A purely ecological agenda for Earth Day isn’t enough: Racial justice must be prioritized.
Category: Voices
Living With Dignity: Louisiana Black Women Demand Resources
Unrelenting storms are ravaging the world, including Louisiana. The attack on our reproductive rights is another storm threatening Black women in Louisiana and across the country.
Black women are being denied the resources, and the right to live and raise our families with dignity—and without state interference.
The Dream Continues: Amplifying the Voices of Black Women to Achieve Health Equity
Raising awareness about structural racism and empowering Black women to raise our voices are crucial to addressing health and social inequity.
Exclusion of Black women from mainstream world history has effectively masked our contributions to society, helping to facilitate marginalization. An important step in the process towards health equity and social justice involves amplifying the voices of Black women and other marginalized populations by creating spaces for us to tell our own stories.
The Unexamined Misogyny of the Term ‘Thirst Trap’
I refuse to use the term “thirst trap” because it reinforces misogynistic ideas that are already too pervasive in our culture. It implies women’s bodies are inherently sexual; it goes hand in hand with rape culture and slut-shaming; the term assumes that sexual attractiveness is objective and implies women are at fault for men’s sexual frustration.
Front and Center: How the Child Tax Credit and Guaranteed Income “Help Mothers Like Me Get Out of a Continuous Cycle of Poverty”
Front and Center highlights the success of Springboard to Opportunities’ Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which this year will give $1,000 per month for 12 months to 100 families headed by Black women living in federally subsidized housing.
“I carry a really heavy load as a single mom. There’s no one else—everything is on me. So it helped ease my burden a lot when I started getting the monthly child tax credits last year.”
The Transformation of Mills College
A year ago, it seemed that we might lose Mills College. Today, Mills is on the cusp of a transformation that affirms its mission and offers greater opportunities for students, faculty, staff and alums. What got us here?
The Supreme Mom Guilt Is Real: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and Motherhood
During her historic confirmation hearings, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson saved a “special moment” to address her two daughters directly: “Girls, I know it has not been easy as I have tried to navigate the challenges of juggling my career and motherhood. And I fully admit that I did not always get the balance right.”
Imagine being at the pinnacle of your career, writing a speech that would be heard by millions—but, at the same time, apologizing to your daughters, for whom you wished you’d done more. Like many other working moms, I could imagine just that. But, in many ways, what Jackson was expressing is unique to Black women.
Here’s Why The ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Won’t Work
I was 25 when I was finally ready to admit I wasn’t straight. I was lucky politics didn’t factor into my journey. It’s a luxury today’s students don’t have, between policies like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and the Texas directive that orders state agencies to investigate gender-confirming care. Avoiding these topics won’t stop kids from being queer—it will just leave them feeling isolated. It will leave them closeted and at risk.
Trailblazers in Trousers
We take for granted those women that paved the way for us to wear pants: Helen Hulick and my grandmother.
The Movie Star and Madame Salon: The Friendship of Anna May Wong and Bernardine Szold Fritz
In the mid-1930s, Anna May Wong was Hollywood’s preeminent Asian American starlet frustrated by a racist film industry. She connected with Bernardine Szold Fritz, a Jewish American writer and American salon hostess in Shanghai.
Today, 100 years after Anna May starred in her first leading role, The Toll of the Sea, stereotypes and casting white actors for Asian roles are still all too prevalent. Outside Hollywood, the U.S. is just beginning to recognize her groundbreaking achievements—Anna May Wong will be one of five American women to be featured on a U.S. quarter this year. It’s a start.