As CeCe McDonald lingers in jail for being a Black transwoman who defended herself in a public space, and Kelley Williams-Bolar is convicted of a felony for sending her children to a higher-ranked Ohio school district in which she did not reside, it’s time to read Beth E. Richie’s Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence and […]
Author: Erica Meiners
JD Samson Talks about MEN and All-Gendered Bodies
Fresh from the Coachella music festival, where she played songs from her debut album with the trio MEN, Talk About Body, JD Samson is back in New York, and it is her first conversation of the day. Formerly of the fabulous Le Tigre, now part of the electric and eminently danceable MEN (with Michael O’Neill […]
Working Teachers Don’t Need a Superman
Waiting for Superman, the latest education documentary offering the fix for failing schools, hyped by MTV, Oprah and Time magazine, will be released to select theaters today. Director Davis Guggenheim wants Waiting to do for education what his previous documentary An Inconvenient Truth, did for global warming: to “spread responsibility among ‘all the adults’ for […]
Still Laboring for Justice
Corporations are individuals–but women just might not count as a class of people. Especially if these million-plus women have worked for Walmart, the largest employer in the world. The discount retailing behemoth has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether those women can file a class-action suit against it; four lower courts have already said […]
O Canada: Pay Heed to Tough-on-Crime Policies, Not the National Anthem!
Days after the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, mentioned in his Throne Speech (yes, in Canada that is what it is called) that his government would ask Parliament to potentially change the English version of the national anthem to be gender-neutral–specifically the “all thy sons command” line– this idea was scuttled due to overwhelming […]
This Canadian American Mourns the Public Option
Evidence continues to mount about the failures of the U.S. system of health care. Illness and medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy. Even with approximately 45.7 million uninsured, we spend far more on healthcare (and get less) than nations with universal healthcare. For women the reports are even bleaker, especially if you’re older or not white.
No Olympics Gold for Gender
The Olympics offer us opportunities to see inequities, stereotypes and garden-variety homophobia, misogyny and white supremacy.