Science Fiction: Saving Me, Saving the World
Story Collider is a podcast and magazine collecting “true stories about how science has affected people’s lives.” Aaron Wolfe’s story, “Saving Hubble, Saving Aaron,” is about how science fiction makes a life of science possible — by sparking wonder, sure, but also by allowing us an escape from the brutality of scientific reality and offering [...]
...read moreHair Part III: Head
I have a love/hate relationship with the hair on my head. I hated it for most of my childhood and adolescence. I was super envious of the curls that many of the other girls in my Jewish school had. My hair was thin and mousy brown. Mousy. I remember seeing that word in the book [...]
...read moreWhy Breastfeeding Is A Feminist Issue
What’s going so wrong with the breastfeeding and formula-feeding conversation? Start with the rampant individualism. Conversations about how you feed your baby tend to be preoccupied with women’s choices and decisions.. and then, blame. You know the conversation has little feminist value when you end up at a point where some poor, exhausted woman is [...]
...read moreA Simple Saturday Post: Leave Me Out of Your “Everyone,” Mr. Apatow.
I just wanted to quickly mention the trailer for the new Judd Apatow movie, “This is 40.” Of course, we all know that Hollywood is guilty of all sorts of offenses all of the time, but it seems rare even today to find one that is quite so up front with its surface-level exclusion. The [...]
...read moreThis is Wrong. Breastfeeding Support Groups Should Not Exclude Transgendered Breastfeeding Dads
As someone who has pretty much worked in bureaucracies her whole career I’m fairly patient with protocols and administrative processes, but every now and then I see people stumbling around in ‘red tape’ that has ceased to fulfill a purpose and which is now actively working against the original ideas behind the system, and it [...]
...read moreFinally, open misogyny is cool (again)!
Ten years ago the opposition used to speak in coded language about how their attacks on women’s sexual equality were about “protecting women” from themselves, promoting “a culture of life” – because everyone knows that without guidance from wise, misogynist politicians, women just aren’t smart enough to make personal decisions about their own sexuality. Today the opposition has dispensed with its dog whistles entirely, and taken to openly smearing women who dare to exercise control over their health and reproductive rights as sluts and threats to the moral foundation of America. (They’ve also said pretty rude things about the LGBT community, but… one thing at a time.)
...read moreHow Storytelling Saved My Memories
(Trigger warning: shame, drug/alcohol use.) There are so many things in my life that I used to be ashamed of. I have made mistakes bigger than I ever imagined I would or even could, and I have been through unforeseeable experiences that I wouldn’t wish upon anybody. I am very proud of the person I [...]
...read moreThe Uncanny Valley of Media Masculinity
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to see people I’m attracted to — really attracted to, people who I’d be attracted to in real life — on my television. Regularly. The screen is a step away from reality for all of us; TV and movies are vehicles for our fantasies. But my guess [...]
...read moreA Reminder on Guest Bloggers
Just a reminder about the Feministe comment policy, and specifically our policy on guest bloggers:
...read moreQuick things
I am writing a rather complicated post at the moment for Feministe, so in the meantime.. Quick things to look at – some pretty, pretty pictures in “Yes These Bones Shall Live” over at the International Museum of Women, which is an exhibition of photos of Roller Derby mothers in Canada. (My HTML is not [...]
...read moreOn Simone Weil
In 2004, I read this line: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” It so intrigued me that I decided to learn more about the woman who wrote it. Her name was Simone Weil and she was a French philosopher, activist, and mystic, from the 1930s. I was amazed by what I discovered.
...read moreGreetings from Western Mass and an offering of Sagan
Hey folks, I’m Brigid. You may remember me from last year. I’m a queer femme writer, sometime environmental researcher, and anthropologist at heart. I recently relocated from Washington, DC to Western Massachusetts, where the beer is crafty and the humor is always self-referential. I enjoy science fiction, political art, and arguing amicably about things I [...]
...read more
Recent Comments