Last summer, my friend Katie* received an Instagram message from a man who claimed to know her. When she ignored him, he commented several times on her photos: “hey baby,” “bad girl,” “sexy,” “I knew ...
Two weeks ago, my friend Izzy accepted a Facebook friend request from a mutual friend of a friend. Let’s call him "Chris." She thought nothing of it until she read the comments his friends left on the...
In 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. He was later acquitted of the crime. Two years later, Eric Garner was killed after being placed in a chok...
I first met Adriana Gascoigne, the CEO of global nonprofit Girls in Tech — an organization that focuses on the engagement, education and empowerment of women and girls pursuing careers in STEM fields ...
For a long time, whenever I pictured an engineer I automatically imagined a guy who looked something like Mark Zuckerberg. I never imagined an engineer could be someone who looks like me. There are li...
Whether you’re a Tumblr fanatic, an avid Twitter user, or Instagram-obsessed like I am, it’s probably safe to assume you’ve seen posts captioned with the hashtag "#fitspiration" come across your News ...
Siri does not know how to respond to the question "I have been sexually assaulted." When searching for abortion clinics on Apple Maps, one is instead shown adoption clinics. Finding a clinic or pharma...
The stark reality of the high rate of sexual assault on college campuses is nothing new, and neither is college administrations’ resistance to addressing it. Far too many students continue to seek sup...
At the age of 13, I discovered feminism. Like so many other girls, I found the movement on Tumblr — a platform that has gained a reputation for fostering radical views about equality and tolerance. Tu...
Our society has long been obsessed with comparison. Girls are routinely pit against each other to "win" the supposed honor of being the "hottest" in the halls of their high schools. They're even encou...
Women make up roughly 50 percent of the U.S. workforce, yet comprise only about 25 percent of American STEM workers — numbers that have even stagnated in recent years. Although some might claim this u...
My friend Sasha, a STEM major, is constantly asked what it's like to be "a girl in science." Her mother, who has had a successful and illustrious career in medicine, understands her daughter's struggl...
Jane, a woman who specializes in modeling and texturing of props and assets for video games and film, was hired as an intern while still in school to do 3D environment for a VR (virtual reality) proje...
The phrase “sexism is prevalent in Hollywood” feels a little bit like saying “water is wet.” Headlines abound about this unfortunate reality and industry insiders themselves are speaking out more than...
College is a place where all students should feel empowered to discover their passions and prepare for their future careers. The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) was the place where I ...
In March, Matt McGorry shared the dictionary’s definition of feminism on his Facebook Timeline. He explained that he was “embarrassed to admit that I only recently discovered the ACTUAL definition of ...
The announcement that a gender-swapped reboot of Ghostbusters will soon be in theaters has generated quite a bit of excitement. Considering the top-notch comedy actresses at the project's helm, includ...
I saw it in middle school, and later in high school: If the girls in my class didn’t excel in science, no body was surprised, since girls are never expected to excel in the subject. But if they receiv...
In the wake of the historic Supreme Court decision to universally legalize same-sex marriage, 26 million Facebook users demonstrated their support by superimposing a rainbow-tinted flag over their pro...
I have a mole on my right cheek. As a child, it was the physical feature about which I felt the most insecure. For years, however, my mother insisted that what I considered a flaw was actually a "beau...
There are plenty of reasons why far too many of the 1 in 5 teens who have mental health disorders don't receive treatment. The stigma and shame that surround the disorder — especially as it pertains t...
I wasn’t introduced to the notion of feminism, the discussion of equal rights or the culture of slut shaming until recently. I’ve never had a classroom debate about whether or not men should be called...
The Internet is incredible. Our generation has seemingly limitless access to information and can connect with people anywhere in the world in an unprecedented way. It has given people the opportunity ...
A friend of mine recently shared #SpreadFeminism, a challenge campaign encouraging fellow feminists to post a video, picture, poem, or anything else related to feminism on their Facebook page for five...
I love math and science and I don’t think I’d be who I am now without it. While I may not know how to code or have taken AP Physics, I appreciate these fields immensely. However, there have been i...