Latest Articles

Adventures in Feministory: Cathay Williams (a.k.a. William Cathay)

September 19, 2011 at 10:40am

Imagine, if you will, that you are living in Missouri at the end of the Civil War (1864 or thereabouts). Imagine also that you are a woman without a ton of moneymaking options who is in need of a job ASAP. Oh, and you are also a recently freed slave living in a place and time where people are still getting used to the idea that you aren’t a piece of property. (And we thought it...

Isn't He Lovely: Bare Down There and Everywhere Else

by Cristen Conger

September 19, 2011 at 10:11am

While mulling over the male quest for muscularity a few posts ago, I brought up the notion of the “sanitized ideal” that has recently become de rigueur for the mainstream masculine body image. We’re talking hair-free, sweat-free, odor-free; in other words, the same unrealistic standards peddled to women for so long, à la leg and underarm shaving. And like the hairless female...

We're All Mad Here: The Dangers of Openly Identifying with Mental Illness

by s.e. smith

September 19, 2011 at 9:49am

Fighting the stigma against mental illness is an ongoing battle, and often an uphill one, as illustrated by many of the posts in this series. Sometimes it seems like we make two strides backward for every stride we take forward in terms of reframing the way people think, talk about, and handle mental illness. A slew of stigma-fighting campaigns have erupted in the last few years; Stamp Out...

Preacher's Daughter: PJ Harvey's Apocalypse Now

by Kristin Rawls

September 19, 2011 at 9:19am

Last week, I wrote about apocalyptic themes and imagery in contemporary music. In closing out that discussion (at least for now), I use PJ Harvey’s February LP, Let England Shake*, as a jumping off point to think about about war as apocalypse. In the album, we encounter a crumbling empire beset by militarism.

Here is the music video for “This Glorious Land” (lyrics...

Bitchtapes: New Music + Artists to Watch!

by Kjerstin Johnson

September 16, 2011 at 1:45pm

For this week's Bitchtapes, I wanted to feature some new artists and some soon-to-be-released (or brand spankin' new) tunes out there from independent labels. Track list after the jump!

Bitch Popaganda: The Cheesy Beefcake Edition

by Kelsey Wallace

September 16, 2011 at 1:24pm

Welcome back to another episode of Bitch Popaganda! Tune in as Mac, Andi, and Kelsey discuss the male objectification in the media, Fox’s The New Girl, and the obsolescence of Miss Universe (and beauty pageants in general). Plus, Bitch faves!

Transcript here.

Isn't He Lovely: It's Boom Time for Male Skin Bleaching

by Cristen Conger

September 16, 2011 at 11:32am

While we might scoff at the spray-tanned guys of “Jersey Shore” and their year-round pursuit of bronze, skin lightening isn’t so easy to laugh off. First, skin lightening is far more globally and culturally pervasive than tanning, with pressure to lighten being highest for those of Asian, Latino, and African ethnicities. For instance, baseball star and native Dominican Sammy Sosa...

We

by Anna Pearce

September 16, 2011 at 10:53am

Many characters on television are explicitly mentally ill, and they come in a wide range of presentations. Television as a medium provides a unique opportunity for long, complex character arcs, which can be good when a show wants to take mental health seriously and really explore characters and their development. It can also be very, very bad, when a show doesn’t do the research...

Preacher's Daughter: Love in the Time of Apocalypse

by Kristin Rawls

September 16, 2011 at 10:34am

I agree that apocalyptic imagery has figured prominently in the public imagination in 2011 in part as a result of the anxieties of this moment in time. Nowhere has this been more evident than in songs about love, in which said love is either a distraction from or metaphor for the end times. First, let’s take a look at Aussie singer, Lenka’s “At the End of the World (lyrics here):...

Douchebag Decree: Michele Bachmann and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad HPV Vaccine

by Mac Pogue

September 15, 2011 at 5:59pm

Sometimes it seems futile to try and separate the wheat from the douche from week to week in politics. You just want to give up. I mean why even bother? But persevere, everyone, because this week we really got one. We found someone who’s douchetastic, factually inaccurate intrusion into women’s health actually made Rick Perry look reasonable. Her flagrant douchery even...