Feminism Archives - Page 4 of 23

The Arts

Art on Her Mind

bell hooks’s theory of beauty in the everyday

February 14, 2022 • by Monika Gehlawat

bell hooks’s contributions to feminist thought and race politics are widely known, as are her rigorous theoretical works and academic scholarship. While I have read and learned much from her art and political criticism, what has moved me most recently are hooks’s personal reflections on the quotidian spaces of Black ...

Feminism

No, Joan Didion Wasn’t a Feminist

January 26, 2022 • by Claire Potter

Joan Didion and feminism never had much of a relationship when she was alive. And yet, shortly before Christmas, as news of Didion’s death from Parkinson’s disease spread, prominent feminists claimed her as one of their own. Although Didion “wrote scathing commentary on feminism,” novelist Joyce Carol Oates tweeted, “she was (of ...

The Arts

When Diane Arbus Came to Central Park

The New York City story of a latchkey kid and a trailblazing photographer

November 30, 2021 • by Vicky Oliver

For me as a city kid, Central Park was a forbidden Eden. Even though I grew up a stone’s throw from the park, my parents forbade me to walk there, even chaperoned, even in broad daylight. And so, it’s all the more astounding that I recently found myself trotting—no, tearing over—to see ...

Feminism

Getting an Abortion in Buffalo

I terminated a pregnancy in my twenties. Decades later, I’m still learning the full truth of reproductive justice.

November 16, 2021 • by Christen Clifford

My boyfriend told me he wanted to keep it—he wanted another chance at fatherhood. He was 45 and I was 20. He’d left a daughter a few years younger than me behind in Dublin. He drank. And I was in fucking college. At Women’s Health Services on Main Street in Buffalo, ...

Gender

The Making of a Girl

New School Alum Melissa Febos uses memoir to understand the startling shame of becoming a woman in the eyes of others in this excerpt of her book Girlhood

October 20, 2021 • by Melissa Febos

"I got my period when I was ten, and I’d been reading Judy Blume books for a while so I knew it was coming," said Tanaïs. "And when it came, I wasn’t prepared for it anymore." A 2011 American Association of University Women (AAUW) school survey shows that early development ...

Interviews

Unearthing the Complexities of Girlhood with Melissa Febos

In this interview with Public Seminar, the memoirist discusses complex mother/daughter dynamics, enthusiastic consent, and finding clarity through the “privacy of the page.”

October 20, 2021 • by Melissa Febos and Madeleine Janz

New School alum and bestselling author Melissa Febos sat down (virtually) with Public Seminar intern Madeleine Janz to discuss writing about those you love most, complicated “almost” traumas, and the inherited shame of female adolescence. Febos’s newest book, an essay collection entitled Girlhood (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), was on The New School’s Alumni Bookshelf this year and is available for purchase here. Madeleine Janz [MJ]: To ...

Unearthing the Complexities of Girlhood with Melissa Febos

Feminism

Kathy Acker’s Astrologer Told Her She Would Meet Somebody—and That Was Me

A conversation with McKenzie Wark, one of our most dazzling contemporary theorists, about what we can learn from one of America’s most dazzling postmodern writers

September 17, 2021 • by Claire Potter and McKenzie Wark

Claire Potter: Let’s begin where the book begins—your relationship with Kathy Acker. McKenzie Wark: I should start by saying that the relationship was incredibly brief. She had a lot of them. It is the kind of thing she did—fall massively in love with somebody. It would last a few weeks, as it did ...

Kathy Acker’s Astrologer Told Her She Would Meet Somebody—and That Was Me

The Right

Creeping Fascism

The Texas law attacking reproductive justice is the antithesis of both law and democracy

September 8, 2021 • by Laura Briggs

_____ Is there any other phrase for the events that have activated the Texas abortion law other than “creeping fascism”? First, the ban itself is essentially an anti-law, designed to promote vigilantism. In itself, that’s not surprising. S.B. 8 is the culmination not just of numerous state-level laws that have narrowed abortion ...

Feminism

How We Are Doing in Texas

S.B. 8 and the hypocrisy of a “pro-life” state

September 8, 2021 • by Lauren Gutterman

_____ On September 2, 2021, I received a text from an old friend, an advocate for global reproductive health. “Sending love to Texas,” she wrote. “How are you all doing?” In short, not well. The day before, Senate Bill 8 took effect; that night, the United States Supreme Court announced it ...

Feminism

More Misandry, Please!

France Needs More Man-Haters—but Pauline Harmange doesn’t seem to be one of them

April 28, 2021 • by Hannah Leffingwell

_____ The cover of French feminist Pauline Harmange’s recent book I Hate Men (Fourth Estate, 2021, translated by Natasha Lehrer) prepares the reader for a salacious world of feminist intrigue, and a no-holds barred misandrist rant for the ages. Arranged in bold block letters over a neon yellow background, the title ...

Activism

Betty Friedan’s Radical Century

Because of this organizer, you can’t understand the twentieth century without talking about feminism

March 4, 2021 • by Peter Dreier

"A century after her birth, Betty Friedan’s radical ideas are common sense, and that’s a victory not just for feminists, but for everyone."...

Feminism

Why #MeToo Isn’t Enough

The Morning Show wrestles with the ambiguities of workplace sexual harassment—and how complicated the truth really is

February 25, 2021 • by Claire Potter

"Can the word “rape” describe the experience of a woman who submits to sex, but only because she is so frightened she lost her capacity to move or speak?"...

Feminism

Art on Her Mind

bell hooks’s theory of beauty in the everyday

No, Joan Didion Wasn’t a Feminist

When Diane Arbus Came to Central Park

The New York City story of a latchkey kid and a trailblazing photographer

Getting an Abortion in Buffalo

I terminated a pregnancy in my twenties. Decades later, I’m still learning the full truth of reproductive justice.

Unearthing the Complexities of Girlhood with Melissa Febos

In this interview with Public Seminar, the memoirist discusses complex mother/daughter dynamics, enthusiastic consent, and finding clarity through the “privacy of the page.”

Kathy Acker’s Astrologer Told Her She Would Meet Somebody—and That Was Me

A conversation with McKenzie Wark, one of our most dazzling contemporary theorists, about what we can learn from one of America’s most dazzling postmodern writers

Creeping Fascism

The Texas law attacking reproductive justice is the antithesis of both law and democracy

How We Are Doing in Texas

S.B. 8 and the hypocrisy of a “pro-life” state

More Misandry, Please!

France Needs More Man-Haters—but Pauline Harmange doesn’t seem to be one of them

Betty Friedan’s Radical Century

Because of this organizer, you can’t understand the twentieth century without talking about feminism

Why #MeToo Isn’t Enough

The Morning Show wrestles with the ambiguities of workplace sexual harassment—and how complicated the truth really is

Newsletter

Connect With Us