The Making of a Good Girl, by Nikko Snyder

(Editorial, originally published in good girl magazine No. 1, Spring 2001.)

The prospect of trying to sum up the past three months leaves me feeling overwhelmed, so I’ll keep it short and sweet: where good girl comes from, who she is, and what she needs.

A year ago I met with a life altering epiphany, and I trace everything that’s happened since along a very clear path. A doctor’s careless error on a prescription pad, and bam, different life direction. What started as an unplanned appraisal of my physical health has evolved into a completely new understanding of what it is to be a woman. The term ‘health’ has come to encompass not only the physical, but also the mental, emotional, intellectual and political. I realize that I have the opportunity to create my life as a woman on all these levels.

I started reading. Interest has become obsession. I read and read and read, and the information has soaked in and begun to mix and grow and evolve. My fascination with health has gradually expanded to include feminism, technology, globalization..

The more I read the more amazed I become by how much brilliance there is to be accessed. But with my learning has also come a discouragement that I’ve only recently begun to understand. As I’ve opened myself further to new ideas about women’s health, politics, lives and culture, it’s become clearer and clearer that I need more than an American perspective. As someone who has spent her whole life in Canada and has no plans to leave, this is a necessity.

This is not to put down our go-getter Southern neighbours. In fact, I get frustrated that there is so much of everything going on in the States that seems (at first glance) to be lacking in Canada. Where are the smart Canadians? Have they been seduced by American money and opportunities? Have the cold winters dulled our intellects? What about the countless young Canadians who have brains and who are not, as far as I know, planning to defect south?

Happily, upon investigation I now realize that Canadians are having good ideas, and that many are even having them published. But throughout all my research one thing has continued to lack: a representation of myself and my peers, young Canadian women with life experience that is the basis for some pretty frickin’ unique takes on the world. But until good girl I rarely found myself in conservation's about ideas, let alone seeking out a wider circle. I was stuck.

good girl has unstuck me. I am free of cold-weather brain freeze and the ideas are flowing and it’s spring! And I’m not alone, because all these women have appeared like magic and kicked my ass into realizing that there is still so much to say.

I’m that person you know who always gives you the present that they actually wanted to buy for themselves. In fact, usually I just buy one for myself too. In this spirit, this magazine is a gift to myself and to you. Canada has never had a magazine like good girl. But with the support of so many writers and editors and thinkers and challengers (and with a goodly chunk of my own cash well spent) I have made good girl a reality. Unfortunately, while the thinking brains and typing fingers are undoubtedly still there to support good girl, the money is gone. I know that good girl deserves to survive, and I hope that you agree and decide to support her.

I hope what these amazing women have to say makes your wheels turn. And I assure you we have plenty more to say!

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