Recent reports have surfaced about the sexual enslavement of women and girls by the so-called Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL), an extremist group that has overtaken territories in Northern Iraq […]
Author: Leslie Absher
Where Do Feminists Fall in the Charlie Hebdo Debate?
Last night, the PEN American Center, a literary and human rights organization, conferred a Freedom of Expression Courage award to Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine that was brutally attacked […]
Where Are All the Women in Ai Weiwei’s New Exhibition?
When I walked into the New Industries Building where the Ai Weiwei @Large exhibit is housed on Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, I was greeted by a giant […]
Forget “The November Man” — Try “Homeland,” “Hunted” or “Haywire” Instead
You don’t have to be a feminist to not like The November Man. You just have to be someone who likes good movies. Even though I grew up watching sexist […]
Why Mamas Write
Outside of a few high-profile writers such as Anne Lamott, women who write explicitly about being a mother risk being seen as lightweight by the literary establishment. Not real writers. […]
Growing Up Queer in San Francisco – Easy, Right?
Just like thousands of queers living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I came here from somewhere else, already out of the closet and already an adult. Because I didn’t […]
A Girl’s Guide to the Chilean Revolution
What price do the families of revolutionaries pay for their loved one’s idealism, and is it worth it? In her memoir, Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary’s Daughter, Carmen Aguirre […]
The Arc of My Mother’s Brow
We called ourselves the Dead Mothers Support Group or DMSG for short. If there was a touch of the macabre in the name, that was okay with us. Losing our […]
Ending the Cold War With My Father
When my father was honored for his 32-year career in the CIA–a career that spanned the Cuban Missile Crisis to the fall of the Berlin Wall–he invited me to the […]