Tag Archives: sexism

When a City Reminds You of Those You’ve Lost

I had a best friend a few years back. A straight guy. Which maybe should have tipped me off. But I’d known him since middle school. We’d been chummy for many years, and he had gradually become a second brother to me. Year after year, we ambled down Third Avenue in chilly November rain andContinue reading “When a City Reminds You of Those You’ve Lost”

I Am Woman–And I Pump Iron

I’ve heard a lot of women balk at bulking up. But those big muscles? I’ll look like a man. Come on. That’s just insulting. Female bodybuilders train hard to get their glorious physique. To think that a few hours a week is all you need to bust some pecs like Schwarzenegger is either hubris orContinue reading “I Am Woman–And I Pump Iron”

Why I Love Grad School, or Please Talk Career Options with Your Daughters

When I was 22, my undergraduate professors started to ask where I’d be going next. Everyone assumed it would be grad school. My art history professor, a supportive, wry-humored expert in Mexican art named Deborah Caplow, especially believed I would make a career for myself in art criticism and teaching. My future, cast in theirContinue reading “Why I Love Grad School, or Please Talk Career Options with Your Daughters”

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”

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”

The World Needs More Ambitious Women

And a big part of this is on men. We need you–as our fathers, brothers, friends, and lovers–to encourage us to strut our stuff. Intellectually. Academically. Professionally. A lot of men I meet are plenty comfortable with their woman earning more. It’s the idea of a woman knowing more–having a higher IQ, a more advanced degree–that getsContinue reading “The World Needs More Ambitious Women”

Rage Against the Dying of the Light

I inherited my mother’s rage. And she had a lot to be angry about. Growing up in small-town Kennewick in the 1950s and 1960s, she was told she couldn’t do what the boys did. Couldn’t race bikes out in the street. Couldn’t beat them at math. So she did. But, as a consequence, she couldn’tContinue reading “Rage Against the Dying of the Light”