When I was 23 years old I dated two men at once. One taught me how I should be treated and the other taught me just the opposite. I regret neither relationship.
I met Noel first and he was everything...
If a woman were to take over his role, the Dalai Lama said in September, she "must be attractive, otherwise it is not much use."
The self-proclaimed feminist's comment predictably and justifiably spur...
Planned Parenthood is a reproductive health care provider that is "dedicated to offering men, women, and teens high-quality, affordable medical care," according to its website. The organization also “...
Many people think a low-wage worker is a young adult making minimum wage to earn a bit of pocket money or save up for college. While these workers make up some of the low-wage workforce, the vast majo...
You may be familiar with HelloFlo from their viral videos that buck period-related stigmas and feature boisterous young girls celebrating their time of month. But this company is much more than these ...
Think you know the clitoris? Brooklyn-based artist Sophia Wallace wants you to think again. In fact, she's showing the world just how much they don't know about this powerful organ through her multime...
As the end of my senior year of high school drew to a close, my life began to change — not because I was starting a new chapter in my life, but because I was beginning a two-year struggle with what I ...
In her 2014 TED Talk, Khadija Gbla expresses the cultural friction she felt between two very different definitions of what it means to be “empowered.” Gbla recounts her experience growing up in Sierra...
Growing up, I was neither educated nor had positive conversations about sex. It was a taboo topic in my family. My mother especially refused to discuss it (even when I brought it up) and my father com...
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...
Close your eyes for a second and think about depression. What comes to mind? Chances are, it’s a girl (maybe with her head in her hands). Perhaps she appears as a dark silhouette, curled up in the fet...
The “ideal figure” of a woman has changed a lot over the years. But beauty has undeniably always been determined in relation to patriarchal standards.
During the Italian Renaissance, fuller figures w...
On March 30th, 33-year-old Purvi Patel was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She is the first woman in the United States convicted of feticide. But there is far more to this case than that fact alone r...
Today is the 3rd National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day — a meaningful day for us as an adolescent health educator and feminist youth worker. But we weren't always as aware or passionate about educ...
When Nika Shelby, a student at Union College, started weightlifting it wasn’t to get fit. She was fighting to save her life.
In high school, her friends knew her as a powerhouse. She was the stronges...
Access to education is a fundamental right. But are all American students learning everything they need to know? The use of abstinence-only education in schools is archaic and absurd, and yet it’s a c...
Last week, it was announced that Silicon Valley tech giants Facebook and Apple are offering coverage of egg freezing as part of female employees’ health benefits. A huge step, news outlets cried, towa...
Home Economics, renamed Family and Consumer Sciences in 1994, had its heyday in the mid-1900s. It was taught in almost all schools and offered as a major in college. Unfortunately, despite being conce...
It has been almost two years since I heard the infamous Todd Akin remark about “legitimate rape” and abortions and I am still as angry as I was then. Recently, Todd Akin rereleased a statement in his ...
It was not your typical walk of shame, like the kind you see in high school movies after someone loses their virginity. Instead, it was me, an athletic-looking African-American girl, sobbing my way do...
As a rising college senior, I’ve already been inundated with cautionary tales of being female while working in corporate America. Now, thanks to the recent Hobby Lobby ruling, my generation of women c...
“She was like, totally, anorexic,” my coworker stated, gesturing towards my other coworker. The formerly “anorexic” coworker in question nodded her head enthusiastically, as if being referred to as ha...
I realized recently that my generation has a strange fascination with the perception of mental illness, especially as it relates to teenage girls. I've noticed young women posting many quotes about me...
Women have made great strides towards social, political and economic equality in the past decades, but where do we stand in terms of sexual equality? Humans are sexual creatures who all want to explor...
“So it says on your record that you have a history with an eating disorder.”
“Yes,” I sputtered. I know it’s true, but no matter how many times the nurse practitioners read it to me at Barnard Colleg...