I thought I would stop being defined by my weight after middle school. When it kept happening, I thought, Okay, maybe after high school people will leave me alone. Again, I haven't been so lucky and s...
*Trigger warning: This blog post is about intimate partner violence*
Over fall break, my mom made an unexpected visit from California to New York City, where I go to school. She had been called the n...
Sometimes I look at the pieces of my chemically-straightened hair that are scattered around my bathroom floor, and I wonder what it would be like if things were different. What if relaxers were never ...
“It’s a boy.” My soon-to-be father beamed.
“How do you know?” My young, twenty-two year old mother asked, rubbing her growing belly.
“I just know,” he stated so full of confidence in his twenty-thre...
I was getting ready for my birthday dinner. I was wearing my new favorite dress, with a sort of waffle-velvet thing going on, which was sleeveless and beautiful. As I put on my tiara (because, you kno...
In honor of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, here's one young woman's message about having an eating disorder. To learn more, visit the NEDA website.
...
How are you supposed to feel the first time you realize your grandparents wish you had been born a boy? I’m still not sure. I do know, however, that if my paternal grandparents had the option to trans...
Most of us tend to compare ourselves to others and then determine our self worth depending on how we measure up. This habit of comparing and competing might be addictive, but it can also be very harmf...
When it comes to competitiveness, I am the winner. I choose to be ridiculously competitive about certain things, and my fight to beat everyone else is bloody, bitter, and vaguely worrying. Of all the ...
In the United Kingdom (where I live), there is a daily national tabloid newspaper called The Sun. In it's own words, The Sun provides readers with "the latest news and features - Showbiz, babes, celeb...
Over the past few months, we have been inundated with news about Obama and Romney -- especially about their policies in terms of women. But did you know that there's a woman running for president? You...
Fox, cow, bitch, vixen, cougar, whale, chick. What do these terms have in common? They refer to animals. Anything else? They also refer to women.
As someone who learned to speak English as a second l...
Traditionally, feminists were stereotyped as single, lesbian, non-shaving, bra burning, angry women and while to an extent the feminists of today have this pre-notion of what a feminist looks like to ...
As well as being a feminist, I am an Orthodox Jew. While I had always been active in gay rights advocacy through my feminism, I never really thought about how Orthodox individuals who are LGBT+ grappl...
As you get older, more and more of your peers have sex. I’m currently 19 and know plenty of people who haven’t had sex. But because of the media's stereotypical portrayal of young people as raging sex...
I was born and raised a Christian. From the time I came out of the womb, I was immersed in a highly religious family, and I lived most of my life with blinders on. I never really questioned anything a...
I was lucky enough to have been raised by open minded women. Never once did the idea that girls are only supposed to be a certain way come up. Early on I learned that girls and boys are equals. I was ...
It’s always pissed me off that I can’t seem to hang out with any one of my guy friends without the nature of that relationship being called into question. You talk all the time and you have so much in...
I don’t have a diagnosed eating disorder and that makes me sad. That might sound like a strange thing to say, but what I mean is that I think it's wrong that my daily obsession with counting calories,...
Michael Kimmel is among the leading researchers and writers on men and masculinity in the world today. The author or editor of more than twenty volumes, his books include Changing Men: New Directions ...
I volunteer at the children’s service at my synagogue on Shabbat (the Sabbath). Every week, the kids walk around with kid-sized Torahs, some of which are stuffed toys. The Torahs are red, yellow, blue...
I never thought much of gender construction as a child. I just knew what I wanted to wear, how my hair should be cut, and what interested me. Did I want to proudly wear my new matching dragon shirt an...
I can’t pinpoint one event that transformed me into a feminist activist – rather, a succession of small personal events led to a decision to co-found my own women’s rights organization and make a life...
When I thought about what my college experience would be like as a high schooler, I never for a second even slightly entertained the faintest thought of joining a sorority. As a self-identified femini...
Recently, I was taking a course on linguistics, and we were discussing syntax. My professor asked the class-- a room of roughly a hundred English students, mostly female-- what pronoun to use when rep...