Women vs. People

It’s time for a round-up of all the reader submissions illustrating the annoying habit of having products and products-for-women. The phenomenon illustrates the way we continue to think of men as people and women as women, thereby centering men and men’s lives as “normal” and women’s as “special” (and not in a good way). Anti-Monkey [...]

8 Obnoxious Cliches about Men, Women and Sex in Otherwise Good TV Shows

Throughout most of its history, the general trend of television has been sexist, with lots of hysterical women driving dramas and lots of eye-rolling jokes about women being nags and prudes filling up sitcoms. The past decade, however, has seen a rise in high-quality television that strives to engage creatively with interesting, socially relevant ideas. [...]

Black Women, Tyrese Wants To Save You From Your Terrible Independence

For the past few weeks, as part of my project exploring black women, relationships and marriage, I’ve been immersing myself in books, films, blog posts and other media on the subject. Last week I read Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man and am still trying to wash off the film and stink of [...]

We Heart: T-Shirts for Smart Girls

While getting J.C. Penny to stop selling shirts reading “Too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me” felt like only a partial victory due to the continued sales of its the “My best subjects are boys, shopping, music, dancing” shirt, this shirt feels like a total win for smart [...]

We Love the Female Orgasm! Do You?

Starting college is pretty exciting; everyone’s meeting new friends, getting the hang of their classes, and, if they’re lucky, learning about female orgasm. A few weeks ago, my college’s Sexual Health Educators brought the program “I Love the Female Orgasm” to our student body. After seeing the attention-grabbing posters around campus, my roommate and I [...]

Hot Chicks, Cold Sexists and Occupy Wall Street

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, students of magic battle a boggart, a creature that manifests itself as your worst nightmare. With a flick of their wand and the word “Riddikulus,” students disarm the boggart by turning it into a joke, thus rendering it powerless and nonthreatening. This is exactly what Steven Greenstreet, [...]

Pan Am: Will Women Take Flight?

Though I agree with Nancy Franklin of the New Yorker that you can’t judge a show by its pilot, I would counter that, in the case of Pan Am, there is quite a bit we can glean from the season opener. Indeed, just as one can gather quite a bit from a book’s cover–is the [...]

No Comment: “Use Your Natural Charm”

In three new ads featuring model Gisele Bündchen, Brazilian lingerie company Hope urges women to take off their clothes before breaking “bad” news to their male partners. The ads rely on the old saw that sex sells, but we’re willing to let that slide–after all, it’s lingerie. But these ads don’t sell lingerie with the [...]

Yes, The Playboy Club IS That Bad

There were so many surreal scenes in the pilot of NBC’s The Playboy Club that it is difficult to pick out the most eye-popping. Was it the “bunnies” spontaneously breaking into song, or the house mother earnestly lecturing the women to be the “very best bunny they can be,” or maybe the moment when the [...]

“Miss Representation” Shows How Media Mistreats Women

“You never see the photograph of a woman, considered beautiful, that hasn’t been digitally altered to make her absolutely, inhumanly perfect.  Girls are being encouraged to achieve that ideal at younger and younger ages all the time. They end up measuring themselves against an impossible standard and feeling themselves wanting as a result.” — Jean [...]

Next Page »