Though I agree with Nancy Franklin of the New Yorker that you can’t judge a show by its pilot, I would counter that, in the case of Pan Am, there is quite a bit we can glean from the season opener. Indeed, just as one can gather quite a bit from a book’s cover–is the […]
Month: September 2011
Imagine There’s No Gender: It’s Not Easy, But We Can Try
“Imagine a world without gender.” That’s the directive in the email signature of Judith Lorber, author of Breaking the Bowls: Degendering and Feminist Change. It’s one I find deeply inspiring, but I can already hear the chorus of feminist objections. Let me address some of those from my perspective as a feminist sociologist. Without gender, […]
An Open Letter to Ben and Jerry
Earlier this month, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company announced their latest zany frozen concoction–“Schweddy Balls.” The ice cream is named for a fictional treat from a 1990s Saturday Night Live sketch in which Alec Baldwin played a chef named Pete Schweddy, appearing on a fictional NPR show called “Delicious Dish” to talk about his […]
Feminist Art Does It in Public
The exhibit “Doin’ It in Public: Feminism and Art at The Woman’s Building,” opens tomorrow afternoon, October 1, in Los Angeles (and continues through January 28, 2012). Here’s a remembrance of the famed feminist cultural center from someone who was there: A young woman artist, Jazzmin Meins, entered the large room on roller skates, her […]
This Week in Priest Abuse
As SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) anxiously await news from the International Criminal Court (ICC) on whether they will try Pope Benedict XVI and several top Vatican officials for crimes against humanity for the epidemic of clergy sexual abuse and coverups, new allegations concerning sexual abuse […]
Top 100 Feminist Non-Fiction Countdown: 100-91
Thanks to all the Ms. readers who submitted their choices for the top 100 best feminist non-fiction books! We were thrilled with your enthusiasm, and we’re even more interested in what you think of the final outcome. Today, we begin to roll out the finalists, beginning with 100 through 91. You’ll soon see that it’s […]
Feminists: The FBI Is Listening to You
As our regular readers know, over the past several months Ms. and our publisher, the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF), have been waging a campaign to get the FBI to change the archaic “forcible rape” definition that’s used in the annual Uniform Crime Report (UCR). We teamed up with Change.org in June to help get the word […]
Feminists, We’re Calling You: Support the New Kathleen Hanna Documentary!
Ok, you can find video of Kathleen Hanna singing with her bands all over the web, and she pops up here and there in films, but why hasn’t there actually been a full-length documentary devoted to perhaps the most defining figure of the feminist punk movement? If you’ve been following Kathleen Hanna’s career fervidly over the […]
Melissa Harris-Perry on Shame-Inducing Stereotypes of Black Women
At a time when far too much of the public discourse about black women is either dooming us to eternal spinsterhood or “proving” our unattractiveness through racist pseudoscience, Melissa Harris-Perry’s Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America insists that black women’s feelings and experiences not only matter but also are “inherently political.” Harris-Perry […]
My Story; Our Story
As an immigrant, a woman, a social worker and a professor who teaches about the immigrant experience in the United States, I feel very connected to other immigrants throughout this country on many levels. And so I am keenly aware of the effects of restrictive immigration policies such as HB 87 in Georgia, HB 497 […]