A religious, anti-choice crisis pregnancy center (CPC) has set up shop on the publicly-owned property of Cal Poly Pomona university in California, directly across from a student apartment building. Misleadingly named the “Women’s Pregnancy Center,” the CPC has been there since November, says Jaclyn Lara of student feminist group Female Sexuality Society (FSS), which has […]
Month: April 2010
Newsflash: 12-yr-old Bride Dies from Post-Coital Bleeding
CNN reports that a 12-year-old Yemeni girl died of injuries to her genitals a few days after her arranged marriage to a much older man. The story comes via the United Nations Children’s Fund and the Sisters’ Arab Forum for Human Rights (SAF), a women’s advocacy group in the region that denounces child marriage. The […]
Don’t Be Shamed by “The Weight Talk”
I recently had my annual physical, and I got The Weight Talk for the first time. Luckily, I had come prepared. While driving to the appointment, I even rehearsed in anticipation. When I got The Talk, I responded by saying that I will never count calories. I asked the doctor in earnest why he would […]
Meet the New Kid on the Block: Male Studies
Men’s studies, one of the newest academic disciplines, now has some competition. Get ready for …. male studies? According to Rutgers University professor Lionel Tiger, who cochaired with anti-feminist author Christian Hoff Sommers a symposium at Wagner College in New York to announce the creation of the Foundation for Male Studies, male studies bases its ideas […]
Misogynist 80s Music Video
Sex addiction has gotten a lot of media coverage lately, with VH1’s Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew and celebrities like Jesse James, David Duchovny and Tiger Woods seeking treatment. Psychologists are debating whether sex addiction is a real disease or just an excuse for chronic adultery. Little did we know that the Egyptian Lover’s 1986 ode to sex addiction, […]
Prison Rape. Can It Be Stopped?
“I was sentenced to spend 18 months in prison as punishment for my crime. Rape was not part of that punishment,” said Marilyn Shirley in testimony before the Prison Rape Elimination Commission, established by Congress in 2003. Shirley, a 42-year-old mother and wife, was brutally raped and sodomized by Michael Miller, a senior guard at a federal […]
Watch Out Sarah Palin–You May Get “Foxified”
Even though I wasn’t a supporter of Sarah Palin, she was recently hired at Fox News, and I feel I need to warn her. After all, she’s a brunette who often wears glasses–a breed targeted for extinction in Foxworld. There’s something creepy going on at Fox News, and it’s not just the skewed way they […]
Experiencing Erykah Badu’s “Window Seat”
Folks can’t stop talking about Erykah Badu’s minimalist, one-person-crew video effort for her newest song “Window Seat.” Shot in a single take, guerilla-style, Badu trailed the route of President John F. Kennedy at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, simultaneously shedding all her clothes until she reached the place where Kennedy was shot, then she collapsed to the […]
Suffragists Marched … and Stamped!
Suffragists didn’t stop at postcards to get their message out. By affixing attention-grabbing, oversized stamps on their outgoing mail, suffragists could reach potential voters before a letter was even opened. Many of the stamps called attention to timely issues and events, such as this one announcing a worldwide suffrage convention in 1913. Delegates from 25 […]
Bitter Pie Comix: Not Your Bitch
Self-published zines, pamphlets and comics have a rich history of political and social activism. They provide alternative thinkers with a cheap and easy way to connect with other like-minded people. Although not as widely circulated as national publications, the underground zine and comic network materializes in the form of symposiums, workshops, snail mail correspondences, pot-luck […]