly place for women to be expressive or run something like this,” Duckworth said. “It seems dominated by fraternities and athletics, and I wanted to be able to work with something that supports expression and artists and that provides a platform.”
As a student-run club, both Duckworth and Pruett are invested in what is happening on campus, especially when it comes to sexual assault, rape, harassment and lack of reporting on these incidents.
“I think we need a better system for women to report those kinds of things to, and I don’t think it’s a matter where we have freakishly low numbers of sexual assault instances,” Pruett said. “I think there’s something going on culturally, bureaucratically, that is discouraging women from being honest about what happened to them.”
Pruett and Duckworth are also highly focused on what their contributors get out of the work that is showcased in Hard Candy, a publication that is more based on the expression of feminism through creativity rather than the response of their readership.
“I don’t think there is one capital ‘F’ feminism today — it’s not monolithic,” Pruett said. “Even if you got five feminists who are politically and otherwise closely aligned, I think they would all have different definitions of where they saw feminism going and what it means to them.”
At the end of this summer Hard Candy plans on distributing 50 copies of their “mini zine,” a different issue that will be composed of “selfie” photos of celebrities and ASU students.
As for the future of Hard Candy, both editors would love to see it continue after they graduate. They have also tossed around the idea of hosting events and shows once the publication is more established.
“This is our baby. … If there’s someone who wants to take this over once we leave, I would love to see it continue,” Duckworth said. “We have also talked about running it separately with outside funding, but will have to see where we are when the year is up.”
Reach the reporter at kgumpert@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @cat2bekittenmee
