” I hear a lot about how intense my book is and I’m like, yeah! It’s intense living in rape culture! But I also hear from scores of people about what my book has meant, how it has made people feel companioned, and that fills my heart.”
Author: Elline Lipkin
Elline Lipkin is a poet, academic and nonfiction writer. Her first book of poems, The Errant Thread, was chosen by Eavan Boland for the Kore Press First Book Award. Her second book, Girls’ Studies, explores contemporary girlhood in the United States. Currently a research scholar with the Center for the Study of Women at UCLA, Elline also teaches poetry for Los Angeles Writing Classes. As a nonfiction writer, she has written about everything from being a feminist bride to female mentorship and influence within the literary world, as well as Barbie’s new body and “fauxpowerment.”
Reckoning and Wrecking
What fascinated me about Claire Dederer’s book, “Love and Trouble,” was the way she tries to reconcile the teenage girl she was with the middle-aged woman she has become.
Breaking Down the Pink Aisle/Blue Aisle Barrier
If you’re still thinking about last-minute shopping, it’s not too late to stop and consider the No Gender December campaign from Australian organization Play Unlimited. While their tagline, “Stereotypes Have No Place Under My Christmas Tree,” presumes everyone is celebrating one holiday this season, their message is one that’s gone global.
Our Dolls, Ourselves
On the Ms. Blog just over four years ago, I wrote about Mattel’s (then) newest and largest doll launch: the Monster High line. Mattel was proudly offering girls dolls that were “different” and that strayed from the look of their long-lasting progeny, Barbie, and her contentious, estranged cousin, the Bratz dolls, (at that time, still […]
GoldieBlox On the Block Again
GoldieBlox, a relatively new toy company whose mission is to entice girls into the field of engineering, is no stranger to controversy. Their previous advertisement quickly went viral and both heartened parents seeking “alternative” toys to what their daughters are more routinely offered, and enraged those who saw the line as capitulating to commercial pressures to […]
Giving Birth to Yourself: “The Doula”
During most major life transitions, there are those who are not at the center but bear witness. While they might go unrecognized, their presence is vital and their perspective often unique. A doula is someone who, by definition, holds such a role. Greek for the word “servant,” a doula supports a laboring mother and her […]
Lessons Learned from Breastfeeding Prof?
Before I had a child, I thought the perennial media issue dogging women was “work and life balance.” Little did I realize how much breastfeeding was another evergreen. When stirred up into discussion of “work and life balance,” it creates a perfect maelstrom. Such as when Adrienne Pine, an assistant professor of anthropology at American […]
Momtroversy: How Feminist Is Attachment Parenting?
About a month ago, in anticipation of starting my son on solid foods I attended a seminar at a parenting support center in Los Angeles. Of course we must make our own baby food, the lecturer began: By chopping, steaming and pureeing (defrosting batch-cooked “food cubes” was eschewed due to potential vitamin loss) we could […]
Click! Hot Lips Houlihan Made Me a Feminist
In the early 1980s I was a suburban girl growing up outside Miami and I knew few mothers who worked. My own mother had quit the nursing job she loved to become a stay-at-home mom, though she still sought hospital news from my doctor dad. The closest I had come to seeing her at work […]
Rescuing Your Daughter From the Princess
If you’ve been within 50 feet of a 4-year-old girl in the past decade, you can’t have escaped the fact that princess is a booming industry. From T-shirts emblazoned with “princess” to the fad for “makeover” parties to “princess potty seats”, there is no shortage of products with a tiara theme offered to girls. In […]