More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Sex work or prostitution is the selling of sexual activity for payment, which can be dangerous if coercive or unregulated.
Pratibha Parmar’s 2022 film about Andrea Dworkin brought both pushback and praise within feminist and queer communities. In this Q&A, Parmar shares her thoughts on reactions to the film but also about her interest in Dworkin.
“There is an arc between generations of female artists’ protesting violence against women. And I want Andrea’s voice to be part of the conversation on its own terms and in its complexity.”
A new book shines an intriguing new light on the possibilities for alliances among women in the ongoing struggle to end men’s violence against women by examining the social organization of one of our closest primate relatives. In The Bonobo Sisterhood, Harvard Law School professor Diane Rosenfeld shows how we have much to learn from the bonobos about how to eliminate male sexual coercion.
“Patriarchy is not inevitable; the bonobos are living proof of that.”
Each month, I provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups—to do my part in the disruption of what has been the acceptable “norm” in the book world for far too long (white, cis, heterosexual, male); and to amplify indie publishers and amazing works by writers who are women, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, APIA/AAPI, international, queer, trans, nonbinary, disabled, fat, immigrant, Muslim, neurodivergent, sex-positive or of other historically marginalized identities—you know, the rest of us.
Make some time to read one or two of these 30 new books, or whatever goes well with your pumpkin spice latte or hot apple cider.
“We felt it our responsibility to depict the war on Black women’s bodies raging in this conservative state,” said Katori Hall, creator of Starz’s P-Valley.
Each month, I provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups.
Whether you read for knowledge or leisure, books are so important. May is a big month for new releases by women and writers of historically excluded communities; I’ve highlighted 60 of them here, but there are many more. I hope you’ll find some here that will help you reflect and act in whatever ways you can.
The trending of #Ukraine on porn sites is only a recent development of an age-old misogyny, as old as warfare itself.
Research shows that habitual users of online porn seek ever more explicit and graphic images in order to sustain the same level of arousal. This partly explains the uptick in searches for pornographic videos of Ukrainian women after the invasion. It also accounts for the horrifying genres known as “refugee porn” and “war porn.” These videos link sex with desperation and violence. But not just any violence will do. The user is mainly interested in videos that feature the utter degradation of women and girls.
The catastrophic destruction triggered by the Russian invasion has rapidly escalated the risk of HIV infection and concomitant violence for women in Ukraine.
Welcome back to Feminist Faves social media roundup! This week, we’re celebrating athletes using their influence to shed light on underrepresented communities, disability advocates calling in able-bodied allies this Disability Pride month, and the beautiful art made during the pandemic.
Daoyou Feng, 44; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69; Soon Chung Park, 74; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Yong Ae Yue, 63. Their lives, along with customers Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33, and Paul Andre Michels, 54, deserve to be respected and remembered in their full humanity, not reduced to the fantasies of their killer.
Publicly opposing sex work while also providing social and health services to sex workers both further stigmatizes sex workers and is hypocritical.
“This ruling is disconcerting and shameful. The [anti-prostitution loyalty oath] hurts public health outcomes and it has always been bad policy. Social stigmas that disproportionately impact and undermine the sexual and reproductive health rights of people across the globe do not belong in our nation’s foreign aid programs.”