Author: Arlene McKanic

Muslim Mothers of Invention

I was going to write an essay about the Muslim inventors showcase 1001 Inventions–the big, splashy exhibit at the New York Hall of Science till April–but then there was a massacre in Tucson. Since the attempt on Congresswoman Giffords’ life called to mind the ghastly and vicious intolerance that has come to describe American political […]

A Feminist Look at a Bug’s Life

The bees are all women, Maids and the long royal lady. They have got rid of the men, The blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors. —an excerpt from “Wintering,” by Sylvia Plath As it gets colder, I wonder about the girls I left behind at my house down south. I’m talking about the spiders, the ants, […]

For Colored Girls: The Reviews Are In

The 70’s saw an efflorescence of works by and about African American women, spurred by the overall women’s movement. Black women have always been telling their stories, whether in formal literature–see Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl from 1861 or Ann Petry’s The Street from 1946–or around kitchen tables or in […]