Culture

Internet Crush: My Body Gallery

While we might know full well that in real life being 5’4” and weighing 180 pounds doesn’t look the same on one person as it does the next, it can be difficult not to internalize those numbers and let them mean more than they should. That’s where... Read more »

Visi(bi)lity: Biphobia Bingo! A Look at Basic Instinct

Full disclosure: I love Paul Verhoeven’s movies. I’m a fan of RoboCop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers…and, yes, even Showgirls. (Stay tuned for more about Showgirls later in this series.) These movies may not be cinematic masterpieces... Read more »

Political Fictions: Power Corrupts Women Like Whoa

There aren’t all that many fictional depictions of women in politics, at least compared with fictional portrayals of women in domestic service, women in trouble with the law, women in the porn industry, and women in some stage of being attacked and killed by a psychopath. Parsing through... Read more »

"Become a Porn Actress": Sasha Grey's Equal Pay Day PSA Misses the Point

March 20 is Equal Pay Day in Belgium, and to draw attention to the country’s 22% wage gap for women, zij-kant (a women’s group organizing the equal pay efforts) has launched an awareness video and... Read more »

School's Out: Giving Our Schools Some Homework

I just read an article in the most recent Curve magazine issue (which was themed around the concept of lesbian families) called “Back to School: How to Choose an LGBT-positive school for your child.” This article was mostly written... Read more »

Visi(bi)lity: Cynthia Nixon and the Politics of Labels

As I’ve read through the comments on my first two posts (thank you for those, by the way!), I’ve noticed an interesting trend that relates to what I want to talk about today: A lot of folks seem to have mixed feelings about the word “bisexual.” Some are uncomfortable using it because of... Read more »

Political Fictions: The Personal (Life) is Political

It’s something of an understatement to say that politicians have spent a lot of legislative and stump speech time this year talking about women. More specifically, about women’s personal lives. If anyone thought that we’d hear about jobs and the economy, or the pressing need to... Read more »

Visi(bi)lity: Bi the Way and the Realities of Bisexuality

In 2005, Brittany Blockman and Josephine Decker took a road trip across the United States and interviewed people about bisexuality. The result of their project was a documentary film: Bi the Way. In order to understand the fictional images of bisexuality that fill our cinema and television... Read more »

School's Out: Science is Not an Exact Science

This conception of empiricism—what it means to do “good,” “reliable,” and “valid” science—constrains what work can be done in the future. The exclusions “necessitated” by these models of research aren’t an accident either—broadly speaking, the conception of rationalism underpinning the... Read more »

Sm{art}: Translady Fanzine

Translady Fanzine is a fine art photographic periodical, that in its first issue, features high-gloss portraits of video and performance artist Zackary Drucker. Amos... Read more »

Pages

Oh Joy Sex Toy: How I Realized I'm Asexual

Artist Kiku H shares her personal experiences learning what it means to be asexual. Read more »

Ms. Opinionated: I'm a Man. How Can I Help the Feminist Movement?

Welcome to Ms. Opinionated, our weekly advice column dealing with questions of life, love, feminism, and pop culture. This week, a reader... Read more »

Eat, Pray, Spend: Priv-Lit and the New, Enlightened American Dream

Even as reports on joblessness, economic recovery, and home foreclosures suggest that no one is immune to risk during this recession, the popularity of women’s wellness media has persisted and, indeed, grown stronger.  Read more »

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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