Tag Archives: feminism

Why We Still Need Feminism

Over the past eight months, about a dozen female celebrities have leapt from the feminist bandwagon as if it were a burning building. I’m not a feminist; I’m a humanist has become the new catchphrase of Hollywood’s women. Insisting that we’re beyond all that gender stuff now anyway, they have further stigmatized a term that, really, should long ago have ceased toContinue reading “Why We Still Need Feminism”

Mormon Feminista

One week in Laurels, the Sunday School class for 16 to 17-year-old Mormon girls, my teacher passed out pairs of knitted white baby booties and Xeroxed excerpts from a 1950s women’s magazine. While the boys down the hall talked football, college, and career goals, we read about what sort of wives we would become. After you marry, you willContinue reading “Mormon Feminista”

So a Random Guy Pulls up and Asks If I Want a Ride

So I’m walking down my street with a full grocery bag when a guy pulls up to me in his car. He pulls up with his window down and looks me over and asks, “Want a ride?” I’ve never seen this guy anywhere in my life. So I wait for him to realize his mistake—because he must haveContinue reading “So a Random Guy Pulls up and Asks If I Want a Ride”

Pimpology: Women at Market Price

That’s right, gentlemen. Step right up. In 48 lessons, you too can learn how to collect, manage, and sell your very own stable of prostitutes. You too can pimp your way to fame and fortune. Learn the game from this industry-recognized pimp. The American dream can be yours! I wish I were joking. But thisContinue reading “Pimpology: Women at Market Price”

The Hazards–and Rewards–of Literature for the Feminist

Nothing like old love to remind you of who you have been, and who you have become. So I just picked up my favorite novel for yet another re-reading. At 17, when Mr. Hansen assigned All the King’s Men for my Honors English class, it was love at first sight. The first-person narrator, Jack Burden, ranks among AmericanContinue reading “The Hazards–and Rewards–of Literature for the Feminist”

You Need to Stop Reading Those Dating Advice Sites

Seriously, people. Especially all you ladies out there. This one’s for you. From Cosmo to Marie Claire, columnists are happy to inform us straight women what men really want. And how to sculpt our behavior and personality to be more that. And less ourselves. As if that isn’t bad enough. But it gets worse. What most men want,Continue reading “You Need to Stop Reading Those Dating Advice Sites”

Misogyny Is Alive and Well

So I’m at the bus stop this morning writing on my laptop, when a guy walks up to me. He shouts at me over my headphones. He juts his face over my screen. After two minutes of typing through innuendo blended with outrage, I pull out an ear bud. Me: “Sorry, but I really needContinue reading “Misogyny Is Alive and Well”

On Love, Autonomy, and the Limitations of Feminism

Recently, I’ve been reading Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1970). And she strikes a nerve with me when she writes, “Our society encourages the substitution of addiction for spontaneous pleasure and specifically encourages women to foster dependencies which will limit their mates’ tendencies to roving and other forms of instability” (176). Men in turn, she argues, areContinue reading “On Love, Autonomy, and the Limitations of Feminism”