My antenna zoomed up in February when Loretta Ross, currently Activist-In-Residence, at Smith College, in her key-note address at the Take Root conference, spoke about how Reproductive Justice framing had been stimulated by women of color’s exposure to and interaction with the international women’s community. The human rights framing that international activists spoke from was [...]
Tag Archives: Feminism
Is Pepper Potts No Longer the “Damsel in Distress” in ‘Iron Man 3′?
Superhero films often exhibit assertive, outspoken female characters. Yet they often simultaneously objectify women’s bodies, reduce them to ancillary love interests or perpetuate gender stereotypes. So when I heard that Pepper Potts would have a more active role in Iron Man 3, I was excited yet remained cautiously skeptical.
A Specific Happy Mother Day Wish for Women Who’ve Had Abortions
On Friday, I got a wonderful Happy Mother’s Day wish from Fem2.0 in Twitter. Of course, that meant that some random man asked in a mean-spirited tweet whether the wish included “abortive pro-choice mothers of dead babies.” I didn’t respond, because, well, why would you respond to a person who rudely interrupts, willfully chooses to [...]
‘How I Met Your Mother’ One of the Few TV Shows to Explore a Childfree Life for Women
I was ready. Poised to be pissed. For the first half of last season’s How I Met Your Mother(HIMYM) episode “Symphony of Illumination,” I sat on the couch, scowling perpetually.
In the previous episode “The Rebound Girl,” we learn journalist Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders) and playboy Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris)’s adulterous one night stand (although is it really a one night stand if you’ve slept together and dated before?? But I digress…), resulted in Robin telling Barney she was pregnant.
Education for women and girls: the key to a better world.
My name is Rebecca Silverman but most people call me Reby. I am a junior at the University of Maryland, studying Global Women’s Health. Before beginning my studies at the University of Maryland, I had the opportunity to travel to 11 countries on a yearlong program called Kivunim: New Directions. During my travels, one theme [...]
In a Meritocracy, Sexism Is Shocking and Hard to Believe
It’s hard to accept that sexism is alive and well and that it undermines virtually everything we believe about equality, fairness, and justice. “Am I doing an injustice to the female members of this school?” This is the question 16-year old Junius Onome Williams, running in an election for his school’s student body president asked [...]
Media, Movement, and Money: Evolving #femfuture, @MediaEquity Creates #10Gazelle
SUMMARY: Dougherty examines #FemFuture: Online Revolution in the context of being present at the Women’s Funding Network’s (#WFN13) annual conference. She brings five years of experience of work to broaden the funding of the vast and diverse field of women-directed media, online and off, into her analysis of the Martin and Valenti report. She highlights [...]
Promoting Female Condoms:12 Short Films Do It
PATH asked filmmakers from around the world to create films on the theme “Female Condoms are (fill in blank)” for a contest. And filmmakers did! A dozen of the finalists are now posted on a branded PATH channel on YouTube. An international nonprofit organization working around the world on transforming global health through innovation, PATH [...]
What Facebook Continues To Tell Us About Violence Against Women
There is a photograph being shared in Facebook of a woman cowering in a corner, eyes downcast, as large man standing in the foreground swings his fist at her head. The caption reads, “Women deserve equal rights. And lefts.”
Big Name Donors Finance England’s Women’s Book Prize
Former winners Zadie Smith and Barbara Kingsolver are among this year’s finalists in the Women’s Prize, formally known as the Orange Prize.
Last year, the prize lost its original sponsorship. But Cherie Blair, entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox and novelist Joanna Trollope were among the many private donors who stepped in to save the U.K.‘s only prize for women. The relevance was clear: women writers do matter. This week also saw the first annual Stella Prize, a new literary award given to Australian female authors. That prize has been mostly funded for the next three years by philanthropist Ellen Koshland, a granddaughter of jeans mogul Levi Strauss.