Wearing It On Our Sleeves

A Millennial’s Response to Christine Blasey Ford

Lately I’ve taken to wearing t-shirts, buttons, and pins that clearly identify me. “Dyke,” reads one, succinctly. “Black Lives Matter,” reads another, a gift from my girlfriend. “Fesbian Leminist” I include for an element of humor. It isn’t enough, I convince myself in the wake of the 2016 election, to merely ...
Read More
Wearing It On Our Sleeves

The Portable Phallus

An excerpt from Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings

In Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings: The Emotional Cost of Everyday Life Mari Ruti interweaves theoretical insight, cultural critique, feminist politics, and personal experience to lift the lid on the prevalence of bad feelings in contemporary everyday life. Emanating from a playful engagement with Freud’s idea of penis envy, Ruti’s autotheoretical ...
Read More
The Portable Phallus

Completing the Rape Three Decades Later

Christine Blasey Ford before the Senate

As I read the news this past weekend, I tried to imagine the flurry of negotiations taking place before this Thursday’s Senate hearing regarding Brett Kavanaugh’s suitability for one of the most important positions in our country: Justice of the Supreme Court. I imagined Chuck Grassley talking with his Iowa ...
Read More
Completing the Rape Three Decades Later

Brett Kavanaugh, Fraternity Hazing, and the Natural Beauty Industry

Past Present Episode 147

In this episode, Neil, Niki, and Natalia discuss the drama surrounding Brett Kavanaugh’s upcoming Supreme Court confirmation, fraternity hazing, and the booming natural beauty industry. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Conservative Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s candidacy is being marred by sexual assault allegations. Natalia ...
Read More
Brett Kavanaugh, Fraternity Hazing, and the Natural Beauty Industry

His Body Shop

Issues around the market of self-care

In the past few weeks a new advertisement campaign has invaded the New York City subway. A brand that claims to solve “men’s issues” called hims covers the walls and advertising panels of subway stations and trains. Hims is a brand that sells products to address “men’s issues” such as hair loss, skin imperfections ...
Read More
His Body Shop

A Shared Commitment

Concluding thoughts on, ‘Prairie Rising: Indigenous Youth, Decolonization, and the Politics of Intervention’

Race/isms Book Forum is a new series aimed at bringing established and emerging voices together in conversation around recent work that critically engages our world’s racial scripts, past and present. The structure of the forum is straightforward. We invite three to four thinkers to grapple with a book, highlighting a ...
Read More
A Shared Commitment

From Bras to Bathing Suits

The 1968 Miss America protests were the most public announcement of the start of the women’s civil rights movement

Fifty years ago a group of women -- mainly from New York -- wanted to stage a very public demonstration about women’s rights. They didn’t choose a political locale (i.e. Supreme Court or White House) or an economic one (i.e. the Fed or Wall Street), instead selecting a cultural setting. ...
Read More
From Bras to Bathing Suits

Re-Dressing “No More Miss America”

The construction of fashion and feminism as antagonistic has been used to undermine the movement’s goals and to obscure fashion as a liberating political tool

Fifty years ago, over a hundred women gathered on the boardwalk of Atlantic City to protest the Miss America Pageant. The demonstration, which was organized by the feminist group New York Radical Women (NYRW), protested the exploitative and racist nature of the pageant (black women were not allowed to participate ...
Read More
Re-Dressing “No More Miss America”

Women’s Liberation Marches onto the Atlantic City Boardwalk

Photos of the 1969 Miss America Protest

In 1968 and 1969 women's liberation staged demonstrations at the annual Miss America Beauty pageant held in Atlantic City, NJ. The 1968 protest shocked the country, creating a lot of publicity, and some myths, about the new movement. The 1969 protest was smaller and was largely ignored. The 1968 protest originated with New ...
Read More
Women’s Liberation Marches onto the Atlantic City Boardwalk

Sovereign (In)capacity

Possibilities of Black and Indigenous Futures

Race/isms Book Forum is a new series aimed at bringing established and emerging voices together in conversation around recent work that critically engages our world’s racial scripts, past and present. The structure of the forum is straightforward. We invite three to four thinkers to grapple with a book, highlighting a ...
Read More
Sovereign (In)capacity

We Will Not Abandon You

Urban Indigenous Youth and the Struggle for Decolonization

Race/isms Book Forum is a new series aimed at bringing established and emerging voices together in conversation around recent work that critically engages our world’s racial scripts, past and present. The structure of the forum is straightforward. We invite three to four thinkers to grapple with a book, highlighting a ...
Read More
We Will Not Abandon You

Prairie Rising: Indigenous Youth, Decolonization, and the Politics of Intervention

Race/isms Book Forum

For our second installment, we feature and discuss Jaskiran Dhillon’s recently published ethnography: Prairie Rising: Indigenous Youth, Decolonization, and the Politics of Intervention. The discussion includes reflections by Melanie Yazzie, Shanya Cordis, and Sandra Harvey. While our contributors address the book as a whole, we begin with an edited excerpt ...
Read More
Prairie Rising: Indigenous Youth, Decolonization, and the Politics of Intervention