A review of “12th & Delaware&...

Last month I had the pleasure and privilege to see the documentary 12th & Delaware at the Maryland Film Festival. Filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, who brought us Jesus Camp and The Boys of Baraka, debuted the film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film’s namesake is an...

High school students silenced after atte...

Samantha Zyduck and four other students at Mosinee High School in Wisconsin wore homemade t-shirts to school last week to promote sexual abuse awareness. School administrators confiscated the shirts, saying they would be returned on Wednesday, the last day of school. According to acting associate principal...

Get Back in the Kitchen...

The good ol' days. Via Wisconsin Historical Images @ Flickr. I watched an episode of the show You Are What You Eat on Saturday. Gillian McKeith hosts the show, doling out questionable nutritional advice to fat people. The family featured on this episode consisted of a mom, a dad, and four children,...

Who knew people cared so much about fema...

Word.I hate to make a fuss about Internet commenter shenanigans yet again, but Internet comments are really the only source–besides opinion polls–I have for what “the public” is thinking. This week’s theme is Self Esteem. Few people are comfortable blaming patriarchy for...

Challenging “The Dominant Story of...

As a longtime fan of the organization Men Can Stop Rape, I was cheered to read this story about its youth development program last week. The Men of Strength Club (MOST, for short) provides young men with a structured and supportive space to connect with peers and build individualized definitions of masculinity...

Didi needs a forever home!...

I hope our American readers are having a great long weekend, if you are so lucky. I want to take the opportunity to do some advertising for my current foster dog, Didi. As you may recall, Miss Miley was quickly adopted a couple months ago! Didi has been with me since Friday afternoon and she’s...

Calling All Gardeners...

Via computix @ Flickr.Reader Tall-in-Heels tipped me off to a great way to share your backyard bounty. AmpleHarvest.org is an online resource with the mission to diminish hunger in America by helping gardeners donate their excess produce to local food pantries. The founder, Gary Oppenheimer, donated...

Violence is sometimes the answer...

I’m over non-violence, as a political philosophy. Advocating non-violent resistance to injustice is either a luxury or something that’s undertaken by those who have superhuman tolerance for violent oppression. It is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix. A Saudi religious...

Think of the Slutty Children!...

This morning I became one of the last people on the Internet to watch the video of five young girls dancing to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” at a World of Dance competition. The YouTube video of their performance has sparked outrage among people who think the costumes and choreography were...

This is not a Facebook meme...

But it sure reads like one! Because men and women (er, guys and girls) are two distinct species, there are so many things we don’t know about each other. Girls, especially, are mysterious creatures, but lists can be handy teaching tools. Our spokeswoman, Jane Hoskyn, has leaked one such list to...

Don’t Tell Us...

Last week, Jezebel posted a story about a new iPhone app that allows people to quickly post photos of street harassers to the website Hollaback. The gist is that if a guy threatens a woman or follows her or grabs her ass she can snap his picture and upload it to the site. Ordinarily, such a post would...

A compromise on baby girls’ genita...

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has issued a revision to its policy statement Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors. Almost everything I’ve read about this so far implies that the AAP is promoting female genital cutting (FGC): the custom of ritual cutting and alteration of the genitalia...