Penn State psychologists assert that career choice begins in utero, hinging on exposure to sex hormones in the womb. Since testosterone damages both verbal and social skills, it simply makes sense that women would seek people-oriented jobs, while testosterone-soaked males would veer toward non-people pursuits like the hard sciences, right? Indeed, the psychologists found that girls exposed […]
Year: 2011
Don’t Ms.: Black Lesbian Poets, Ada Lovelace Day and Much More!
Los Angeles: UCLA’s Department of Women’s Studies is hosting Joan Roughgarden’s talk, “Evolution of Social Behavior: Not the 1970s Anymore.” Hear the Stanford University professor and author of Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and in People as she discusses the way evolutionary principles shape family life and cooperation in the 21st century. […]
Sexed-Up Starfire Doesn’t Sit Well with 7-Year-Old Fan
Dear DC Comics Editors, In response to your new Catwoman and Starfire comics, I’m not going to rant like Comics Alliance (though you need to read that) or Andrew Wheeler (also an excellent read) or Ms. Snarky (you may want to take notes on that one.) Instead I’m going to hand over my forum and let […]
Deck the Hall With Awesome Women
So maybe the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, N.Y., doesn’t have red-carpet glitz or high-tech razzle-dazzle. But every other year, this home-grown organization brings hundreds of people to the little upstate New York village that was once home base for 19th century reformers and is now a bedroom community for nearby Syracuse […]
Top 100 Feminist Non-Fiction Countdown: 70-61
Books 70 to 61 take a darker turn, looking at some of the harsh realities of sexism, homophobia and racism. Here, writers take on rape, colonialism, wage disparities, racist reproductive injustice, and the hidden pre-Roe stories of women who gave up their children for adoption. But to start, two works by heavyweight feminist theorists that […]
Top 100 Feminist Non-Fiction Countdown: 80-71
Two paeans to superheroines add whimsy to choices 80 to 71, which also include a classic ’70s anthology from a notable Ms. editor and our list’s first crack at dissecting the anti-choice movement. We also have a look at Native America traditions, an incisive takedown of reality TV and interviews with a famous sex writer. […]
Leslie Feinberg—Embodying Solidarity
In honor of Queer History Month, Ms. Bloggers will be giving shout-outs to some of their queer heroes of the present and past. Leslie Feinberg has been fighting the fight (or more accurately, fights) for more years than I’ve been on this earth. In that regard, ze is my elder. I use this as a […]
Top 100 Feminist Non-Fiction Countdown: 90-81
In this next batch of books, feminists consider the everyday: how we eat, shop, marry, parent and worship. Is there something sinister lurking behind a young girl’s love of the color pink? Is matrimony in the 21st century all it’s cracked up to be? Our chosen writers have a lot to reconsider, reframe and dismantle. […]
Going Postal, Occupying Wall Street and KKK Analogies: Editors’ Picks, 9/23–10/1
When a woman of color says something you don’t like about politics, naturally her race and gender are to blame. Or so we’d be led to believe by the backlash this week against Melissa Harris-Perry (for those not familiar, an esteemed black feminist scholar, frequent MSNBC commentator and author of an acclaimed new book on the […]
Women Immigrants Have Their Say About Georgia’s HB 87
Claudia is an undocumented immigrant who moved to Georgia from Honduras in 2006. Shortly after arriving, she found herself in an abusive, violent relationship; her husband was able to control her in part by using the threat of deportation. She explained: “I was too scared to call the police. Would they arrest me or the […]