Over Winter Break, twins Alessandra Allen ’16 and Adrienne Allen ’16 imagined founding a feminist magazine on campus. Before the pair had even thought of a name, they pitched their idea to other girls and female faculty on campus. The immediate responses were very supportive, and “BOSS Magazine” was born.
Alessandra Allen said that the strong enthusiasm of the publication’s initial supporters showed her that there would be no shortage of interest in the endeavor. “[‘BOSS Magazine’] is not born of a need. It’s born of a complete enthusiasm for these issues and these people and this community,” she said.
The magazine is divided into seven sections: Campus Politics, Monthly Spread, Health, Art, Recommendations, Respect and Slice of Life. Each of these sections aims to discuss feminism through a different lens.
“[The goal is] to be a resource… for girls and all feminists on campus that look at campus through the lens of intersectionality and feminism [in a way] that everyone can appreciate and go to and be heard,” said Alessandra Allen.
Campus Politics is an opinion section that deals with feminist issues, especially those specific to Andover. In a similar fashion, the Monthly Spread section consists of opinion articles, all of which are dedicated to one particular theme.
The Art section presents various forms of art, ranging from photography and paintings to poetry and prose, while Recommendations offers suggestions for feminist literature, movies and TV shows.
Health features more factual articles that are meant to inform the community about various health resources available on campus. The section also discusses topics that may have been left out of the Andover curriculum.
Lara Guvelioglu ’16, Copy Editor for the Health section, said, “We realized that the sex-ed pieces that we do in class don’t necessarily focus on [certain topics]… They try to educate us, but with the time limit and the classes being too crowded, it doesn’t always reach what it was meant to be, so we wanted to start that [section].”
The Respect section highlights influential women, students and faculty. In the first edition, “BOSS Magazine” will feature Rebecca Somer ’15, Student Body Co-President, and Sara Luzuriaga ’16, Editor in Chief of The Phillipian, vol. CXXXVIII. Slice of Life acts as the humor section of the magazine. While the section still focuses on important issues, Slice of Life will approach the topics from a humorous perspective.
Alessandra Allen said, “I’m hoping that [Slice of Life] will grow into it’s own life. I don’t want people to read ‘BOSS’ only for that section, but I feel like it has a lot of potential as just a positive conversation and a way to approach topics on campus with a smile.”
“BOSS Magazine” is currently focused on publishing the first edition of the magazine as well as writing a second edition to publish by the end of the school year. Once the magazine gets on its feet, Alessandra Allen hopes to publish one edition every month.
“Everything is organic. If someone writes something funny, they can just submit it, and it’s not just generated by the editors. Right now we’ve been having to generate a lot by the editors, but we’re hoping that it will become more organic and submission-based later on,” she said.
Over the summer, Alessandra Allen plans to create a website for “BOSS Magazine” that would focus on including alumni in the conversations surrounding feminism on campus.
