Culture

Isn’t He Lovely: Do These Blue Jeans Make My Butt Look Gay?

The type of jeans a man slips on nevertheless seems to say a lot about how he projects his masculinity and sexuality. Read more »

B-Sides: Colleen Raney

Call me old-fashioned, but I think most of the best voices in the world come out of folk singers. Maybe that’s just because you can actually HEAR the singing,... Read more »

The H-Word: Reflections on Sex, Power, and Speaking the Truth

This weekend Sex, Power and Speaking the Truth: Anita Hill 20 Years Later convened to discuss women’s ability speak up against gender inequality and abuses of power, with a focus on the intersectionality of race, class and gender in defining a... Read more »

Isn't He Lovely: Male Body Image Standards Are "Virtually Non-Existent." Q&A with Yashar Ali

Yashar Ali is the founder of The Current Conscience, which examines “politics and the personal, culture and relationship” from a progressive, feminist viewpoint. Particularly after... Read more »

Bringing Up Baby: Motherhood as the Dream Deferred

Last month, New York Magazine published a cover story entitled “Parents of a Certain Age: Is there anything wrong with being 53 and pregnant?” The title invites the reader to answer the question with a “yes” or a “no.” The author, veteran journalist Lisa Miller, says “no,” yet the... Read more »

Preacher's Daughter: Evangelical Wedding Songs: Wifely Submission and the Cult of Biblical Womanhood*

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons After she read my last post... Read more »

On Our Radar

So many links, so little time. At Clutch, Drew-Shane Daniels asks, “Why Won’t TV Networks Let Black Actors Be Great?African Sexualities: A Reader,... Read more »

Bitchtapes: Sibling Solidarity Mix

My sisters and I grew up listening to tons of great music together (Hannah is already on her way to being a famous guitarist and singer at 17!). So it was an obvious choice for us to get together and do a Bitchtapes when our sister, Jesse, came to visit us from Austin. What better topic than songs... Read more »

Preacher's Daughter: Anti-Feminism in the Music of the Christian Right

I have a confession to make. I was raised in an evangelical Christian home, and when I was much much younger… I was a fan of contemporary Christian music (CCM). Oh, yes. I reailzed just how much of an affront to music it is almost half of my life ago, but lately, I’ve been thinking... Read more »

Pages

Saying Goodbye to Maria and the End of a Sesame Street Era

Growing up, Sesame Street's Maria was one of the best Latina role models I had. Read more »

Where My Girls At: Meet Two of Ferguson's Black Queer Activists

Amid national discussions of police brutality and systemic racism, Black women have been the loudest and most consistent voices demanding change. Read more »

Black Girls Hunger for Heroes, Too: A Black Feminist Conversation on Fantasy Fiction for Teens

What happens when two great black women fiction writers get together to talk about race in young adult literature? That's exactly what happens... Read more »

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 »