Dyann, and her niece - a feminist in the making.

In 1992, in a tiny dorm room at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Dyann Logwood and her good friends Ophira and Tali Edut, decided they had had it up to their ears with the way women's magazines made them feel unattractive, worthless and as if they didn't measure up or even exist. Being "African American and Israeli-American, short, thick chicks," it may come as no surprise to you that these women felt completely excluded from representations of women in the media. Right then and there they embarked on creating their idea of the perfect women's magazine. They wanted to put something out there that would speak to women of all shapes, sizes, cultures and backgrounds. The idea was to stress diversity, strength and self-awareness. They decided to take back the world of women's magazines, redefine it for themselves and invite anyone else who was as fed up as they were, to join them in their effort, and that's exactly what they did.

HUES (Hear Us Emerging Sisters): A Woman's Guide to Power and Attitude, was published from 1992 - 1999, starting out as a homemade zine the women passed out around campus and eventually evolving into a full-color glossy magazine with a national readership of over 25,000 people. The magazine survived on the sweat and soul of these women for five years until their publisher gave it the axe when it became clear they could not afford to keep HUES afloat any longer. Although HUES did not survive into the new millennium, the spirit, drive and ambition of its co-founders is alive and well.

I recently sat down with Dyann in her office at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI where she now teaches Women's Studies to talk about her experience with HUES, as well as her life after HUES and her thoughts on the state of women's magazines and feminism today.

Liz: When you created HUES magazine, it was in response to mainstream women's magazines, however HUES had a similar look, style-wise, as the very magazines you rejected. What was your motive in doing this and did you feel that it compromised your message at all?

Dyann: It was a way of drawing people in. Our look was similar to the mainstream magazines, but of course we had more than one woman on the cover and they were all from different ethnic backgrounds and it wasn't contrived, you know, the women looked like they knew each other because they weren't models. They were like every day girls kinda hangin' out. We wanted to look professional because we started off as a zine, as something that was very underground, everyone volunteering, even till the end. It was important for us as writers, as publishers, to put something out there representing women from different backgrounds that looked like something those women would want to pick up. So, yeah it was a hook, to get people in.

Liz: You subtitled the magazine "A Woman's Guide to Power and Attitude." Why? What did you mean by power?

Dyann: When we sat down, it was like inner power that we were trying to achieve and trying to defeat the voices within that said, well, maybe I can't do it, or maybe I'm not as smart as, or maybe I shouldn't take risks, or maybe I need to be more focused on what I look like as opposed to what I think and feel. So we wanted to defeat all of those inner voices and outer influences that make women feel disempowered. So I think that's why we said "A Woman's Guide to Power and Attitude," because once you get power, your attitude changes about yourself, about the people around you, about everything you hope and dream and could ever even imagine you could be. Not what you think you could be but going beyond that; that's what we were talkin' about.

Liz: So then how do you feel about women who voluntarily participate in the type of magazines you were trying to counteract?

Dyann: Hmmm, well one perspective that is out there is that women should be happy that there are all these women who have the opportunity to make money by participating in the media and I guess, at the base, OK, I can see their point, but if you are wanting to see things change for women, then why promote stereotypical views of women? Why feed into that? And I think that things won't change until we stop feeding into the machine.

Liz: Are there any women's magazines out there right now that you like and support?

Dyann: I like Bust. I like...Mother Jones is radical. I like Bitch. I even like Ms. I do like the fact that Ms. takes international women's issues very seriously. A lot of things are happening to women in other countries that I would never know about unless I picked up Ms. It's good for knowing what is going on in the government; to know what I should vote for, to know the legislation that is out there that is affecting us.

Liz: It seems though that magazines like Bitch and Bust are putting a feminist spin on pop culture. If, as many feminists would propose, the ultimate goal of feminism is to eventually dismantle patriarchy, then is upholding the standards of a pop culture created by patriarchy and capitalism really feminist, or do you think it's somewhat counterproductive?

Dyann: Right, I totally agree, but the sad thing is that in order to grab a particular audience, you have to look a certain way because that's what this culture is like. And I think that maybe those publications have to give a little bit in order to grab just a few of those people cuz other than that, you're preachin' to the choir. And the publications that maintain their own selfhood, it's hard for them to maintain funding. They've got their loyal subscribers, like we did with HUES, but then you want to, in order to stay afloat, broaden your scope. Like HUES wouldn't take alcohol adds, cigarette adds, or diet pill adds and that's one of the reasons why we had to sell it. And people were like, can't you just sell out a little bit? And we were like, that would defeat the purpose. So we decided to let her go and give our baby up for adoption...and that was a tough choice. But the alternative was to sell out and we just couldn't.

Liz: Currently you are a professor of African American Studies and Women's Studies at two major universities in Michigan so you are in touch with the younger generation of feminists just coming up into the movement. What do you hear are their biggest issues and concerns?

Dyann: Violence seems to be a major destructive issue for a lot of my students. Girls are dealing with violent households, issues of incest, not feeling protected, being harassed on the street. So it's an overwhelming feeling of not being safe. Also too, there is a lot of internalized sexism, whereby, nowadays, a lot of violence is coming from other women and other girls. It is very frightening because there is so much sexism that women and girls feel like they must turn on each other because, to me, I think that they feel they aren't being heard when they try to stand up against the men, so who do you fight? The person closest to you. I see violence and women's health as major issues now and in the future. And it's going to take us dealing with them on the local level as well as the state and federal government levels, because it's a political thing too. If all the women have bad health and all the women are afraid, it keeps us from voting. It keeps us from caring, being active and being part of organizations because of course we hate ourselves, so we hate other women. I think it is a very powerful tool that the patriarchal system has used in this country and abroad to keep groups at a subordinate level by convincing them to hate each other. You know, I teach African American Studies and I say, what the system has been very good at doing is making black folks hate black people and it is very obvious. If we're shootin' each other, we hate each other. If we're selling each other drugs, we hate each other. And the dominant culture is looking at us and saying; We don't have to do anything! They hate each other! And so if the people in power convince women to hate each other, they can just sit back and watch us fight. Which is what I think is going on right now. All the competition, making ourselves look better. It isn't for men, it's to look better than other women and we're all feeding into it. The task we now have for feminists and anyone who is pro-woman is to fight against the ideology of self-hate. To recognize that we are being used to bring down the sisterhood. To realize that we can fight the power and create change, now that we know we know the truth. The truth of the matter is that women are not the enemy; we are our best and closest allies. What would this world look like if all oppressed groups realized who their allies are? Can I see a government that truly represents the total population? Can I see a female president? Can I see more female CEO's and Rabbi's and Priests? Yes, that is what this world would look like if we all were aware of the game that is being played at our expense. The struggle continues.

Dyann Logwood is currently a professor of African American Studies and Women's Studies at Eastern Michigan University and Wayne State University. In addition to teaching, Dyann does public speaking engagements, motivational and body image workshops, writes essays and poetry, participates in community activism and mentors students and other people in her community.