Latest Articles

Sm{art}: Ginger Brooks Takahashi

December 30, 2009 at 4:37pm

I saw Ginger Brooks Takahashi’s work in the art auction for the Lesbian Herstory Archive. Although her work spans illustration, multimedia, wall hangings, and music, the themes of sexuality, gender, and community run throughout. (Rabbits also seem to be a motif).

Whether it’s her involvement with the Mobilivre Bookmobile, where a super cute a 1959 Airstream Overlander...

Transcontinental Disability Choir: Disability in Comics -- A Discussion

by Brandann Hill-Mann

December 30, 2009 at 12:45am

Comics haven't always been a bastion of feminist values, but they have given readers some fairly positive examples of characters with disabilities over the years. I've pulled together a brief list of characters who are more than just tropes meant to teach a Very Special Lesson.

Don't Drop the Birth Control Ball This Year

by Kjerstin Johnson

December 29, 2009 at 3:15pm

Oh the things that make up New Year’s Eve: chintzy eye-glasses, countless top ten lists, nosiemakers…emergency contraception? According to the National Institute for Reproductive Health, sales for emergency contraception more than double in the first days after the New Year. The Back Up Your Birth Control Campaign has made a short vid reminding you that if things don’t go as...

Top Ten Reasons Why This Feminist is a Sports Fan: #2

by Anna Clark

December 29, 2009 at 1:55pm

Only two left in the Top Ten! The #2 reason why I'm a sports fan and a feminist (both! at once! at the same time!) is ...

B-Sides: The Revival

by Kelsey Wallace

December 29, 2009 at 12:16pm

The awesome Detroit MC Invincible (interviewed in The Loud issue) has a brand new documentary out about women in hip hop. From Emergence:

The Revival gives a candid glimpse into the first meeting of legendary Hip-Hop pioneer Roxanne Shante and veteran Philly emcee Bahamadia, as they trade stories of their struggles and triumphs in the industry over their long careers. It also...

Screenshot: The problem with end-of-year lists

by Lisa Schmeiser

December 29, 2009 at 8:19am

When it takes shows explicitly set on other planets, in other universes and in alternate realities to consistently bring us complex female characters not hemmed in by sexist narrative conventions, it is time to take a look at what's going on in shows set on this planet.

Alice Paul: The Votes Are In

by Sara Stroo

December 28, 2009 at 7:46pm

As the year winds down the media stream is inundated with lists of political accomplishments, policy and presidential reviews and all of our hopes for 2010. Amid this maelstrom, I continue to remember that it was still in the last century that women were given the right to participate in the political process by voting and that the coming year's contests of candidates and legislation...

The Transcontinental Disability Choir: A Wizard Did It!

by Anna Pearce

December 28, 2009 at 1:11pm

One of the things that drives me just a little bit up the wall about disability in pop culture is when creators want to have a disabled character, but don’t want that character to have any of the actual consequences of being disabled. This plays out in one of two ways: Either the disability is just there, without any of the attending difficulties, or the disability has...

Screenshot: Is cable TV access is a feminist issue?

by Lisa Schmeiser

December 26, 2009 at 4:28pm

In terms of purely economic issues, a lack of access to cable doesn't seem to be a gendered phenomenon. But does access to cable TV matter in terms of cultural depictions and issues?

The End of 'It Takes a Team': Project That Challenged Homophobia in Sports is Cut

by Anna Clark

December 26, 2009 at 8:03am

The sad news came down just a few weeks ago: It Takes a Team, the pioneering project of the Women's Sports Foundation dedicated to challenging homophobia in sports, has been canceled due to budget cuts. An educational program founded in 1996, It Takes a Team was based on four powerful facts ...