Activism
Mom & Pop Culture: McGender: Unpacking the Happy Meal
I’m not a fan of McDonald’s for a variety of reasons, but beyond their tasty unhealthy food they are a perfect example of how marketing has changed over the years to further push gender stereotypes upon consumers.
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Bringing Up Baby: The Desperate Housewives' Guide to TV's Childbearing Tropes
Welcome to Wisteria Lane, where every neighbor is a potential killer, every friend a potential enemy, and every woman victim to TV’s most overused childbearing tropes. Join me as we take a tour of these tropes—we need not even leave Wisteria Lane.
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HuffPo Shames Victoria's Secret Models For Their Diet, Shames Readers For Not Being Models
When it comes to diet articles—specifically articles about what women eat—I think it’s only natural (if depressing) that we’re interested. And we must be, because stories like this one grace the front pages of tabloids, women’s magazines, and blogs almost daily. We live in a... Read more »
The H-Word: "This is how hookers die."
“Sometimes it was very sexy and sometimes I was attracted to the person and sometimes I had great sex. And sometimes I was just going through the motions and it was neither good nor bad. And sometimes it was really unpleasant and I just got through it.”
TRIGGER WARNING: The following story... Read more »
Mom & Pop Culture: Occupy Sesame Street! How Not To Lose Your Activist Spirit
Fighting for social justice doesn’t need to stop when you give birth. In fact, in my opinion, we should fight even harder if we have to raise a kid or two in this world. Also, by continuing our activism postpartum, we’ll set kick-ass examples for our children. It’s win-win all... Read more »
Bringing Up Baby: 1987's Baby Boom VS. 2010's Life as We Know It
Welcome to the twenty-first century. Are either of these films accurate or comprehensive portrayals of their time? Not even remotely. But they reflect cultural attitudes surrounding women, motherhood, and work, and the putrefied trope of Heigl’s character didn’t exist in 1987. Heigl and... Read more »
The H-Word: "The Pricetag is High."
The H-Word presents first person experiences from sex workers across the country. Here, Liv compares her job as a sugar baby to her perceptions of other forms of sex work.
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The H-Word: Who You Calling a Hooker?
As important as it is for activists to establish sex work as work, it is equally important we acknowledge that not everybody who sells sex calls themselves a sex worker. As the current feminist debates about the Slutwalk march make all too clear, there is power and privilege in reclaiming a word... Read more »
Mom & Pop Culture: Dealing With The Halloween Hangover
Halloween is a time to bust out that creativity, play into the fantasy, and eat a ton of candy. It’s not a time to push adult sexuality or hyped up ideas of ideal bodies onto young kids. I’d rather by scared on Halloween by ghosts and goblins than by thoughts of little kids running amok... Read more »
Bringing Up Baby: An Open Letter to Jon Stewart
Dear Jon,
It is with tenderness, regret, and hope that I pen this proclamation of devotion and disappointment. Our unrequited affair began nine years ago, when I was a freshman at Northwestern University, the very incubator of your colleague Mr. Colbert, who was nevertheless no apple to my eye. “... Read more »
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