Culture
Double Rainbow: Asperger's and Girls
In my last post, I critiqued a chapter of Tony Attwood’s The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome. Now I’m taking a look at Asperger’s and Girls, a slim collection of essays in which... Read more »
School's Out: Popular Media and the Gay Teen Martyr
Kids are indeed the future and so they’re also the site of great moral panic. As more kids are skipping the closet, debate rages on about what is appropriate to “expose” young people to—which also raises the question of what is appropriate to acknowledge as already existing in young people... Read more »
The 99%: Mamas with Money and Parents in Poverty
How much does it actually cost to raise children?
You might be thinking about the price of diapers, health insurance, or preschool programs when trying to work out a rough answer. But don’t forget the... Read more »
Adventures in Feministory: Annie "Little Sure Shot" Oakley
Born on August 13, 1860 to Quaker parents Jacob and Susan, Phoebe Ann Mozee early life could not begin to foreshadow the wild adventures she would have. As she grew up, Annie’s penchant for hunting became local legend... Read more »
Double Rainbow: Tony Attwood tells us to "make lemonade."
Well, he tells non-autistic people to make lemonade, specifically. Guess who the “lemons” are in this metaphor.
Popular fiction both shapes and reflects cultural attitudes. In a previous post, I picked... Read more »
Douchebag Decree: Jan Brewer
“Finger wagging” doesn’t really sum up the tense moment on the tarmac: Brewer is using her white privilege to mask her anger, in an attempt to assert power over Obama. The little power play at the Phoenix Airport speaks to the age-old stereotype of black men being seen as a threat to white... Read more »
The 99%: The (Class) Difference Between
Harry and Katniss are very different heroes because they live in very different worlds. But if I had to guess whether most people felt their world more closely resembled the private boarding school with clear-cut lines between good and evil, or the dystopic district with frustrated and... Read more »
Double Rainbow: Autism vs. Asperger Syndrome
There has been disagreement among researchers and diagnosticians about whether the two diagnostic labels really represent distinct conditions since Asperger syndrome first became its own recognized and “official” diagnostic category. There are multiple sets of diagnostic criteria for Asperger... Read more »
The 99%: The (Class) Difference Between
In Harry Potter, then, social class is a way of telling us something about the characters more than the actual lived reality or a source of conflict that it becomes in The Hunger Games. This is because in the wizarding world, power doesn’t come just come from... Read more »
The Sudden Pink War: Making Sense of the Komen/Planned Parenthood Rift
By now, chances are you’ve seen the news that the Susan G. Komen Foundation defunded its support of Planned Parenthood, which it had established in 2005. Pressure for the foundation to stop the support began almost immediately, and the national Susan G. Komen board resisted this... Read more »
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