Girl Talk, the teen magazine reviving feminist media
Recent headlines include ‘I’m In Love With My AI,’ ‘Tradwife or Work, Why Not Both?,’ and ‘The Sexualization of Luigi Mangione.’
At a time when TikTok dominates and attention spans seem shorter than ever, a group of teenagers is bucking the trend with long form storytelling. Instead of bite sized, vertical video, they’re instead opting for deep dives into politics, pop culture, and the world around them in ‘Girl Talk,’ a feminist magazine curated by teens from across the country (and around the world) determined to elevate their own voices.
With the gender war playing out both in national politics and high school hallways, these young women have made it their mission to center stories about what it means to grow up female – the messy and the beautiful.
Launched in 2017, their magazine follows a long tradition of teen feminist media, offering a fresh take on the rapidly shifting cultural landscape (a post-Roe, Trump 2.0, digitally exhausted, mental health crisis-ridden reality). Recent headlines include ‘I’m In Love With My AI,’ ‘Tradwife or Work, Why Not Both?,’ ‘iPad Kids and the Second Disappearance of Childhood,’ ‘Why Gen Z Will Not Save the Democratic Party,’ and ‘The Sexualization of Luigi Mangione.’
To learn more, I spoke with five of Girl Talk’s seven editors: Eve Kaplan, Kate Ragatz, Sophie Saxl, Zohar Lindemann, and Colette Chang. (Sabine Fuchs and Emmie Kao are also editors on its masthead). The team includes students from buzzy coastal prep-schools such as New York City’s Fieldston and Dalton, as well as the Cate School and Sacred Heart Preparatory in California.
At a time when youth culture is litigated online, these young women intentionally creating something different. “We don't use social media as our main avenue,” said Kate Ragatz, 17 and a co-editor-in-chief. “We have all these opinions, and they can start out messy, but our goal is to sort of formalize them in a way so it's really a serious and respectable avenue for sharing your opinion. We could have been an advocacy group and just put out some quotes on Instagram to talk about women and feminist ideology, but we sort of are looking to share more nuanced and thorough opinions.”
“We could have been an advocacy group and just put out some quotes on Instagram to talk about women and feminist ideology, but we sort of are looking to share more nuanced and thorough opinions.”
Yet, despite their push for long form storytelling, the reality is that their ability to organize across time zones and continents (they have a staff writer from South Africa) is only really possible because of the digital tools at their disposal. The Girl Talk team relies on WhatsApp chats, Google docs, and an in-person campus chapter model at schools across the country to bring their vision to life. This summer, they’ll take a huge step forward: publishing their first print issue, a physical manifestation of how Gen Z nostalgia is driving a revival of tangible media and analog culture. Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty is providing funds for the inaugural print issue, with the help of creative agency LEITZES&CO.
“There's something super special about being able to disconnect from technology, and when you are reading from a tangible magazine that's on paper, I think in some way, you slow down. In our life with social media right now, with all the really fast media coming at us every three seconds, when you're scrolling on Instagram, you're always on the go and just moving, your brain is moving so quickly. But when you're able to just sit down, leave your phone behind, and just flip through like a magazine… I don't know. I feel like it could be really important for both mental health and also, just taking the time for yourself to read about these issues and hear from all these different voices,” said Colette Chang, who’s 18 and a junior co-editor-in-chief of the magazine.
While so much of Gen Z culture is fleeting, the print issue offers a material demonstration of their work. “I love the idea of someone being able to have the different volumes in their bedroom and flipping back through them and seeing how the work has grown over the course of the academic year,” said Zohar Lindemann, 17 and a junior co-editor-in-chief. “Being able to have that for forever, and as a keepsake, is really special, and it's such a moment in time for all of us.”
That ‘moment in time’ as Lindemann put it, can feel especially complicated for this generation – young women who grew up at the peak of Covid, spent parts of their adolescence social distancing, and yet still can’t yet take action on many of the issues that matter to them the most. It’s part of why Eve Kaplan, 17, and a co-editor-in-chief of the magazine, joined Girl Talk in 2020, when she was in 7th grade. “I wanted to be part of tangible changes, even though I couldn't vote, even though I couldn't be directly involved in politics in the way adults could,” Kaplan explained.
Though Girl Talk’s mission statement doesn’t explicitly define it as a political magazine, the nature of its content often leads it there. “The reason we get so many political articles is because young women feel that so much of their life and their relationship with gender can be determined by an administration and policies,” said Ragatz. As part of their ‘Power’ issue last fall, the magazine endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris.
In my focus groups, listening sessions, and reporting, I’ve found the political gender gap often feels most pronounced in high school settings. Students have told me they see it playing out front and center in their classrooms. The Girl Talk team doesn’t shy away from addressing young people’s gendered world-view head on. “That definitely is something I see playing out in my community,” said Lindemann. “I live in New York City, in a very blue, liberal state. And still, I see all the young, teenage boys of my age are tending to lean more right. That’s the trend.”
“I live in New York City, in a very blue, liberal state. And still, I see all the young, teenage boys of my age are tending to lean more right. That’s the trend.”
“For me, a big underlying factor of this gender gap, specifically in an era of Trump, is a lack of empathy and understanding between men and women. So, yes, Girl Talk is a space where we only welcome female-identifying voices to write and to contribute, because we want to elevate those voices that are so often and currently frankly being sort of suppressed. With that being said though, what’s important is that young men are able to read the pieces. Maybe they're just supporting a friend at their school, and they had no idea that their friend was so passionate about this specific woman's issue, or had this experience (because some of our pieces are more creative). Part of that is trying to reduce the gender gap. Just in giving people more perspective and understanding of how youth women are navigating and experiencing the world,” Ragatz explained.
“What’s important is that young men are able to read the pieces.”
Despite their success, the editors of Girl Talk know that teenage girls’ voices are often dismissed. “Something about teenage girls writing and speaking out is so often dubbed as just annoying or yappy or just going on and on. And yes, teenage girls have a lot of thoughts. But something that I love about Girl Talk is that it doesn't need to be perfectly polished or like this brilliant philosophical idea,” said Sophie Saxl, 17 and a junior co-editor-in-chief. “You can really pursue whatever you want. It’s in the name.”
Girl Talk’s editors are proving Gen Z media is evolving on its own terms. In an era where digital burnout is real and political engagement is more vital than ever, these young women are carving out a space that feels both radical and familiar, just like the feminist teen magazines that came before them.
Noteworthy reads
Gen-Zers are turning to DVDs instead of streaming their favorite movies, Aidan Ryan for The Boston Globe
Young conservative women build an alternative to the manosphere, Max Tani for Semafor
NYU Campus Dispatch: What College Students Are Wearing Today, Seventeen Magazine
A podcast on the culture shift with Trump 2.0
From his inroads with young voters to dominating the manosphere and bromance with Silicon Valley royalty, there’s been a vibe shift with President Donald Trump’s second term. To help us make sense of it all, starting today, my friend Andrew Zucker has a podcast with Politicon examining the biggest stories at the intersection of culture and politics – it’s called ‘The Golden Age,’ and you can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. The first episode, ‘Where MAGA dines out,’ features the man behind Butterworth’s – a new D.C. hotspot for Trumpworld. Make sure to check it out.