history

Avenging Eve: The Death of Eden and the Birth of Patriarchy

photo of a fat Black woman covered in gold foil pieces, wearing purple lacy panties, while holding up an apple, surrounded by flowers and foliage.
by McKenzie Schwark
March 2, 2021 at 10:15am
The biblical origin story teaches us that the woman who dares disobey God is the monster.
Luciano Garbati’s Medusa With The Head of Perseus is a naked gold statue with long snake-like hair holding a gold man's head

Monstrous Men: The Medusa #MeToo Monument Has an Oedipal Complex

by Erin Thompson
October 30, 2020 at 11:28am
The statue embodies is the long historical pattern in which male competition plays out in the exploitation of female suffering. Read more »
Megan Campisi, a white author with long, gray hair, smiles for the camera

Eating the Poison: “Sin Eater” Turns Shame into a Superpower

by Evette Dionne
May 27, 2020 at 10:38am
The most important thing is what you think of yourself, even if you’re in a terrible situation; that kind of self-worth is where everything else begins. Read more »
a feminine person wearing an orange dress looks through an open hole in rocks at the ocean

Mixtape to My Heart: Music as a Function of Vietnamese Memory

by Kim-Anh Schreiber
April 20, 2020 at 9:55am
Music needs minds and media to carry it, but it doesn’t need bags. Music can’t sink boats. Read more »
Portrait illustration of Lucy Parsons with a partially erased face and a fragmented shadow in the background

Lip Service: Lucy Parsons’s Revolution Was Beautified

by Kim Kelly
March 6, 2020 at 9:00am
Desirability politics, social capital, and lookism remain present in even the most conscious radical spaces. Read more »
Rachel Vorona Cote, author of "Too Much," sits with her hands on her chin wearing a black shirt and glasses.

Corseted Up: Victorian Ideals Are Still Binding up Women

by Rachel Klein
February 24, 2020 at 6:33am
A woman who meets the world with intensity is a woman who endures lashes of shame and disapproval. Read more »
Author Nina MacLaughlin, a white woman with shoulder-length brown hair, smiles for the camera

Siren Songs: Nina MacLaughlin on Revisiting the Women of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”

by Jessica Jernigan
November 19, 2019 at 11:47am
In Wake, Siren, Ovid’s women emerge as unique individuals, fully formed and very often full of anger. Read more »
a group of witches dance together in a black and white photo

Binding Harm: Generations of Witches Intertwine Rituals and Activism

by Jessica Jernigan
November 18, 2019 at 12:20pm
To be a witch is to have and to exercise agency on behalf of all. Read more »
weathered painting of a large tree hung with penises and surrounded by women

Dicks in a Box: The Enduring Fear of Penis-Snatching Witches

by Noa Azulai
October 30, 2019 at 10:57am
Castration anxiety is the unidentified main character in fantastical stories about penis-stealing witches. Read more »
two white women in Vita and Virginia stand in a room together as one takes the other one's shirt off

Finite Love: What Lesbian Period Dramas Lose When We Project Our Fears on Them

by Rachel Vorona Cote
October 24, 2019 at 2:32pm
Films and television series featuring queer characters are still relatively scarce. Read more »
Joy Healy, a white, blond, thin woman sits on top of a missile while wearing a bikini

Weapons of Mass Distraction: The Bikini Turned Sexuality into a Threat

by Marlen Komar
August 27, 2019 at 3:03pm
From the moment it debuted, the bikini was a scandal. Read more »

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Best of Bitch

Sojourner Truth, Unveiled

by Deesha Philyaw
April 29, 2009 at 2:58pm

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

Read more »

It’s Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women

A transgender woman in business attire in an office looking to the side
by Tina Vasquez
May 20, 2016 at 11:28am
To imply that trans women pose a threat to cisgender women in restrooms is misinformation that preys on unfounded fears. Read more »

The Forgotten History of the Women Who Shaped Modern Advertising

a white woman smoking a cigarette walks through an office with a box
by Ciara Lavelle
March 21, 2019 at 9:00am
It's easy to dismiss advertising as an anti-feminist industry. Read more »

It's Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women

by Tina Vasquez
February 17, 2014 at 1:26pm
The marginalization of transgender women in feminism is not new, but the decades-long debate has taken on new dimension thanks to social media and the ease of finding strangers’ personal information online. Read more »