Home › Articles › history

Curses and Kitchens: “Jell-O Girls” Looks at the Secret, Sexist History of America’s Classic Dessert

black and white photo of Jell-O Girls author Allie Rowbottom staring directly at the camera
by Sara Rauch
August 9, 2018 at 9:00am
“Jell-O Girls” is at once a memoir, a family history, and an overview of the domestication (and dissolution) of the American kitchen.
Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau in American Horror Story: Coven

Flaunting Freedom: The History of Louisiana’s 18th-Century Tignon Laws

by Princess Gabbara
July 23, 2018 at 2:40pm
We cannot discount how enslaved Black women used dress as a form of resistance. Read more »
Ida B. Wells in 1893

Light of Truth: Ida B. Wells Enters the Very White, Very Male Statue Game

by Jordan McDonald
July 23, 2018 at 1:25pm
Can we reimagine public remembrance as a community-funded endeavor? Read more »

Electric Dirt: Queer Appalachia Is Redefining Southern Identity

by Kristina Gaddy
July 17, 2018 at 2:39pm
The collective is promoting art, activism, and culture in the South while building queer community. Read more »

On Our Radar—Feminist News Roundup: The Fourth of July

by Bitch HQ
July 4, 2018 at 6:00am
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” —Frederick Douglass Read more »
The Sally Hemings exhibit at Monticello

Gambling for Freedom: Crafting Sally Hemings’s Complicated Legacy

by Jenn Jackson
July 3, 2018 at 11:28am
Monticello is recognizing the slave girl who was raped by her master. Read more »

On Our Radar—Feminist News Roundup: Congrats to Cardi B!

by Bitch HQ
July 3, 2018 at 6:00am
The reigning queen of summer hits. Read more »

On Our Radar—Feminist News Roundup: Damaging to Kids

by Bitch HQ
June 21, 2018 at 6:00am
It isn’t just a trauma—it’s a traumatic event that breaks the relationship that helps children cope with other traumas. Read more »

On Our Radar—Feminist News Roundup: Your Juneteenth Reading List

by Bitch HQ
June 20, 2018 at 6:00am
These stories explain both the fraught history of the holiday and the need for celebration. Read more »
Anthony Gonzalez as Miguel in Disney-Pixar's Coco

On Our Radar—Feminist News Roundup: "Coco" & This Horrible Moment

by Bitch HQ
June 19, 2018 at 6:00am
“Coco is a movie about borders more than anything—the beauty in their porousness, the absolute pain produced when a border locks you away from your family.” Read more »

White Whine: The Past that Incels Long For Never Existed

by Ann Foster
June 11, 2018 at 3:16pm
The men who romanticize a period of time in which women and people of color were kept “in their place” have been raised by those who enjoyed the privileges of whiteness. Read more »

Pages

Best of Bitch

In a Bizarre 1976 Comic Book, Spider-Man Fought the Villain of Misleading Sex Education

by Sarah Mirk
April 23, 2014 at 3:52pm
Last week, I came across a very strange comic book: in 1976, Planned Parenthood teamed up with Marvel to publish a one-off comic in which... 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 »

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 »

The Forgotten History of the Women Who Shaped Modern Advertising

by Ciara Lavelle
April 16, 2015 at 1:29pm
Long before Peggy Olson fought to be a copywriter on Mad Men, women were pioneering advertisers in the new age of mass media.... Read more »