It was a hot Los Angeles Saturday and I decided to walk my dog down my usually quiet residential street. I was sixteen at the time and wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Three men, probably in their late tw...
Typically, the heterosexual male gaze controls the depiction of women’s bodies and sexuality in pop culture. Music videos especially tend to enforce the idea that female sexuality is defined by what i...
As a Latina living in a society in which white privilege is very real, I have come to understand the importance of colored feminism. It turns out that while the fight against racism and the feminist m...
In popular culture, women’s breasts are often seen as the ultimate symbol of sex. Women are bombarded with a variety of consumeristic options to “improve” our breasts: we can buy numerous types of bra...
I like to think that feminism is becoming a topic of household discussion now. Celebrities are increasingly claiming the feminist label, sexist media depictions are causing more of an uproar and femin...
I'm sorry to say that I’ve witnessed far too many conversations in which my friends attack other girls for their sexual experiences. I have finally had enough of the way teen girls (or women of all ag...
On March 27th, 2014, former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was arrested and indicted for third-degree aggravated assault. He had punched his fiancee, Janay Palmer, in the face, knocking her un...
“Be careful, you’re just a girl!” I heard this phrase far too many times this summer as I prepared to leave for Brazil and Peru. Every Spring Break since I can remember I’ve traveled to Peru, and I’m ...
We need feminism now more than ever for many reasons, but rampant internalized misogyny -- which often goes unnoticed and, in some situations, is even understood as social norms – is as good a reason ...
What do astronaut Neil Armstrong, President Bill Clinton, basketball star Michael Jordan, and singer Bon Jovi all have in common? When they were juniors in high school, they all attended a prestigious...
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 ...
I live in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, which has historically been considered one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in New York City. My parents never let me walk around the neighborhood alone when...
A few weeks ago, Jada, a 16-year-old girl from Houston, Texas, went to a house party and was given a drink by the host. Little did she know that the drink was drugged, and that she would wake up later...
For years I, like most of my peers, always struggled to answer the question "why do we still need feminism?" But ever since I took a class about feminism my Junior year of high school, I can't and won...
"The Big Bang Theory" is one of my all-time favorite television shows. The show's protagonist, Sheldon Cooper, is basically my role model, and I’m obsessed with Raj, Howard, and Leonard as well. But I...
The other day my friend asked me if I thought a true feminist can support the World Cup. Until this year, I probably would have immediately answered yes: I just associated the World Cup with a somewha...
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...
I recently marathoned Preachers Daughters, a new Lifetime reality show. Season One follows the lives of three different girls -- Taylor, Olivia and Kolby -- who all have at least one parent who is a p...
I went to a weird elementary school. It was a hybrid between co-educational and single sex classrooms. The idea was that as children grow older, the differences between the ways boys and girls learned...
Following the Isla Vista killing spree on May 23rd, 2014, thousands of women used the Twitter hashtag “#YesAllWomen” to share stories of experiences and incidents of sexual harassment, abuse and inequ...
Does the entertainment industry actually have that much power to teach girls what is beautiful? Certainly, words are impactful but how much do simple images really matter? Are girls really absorbing a...
Have you heard? There are no good female web developers. This was news to me, and just about everyone else in the room, at the InteractATX Founder’s Panel organized and sponsored by Sequoia Capital at...
When you suffer from compulsive over-eating, it feels impossible to resist the urge to eat, even when you’re not hungry. Maybe you’re watching TV or talking on the phone when you feel it: That glitch ...
While women in the United States still undeniably have a long way to go before we achieve equality, we have made progress in various realms. For example, in terms of education, Oberlin College of Ohio...