On Tuesday, Mother Jones released an audio recording of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) speaking with members of his reelection staff. Much of the conversation focused on actor Ashley Judd, who, until recently, was rumored to be mulling a run against the current Senate GOP leader. For the most part, the recording is typical opposition research. [...]
My son was born in November and, like most parents, questions about his future ran through my mind: Who would he love? What would he do? How long would his head be the shape of a traffic cone? There was one question that never traveled through my mind in those first few weeks: How do [...]
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Global Fund for Women’s event “Resist, Reclaim, Restore,” which featured a conversation between Kavita Ramdas, the former president and CEO of the GFW, and Chilean-American author Isabel Allende. The GFW’s progressive approach to empowering women attracted a diverse set of women who gathered that evening in [...]
“Man up,” “Get your man-pants on,” and “Whore.” These are some of the finer examples of sexist rhetoric that infiltrated the midterm elections. Though the media dubiously declared this political season the “Year of the Woman,” the midterms seemed to be a tipping point for public declarations and acceptance of sexism. The disturbing language wasn’t [...]
When Craigslist shuttered the doors of their adult services section, the feminist blogosphere was divided: Was it a victory for anti-sex trafficking campaigns or a setback for sex worker activists? Regardless of their particular disagreements over the services provided by Craigslist’s adult section, most agreed that the deletion of the section would not stop the [...]
Katy Perry’s California Gurls is, without doubt, the it pop-song of the summer. It’s everything a summer pop song should be–sweet and easy to digest. The accompanying video lays bare, well, both Perry and the candy-like nature of her pop. Directed by Matthew Cullen, the video features Perry in a literal Candyland (called Candyfornia), lying nude on [...]
When I sat down last week to start my post about the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, I was initially going to contest the criticism that Mockingbird has recently endured. But in the midst of my research—rereading Malcolm Gladwell’s critique, Allen Barra’s dismissal of Lee’s book and Jenna [...]
A 50-something rock n’ roller with a 20-something girlfriend hanging off his arm: You know the scene, it’s as old as Keith Richards. But what if we invert it? How about a 50-something rock n’ roller with a 20-something boyfriend hanging off her arm? Cue Chrissie Hynde. In her first full album without the Pretenders, [...]
Élisabeth Badinter’s new book, Le Conflit: la femme et la mère (Conflict: the woman and the mother) is causing quite a stir on the European continent. Badinter, a French feminist and philosophy professor at the prestigious École Polytechnique, is no stranger to controversy. In her previous book, Fausse route (Wrong Way), she blamed American feminists Andrea Dworkin [...]
It’s true that Supreme Court confirmation hearings can be vacuous and hollow, as Elena Kagan herself suggested in 1995. In recent decades, they seem little more than an opportunity for partisan posturing; some have suggested we just cancel the whole thing. But while confirmation hearings tell us little about the nominees, they do reflect the [...]
