I wrote recently, on Twitter, that I was getting the word “feminist” tattooed on my ass. I was only joking, but I might as well have been serious. It’s true that in all the most important things I am—mother, writer, hiker, wife, daughter, seeker—feminism is at the center. It’s a descriptor so clear and permanent it seems to me it’s inked on my ass whether it’s literally there or not. I’ve been a feminist since before I knew what a feminist was. It’s an indelible part of my identity and it informs everything I do.
The Shivas, a dreamy quartet of surf rockers from Portland, Oregon, released their third LP, WHITEOUT, on vinyl through K Records this month. We talked with drummer and vocalist Kristin Leonard about drumming, the band's record deal, and tales from tours.
Welcome to another recap of Mad Men. This week, it's all about newness, and weirdness, and drunkenness, and margarine. Peggy returns to the hallowed halls of the former Sterling Cooper Draper Campbell, Ted Chaough reveals himself to be both an amusingly bacon-focused drunk and an ace small-plane pilot, and Bob Benson finally makes himself useful. In other news, that poor Kennedy boy gets shot. Join us, won't you?
Kat Zhang's What's Left of Me takes the mass suspicion, xenophobia, and hysteria that's become normalized since 9/11 and sets it in an alternate United States where people are born with two personalities inside one body.
Pop culture made me a feminist. As a suburban girl in the early 90s, I picked up my beliefs about equality from some books at the library and a copy of Cyndi Lauper’s “She’s So Unusal.” After no one at my elementary school opted to join my "Gender Equality Club," I looked back to pop culture to find others of my kind—and I found the most feminists were on network TV.
Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow) and a conveniently sexy fire in Iron Man 3.
Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 has rolled into theaters and conquered box office receipts. After the alien attack on New York during The Avengers, Tony Stark is not doing well. While suffering from insomnia and anxiety attacks, an Asian-played-by-white-guy terrorist named the Mandarin has stepped up to inflict damage on American civilians.
Welcome to the latest installment of Ms. Opinionated, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don't.
Dear Ms. Opinionated,
The kind of break-up described in your last column is thankfully in my rearview mirror, but now I face a whole other problem: everyone keeps telling me to "get back out there" but I'm not sure I even remember, let alone ever knew, how! My ex and I were together practically since college, he asked me out and things just went from there. But now it's like... I'm not 22 anymore, I'm almost 30, I'm not as cute as I used to be and I feel like any guy I would want to go out with could totally do better.
Here in the blog series Reverse Cowgirl, we’ve looked at everything from women warriors to advertising aimed at horse-loving girls, each getting at this baseline question: what is it about girls and horses? Now, as it’s time to hit the trail (sorry, had to), what can we come away with?
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