We spoke with three of Versailles’ female leads about women in 17th century France and strong female characters.
Author: Emma Watson
Emma Watson is an editorial intern at Ms. and a rising senior at Smith College, where she studies English literature and neuroscience and works as a peer writing tutor. She has a zeal for fiction, through which she engages with queer and feminist issues. Emma spends her free time listening to sea ballads and writing peculiar YA fantasy novels.
Q&A: Author Frances Hardinge on Writing Stories that Speak for Freedom
“Most of my main characters do eventually choose to make a stand or follow their consciences. I guess at heart I’m an optimist. I believe that we can all make the jump.”
When It Comes to Body Hair, the Personal is (Still) Political
Failing to wear a bra is widely considered a stunt “designed” to attract men’s sexual attentions—while failing to shave may be considered purposefully off-putting and rebelliously, aggressively feminist. But unless one considers rebellious feminism a hallmark of the effort to attract male attention (hint: it’s not), these juxtaposed interpretations don’t make any sense at all.
10 Women Who Made Olympic History in Rio
65 new Olympic and 19 world records set at the 2016 Games. Many of those new records – as well as some Olympic firsts — were achieved by women.
Activists Are Calling for Fox News to Take Action Against Sexual Harassment
A new petition calls for the release of the findings of a recent internal review of sexual harassment claims against Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes.
This Calculator Does the Math on the Wage Gap—But the Solutions Aren’t As Simple
The Gender Wage Gap Calculator was created to raise awareness of pay inequity. But awareness can only be the first step.
Record Numbers of LGBT Olympic Athletes Compete in a Troubled Brazil
The Rio Olympics represent a strange contradiction: Thanks to increasing tolerance, an unparalleled number of openly LGBT athletes are gathered to compete in a country experiencing amidst an ongoing human rights crisis.
A (Queer) Midsummer Night’s Dream
Just why does A Midsummer Night’s Dream lend itself so well to queer reinterpretations?
Survivors of Sexual Assault Rally to Recall Judge Persky in the Wake of the Brock Turner Trial
In the movement to remove a judge considered unfit to provide justice to survivors of sexual assault, those who spoke at the rally–as well as the 1.2 million people who signed that petition, and the hundreds of thousands who have signed others–stand witness to and part of an active movement declaring that they will no longer silently endure a system that prioritizes the well-being of perpetrators over that of their victims.
What Will Brexit Mean for Women?
Women have been conspicuously absent from the debates surrounding the Brexit referendum.