Ross Douthat, writing in Sunday’s New York Times in response to the misogynist mass shooting in California last week, raised a question about the contribution that feminism can make to men’s well being, and to women’s safety. Specifically, he criticized feminism,…
Lets pause for a moment of Marxist musing. When I talk to my students about the difference between “work” and “jobs,” we discuss the way that all productive activity can be understood as work, but that a job is only that…
When Will and I are on road trips, we will every now and then see interesting juxtapositions on billboards and road signs. One that I notice every year on our annual trip to Georgia is a billboard for “Adult Entertainment”…
May Day is both a distress call and also a celebration of labor. In this post, I’m using it in both ways at once. (Imagine that. I'm bi-connotational.) Heather Corinna, Executive Director of Scarleteen, announced earlier this week that the…
I’m pretty sure that when Max Weber wrote about the march toward increasing rationalization and disenchantment in modern societies that he didn’t anticipate the kinds of irrational and mysterious situations that advanced bureaucracies would produce. While he certainly understood that…
The "ideal" woman's body is lithe, slim, strong without being bulky. It is covered in skin that is smooth, moist, unwrinkled, taut without being tight. That is the woman we are shown when we look for "beautiful women." And those…
I just finished reading Pat MacEnulty and Tamara TItus's This is the Way We Say Goodbye (2011, Feminist Press). It is a beautiful collection of deeply personal essays by women, each addressing their role as caregiver at the end of…
Three interesting things happened this week. At first they seemed unrelated, but this morning they all bubbled up together and suddenly the fact that they are all happening basically at the same time seemed meaningful. First, my sister got interested…
Yesterday marked one year since the day my mother left this world, and I spent much of the morning with my grief and my memories. In the afternoon, my partner and I headed out to Staten Island for an art…
Last week I proposed to write weekly previews of chapters that will make up this new project, My Mother's Cross. So far, I've shared previews of the introductory chapter called "Maternity Leave," and a chapter called "Hospital Domme". Today I'm…