Sex & Gender Archives - Page 9 of 15

Activism

A Halloween Uprising and Poland’s General Strike Over Abortion

A new generation of women rises up against an unholy – and sexist – alliance of church and state

November 6, 2020 • by Elzbieta Matynia

Poland’s Halloween has always been a solemn national holiday with pagan roots called All Souls Day, known long ago as Forefathers’ Eve, and immediately followed on November 1 by All Saints Day. Normally, it’s a contemplative period of reconnecting with those who are not with us anymore, whether grandparents, veterans, or ...

A Halloween Uprising and Poland’s General Strike Over Abortion

Multi Media

The Controversy over “Cuties”

Past Present Podcast, Episode 247

September 23, 2020 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Cuties, a French independent film released in the United States has inspired opposition. Niki referred to the connection between the critics’ fear of perversion and the current furor over pedophilia among some on the Right, discussed in Rolling Stone. In our ...

Democracy

Feminist Legal Pioneer Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies at 87

Progressives mourn a SCOTUS legend, famous for potent dissents, who saw gender equity as a path to civil rights for all

September 19, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

----------- Today, flowers are strewn on the steps of the Supreme Court, where “Equal Justice Under Law” is carved in stone. More than a thousand people gathered there tonight to mourn the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last night from cancer at age 87. Justice Ginsburg was born in ...

Feminist Legal Pioneer Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies at 87

Education

Can We Talk About Sex? Please?

A review of Jennifer Hirsch’s and Shamus Khan’s Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus

September 10, 2020 • by Emily Rutherford

------------- A decade ago, I was a resident adviser in a residential college at a highly selective university. My colleagues and I used to roll our eyes at the highly legalistic "affirmative consent" model of sexual education that we were asked to teach first-year students. Focused on the idea that sexual ...

Capitalism

What the “Gender Reveal” Reveals

And what the party that caused California’s El Dorado fire was really all about

September 10, 2020 • by Benjamin Bernard

The El Dorado fire, one of the many currently burning on the west coast, is getting attention for its somewhat unusual cause: an explosive pyrotechnic device set off at a gender reveal party, something that might more accurately be termed a “genital and chromosome disclosure ritual.” The news reports in ...

Psyche

Sex with Robots

Digisexuality and the disavowal of the human

September 3, 2020 • by Cassandra Seltman and Danielle Knafo

---------------------- How do we feel free in a body with limits? How do we withstand psychical states of excruciating ambivalence? How can we depend on others, when what we depend on is disappointing, desirous, and unpredictable? These are the questions brought into the consulting room of a psychoanalyst. Often these questions are ...

Feminism

Wages Against Essential Work

Our undervaluation of traditionally female work is coming home to roost

July 9, 2020 • by Alissa G. Karl

The streets around Highland Hospital, a few blocks from my house in Rochester, New York, are lined with signage “thanking” and “supporting” the “essential” workers who labor there. Many signs are hand-made, propped on porches or taped to light poles; others are mass-produced, like campaign signs, anchored into residential lawns. ...

Activism

Protest as a Means of Political Change: An Indian Case Study

How the 2012 gang rape of Jyoti Singh and the protests that followed changed a nation

July 2, 2020 • by Natasha Behl

In this current political moment of mass protests for racial justice across America, many of us are wondering how effective these protests are. Can marching in the streets lead to enduring change? Can dissent and disruption help us achieve a more equal and just society? Consider what happened in India eight ...

Protest as a Means of Political Change: An Indian Case Study

Reviews

The Tangled Web of Familial Homophobia

A Secret Love (Directed by Chris Bolan, Netflix, 2020)

June 25, 2020 • by Jen Manion

But I was not prepared for the central role in the documentary film played by Terry’s nieces, Diana Bolan and Tammy Donahue; nor was I prepared for their jarring, casual homophobia. A Secret Love begins with Terry and Pat coming out to their families after having been a couple (they told ...

Activism

The Pride Wore White

Black trans women step out of the queer chorus

June 23, 2020 • by McKenzie Wark

I’d come for Brooklyn Liberation for Black Trans Lives. We were asked to wear white. I blended in easily with the human snow of the crowd, wrapped all around the museum. Coming up Washington Avenue, so many white-clad bodies streaming, milling, chatting, buying ice cream from the truck, clapping and cheering ...

Sex & Gender

Gender as Proselytism

Romania’s education law hits a new low

June 16, 2020 • by Maria Bucur

Yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States stated through a 6-3 majority decision that gender and sex are not the same thing. To discriminate against sex as the body parts one has is not the same as discriminating against a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation. How did we get ...

Sex & Gender

Why Do Men Like Pornography?

And why radical feminism helps us find a path to real intimacy

June 11, 2020 • by Robert Jensen

Not all men use pornography, of course, and some women do as well. But people in the pornography industry know that the majority of their customers are men. Because of this, most pornography reflects what pornographers believe men will watch—and come back to watch again. This, in turn, influences the ...