When I heard that Piper Kerman wrote the book Orange is the New Black about her experience at the Danbury, Connecticut federal prison camp, I was excited. I served part of my 15-year sentence with her and I found the book an accurate snapshot of Danbury FPC. (Full disclosure: I am “Esposito” in Piper’s book.) […]
Orange Is the New Black
Orange Is the New Black Is Back!
Happy Friday, Ms. readers—and happy Orange Is the New Black season three release day! Or so we thought. In a wonderful plot twist, Netflix actually released the latest season of one of our favorite shows six hours early last night. Lucky for us! If you are unfamiliar with the show, OITNB takes a bold look at the lives of women in […]
Shonda Rhimes and Jenji Kohan Honored at 2015 Global Women’s Rights Awards
The Feminist Majority Foundation’s 10th annual Global Women’s Rights Awards on May 18 were a star-studded affair. Actors from Grey’s Anatomy, Orange Is the New Black, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder and more showed their love for showrunners Shonda Rhimes and Jenji Kohan, who were being honored by FMF for changing the face of […]
The Women Who Run the Show
This article appears in the Spring 2015 issue of Ms. To read our exclusive interviews with Shonda Rhimes and Jill Soloway, subscribe today! Back in 1973, when Linda Bloodworth-Thomason was hired as a writer on TV’s M*A*S*H, the only thing she knew for sure is that her work couldn’t be ordinary. “It was the case then and it’s […]
6 Feminist TV Shows You Can Watch Right Now
Sick of male protagonists saturating your television screen? It wouldn’t surprise us. Studies show that female characters in television shows only make up less than 40 percent of speaking roles—and when they do, those roles are too often trope-saturated, hypersexualized caricatures of real women. But the last couple of years have brought us a handful of […]
Diversity Wins Big at SAG Awards
In the wake of #OscarsSoWhite and Ava DuVernay’s Academy Awards snub, there was a bit of good news for women of color in Hollywood Sunday night. At the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, not one but two African American women actors snagged SAG awards for their leading roles. Viola Davis won Outstanding Performance by a […]
Around the Ms. Office: Our Favorite Women on Television
If your post-election mental state needs a boost (ours does), we’ve collected a list of our favorite women on television, present and past, for your viewing pleasure: Women leads who inspire and demand attention, best friends who challenge us and each other with each episode, and groups of women who share the stage. The list […]
Back to the Big House
As avid fans know, the second season of Netflix’s hit show, Orange is the New Black, has been released. The series is a fictionalized version of the real-life story of Piper Kerman, an upper-middle-class white woman who was sentenced to over a year in prison for committing a drug-smuggling-related crime 10 years earlier. Piper Chapman […]
Laverne Cox Epitomizes Growing Transgender Rights Movement
When transgender actor Laverne Cox graced the cover of Time magazine this month, the magazine was showered with accolades for featuring her story. But the article also ignited a predictable torrent of outrage from those unwilling to accept what most major medical associations in the United States have already acknowledged: that being transgender is not […]
“Orange Is The New Black”: Taking Privilege to Task
Netflix’s brilliant new original series, Orange is the New Black, stars Taylor Schilling as TV’s most unlikely convicted felon. Piper Chapman is a white, upper-middle class, Smith-educated fish-out-of-water in the suffocating air of a low-security women’s prison. During an excruciating visit with her daughter, Piper’s mother tells her, Sweetheart, you’re nothing like any of these women. […]