Culture

On the Map: Ella Es El Matador

I’m vegan. I think cruelty to animals is unnecessary and unjust. I don’t eat animals. I don’t wear them. And I don’t kill them for sport. However, Ella Es el Matador isn’t a film about animal rights, and treating it as such... Read more »

Tube Tied: The Decline and Fall of the American Soap Opera

For at least the last thirty years (and probably more) my mom has been a faithful viewer of The Young and the Restless.  For several years in there I was too - my earliest memories involve eating the peel from her apple while watching the show.  Without fail, my mother has taped every episode, even... Read more »

Adventures in Feministory: RIP Doris "Dobby" Brin Walker, progressive lawyer

Doris Walker worked throughout her life protecting and defending leftist causes and activists. She participated as an activist and legal counsel throughout almost every major America progressive social movement in the twentieth century, from denouncing Jim Crow laws and McCarthyism, to being a... Read more »

Bed, Bitch & Beyond: I (Still) Blame Porn: A Response

I opened a big can of feminist worms on Thursday with my post I Blame Porn, In which I talked about how the mainstreaming of mass-produced hetero porn is starting to influence—negatively—the cultural perceptions of what's sexy, particularly among teenagers. I was... Read more »

Rave On: Singer-Songwriter Joan Wasser on Outlaw Culture

“Rave On” is the Page Turner series that asks feminist writers, artists, musicians, activists, leaders, and scholars to talk about a book that completely rocked their world. Today we feature musician and singer-songwriter Joan Wasser, of Joan... Read more »

Beaker Bitch-Women Who Make Money: The Mystery Explained!

The Internet is abuzz this week over a recent study that links high rates of testosterone with choosing risky financial ventures. While the study is an interesting and worthwhile examination of the... Read more »

Bed, Bitch & Beyond: I Blame Porn

Facials, hairlessness, porn stars as role models...is internet porn changing sex for teenagers and twentysomethings? How has the rise of mainstream, accessible porn started fucking with teenage brains, both male and female? Read more »

Douchebag Decree: Who covered Caster Semenya the worst?

South African runner Caster Semenya has been making international news for a week or so now, and this week’s Douchebag Decree is honor of those news outlets and blogs that have handled the blown-out-of-proportion debate over Semenya’s gender the... Read more »

Page Turner: An Interview with Novelist Laurie Halse Anderson

This week we talk with author Laurie Halse Anderson, who’s written five YA novels, including the New York Times best-seller Speak, one of the most compelling depictions of the trauma of the interior space of a teenage sexual assault survivor. Anderson has been getting... Read more »

Beaker Bitch-Snip It Good: U.S. Mulls Making Circumcisions Routine

This isn't a post about feminism specifically, but it is about an item some feminists hold near and dear: penises. The U.S. government's Center for Disease Control (CDC) is considering promoting routine circumcision of all American males. They hope cutting off men's foreskins will also cut their... Read more »

Pages

Hot Under the Bonnet: The Cooptation of Amish Culture in Mass-Market Fiction

Dubbed “Amish romance novels,” “Amish fiction,” or the more waggish “bonnet rippers,” these novels just one entry point into the varying images of Amish communities in U.S. popular culture. Read more »

Game Changer: Why Gaming Culture Allows Abuse... and How We Can Stop It

You're a Bolshevik feminist jewess that hates white people… and you expect to be taken seriously when you're “critique-ing” ...

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Sojourner Truth, Unveiled

The leaders of the [women's suffrage] movement trembled on seeing a tall, gaunt black woman in a gray dress and white turban,...

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No Disrespect: Black Women and the Burden of Respectability

Hollywood still filters (and distorts) the lives and histories of minorities through the eyes of the majority. Read more »