To our dear readers, 

 

Welcome to this first, special issue of CRUSH! 

 

CRUSH! is a magazine made by four young women who participate in the amazing Cultural Diversity-minor at Willem De Kooning Academy, based in the equally amazing, diverse city that is Rotterdam. 

 

A long time ago, the four of us were teenagers--teenagers that spent a lot of time reading a lot of magazines aimed at teenage girls. Those magazines were focused on how to get the boy and how to be physically attractive, learning us what body language to use when you’re on a date with a boy and teaching us that you need a new wardrobe every season with clothes made in totally unfair circumstances. 

 

Back then, we didn’t realize how harmful those ideas were, eating it up like it is a great candy bar instead of thinking critically about it and wondering why every month, we would have new tips and tricks on how to get the attention of a random guy in your English-class by using our physical attributes and why the F that is so important.     

Now, as young women that are more informed and have become more critical, we realize how strange those ideas really are, how harmful they really are. We wish those magazines we loved so much, focused on things that actually matter. We wish we had learnt about issues like racism, sexism and capitalism. We wish we had magazines that weren’t so focused on boys and relationships because not all girls are into boys romantically and not all girls are interested in relationships, especially at that age. We wish we had magazines that empowered us in ways that aren’t so superficial and instead, focused on strength and intelligence. 

 

And like that, your new CRUSH! was born.

CRUSH! is for you--a new generation of teenage girls/teenagers thatidentify as girls. CRUSH! is here to crush norms, expectations, the patriarchy, limits set for girls like you, stereotypes, capitalism and so much more! CRUSH! is a magazine that wants to show you there are more important things in life than the new ZARA-collection and getting your crush’s (pun not intended) attention, that there are more important role models than the Kardashians, that being pretty isn’t all there is in life. 

 

CRUSH! wants to give you something we never had, something we would’ve liked to fall back on when we were teenagers ourselves, something we needed whilst growing up. 

 

We genuinely hope you’ll be as excited about CRUSH! as we are and finish reading this issue feeling inspired and empowered.

Love,

the CRUSH!-team