Feminism | Posted by Sarah T. on 12/9/2010

Where are the Girls?

how many other out lesbians in the mainstream media can you even think of?

Recently, my high school Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) had an unofficial “Big Gay Movie Day.” It was wonderful. I got to spend time with my fabulous, accepting friends and drink copious amounts of Mountain Dew. But there was something about it that disappointed me.

The first movie we watched was the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Now, while Dr. Frank-n-Furter is a wonderful, awkward, completely mad transvestite, he’s a man. A terrific, diabolical man, but still. A man.

Once we had got all of our giggling and time-warping out of the way, we moved on to a more serious movie, Prayers for Bobby. Prayers for Bobby is a phenomenal and touching movie about religious hatred and its dire consequences. Sadly,…

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Feminism | Posted by Brian C on 12/8/2010

Just Because Berry Is In The Name…

stereotypes suck.

Does anyone else enjoy partaking in the outlandish factoids of Snapple caps? I recently got a fact that stated that a banana is technically a berry and strawberries are not even berries. I will repeat this, because it bears reiteration. A banana (the yellow things you have to peel) is a berry whereas a strawberry (red fruit of deliciousness with BERRY in the name) is not a berry. So I had an initial shock and a moment of muddled thoughts. Society has played this trick a number of times on me throughout my life. Koala BEARS and panda BEARS are not even bears. Furthermore I concluded that this type of poor labeling by society is why I fight for gender equality.

To me, equality is a condition worth fighting…

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Feminism | Posted by Jessie W on 12/7/2010

Veganism, Dieting and Why I Felt Like I Had to Change

My sophomore year of high school, thinking I’d be healthier, skinnier, and for humane reasons, my parents coerced me into becoming vegan. I hardly ate – because of my dislike of beans and other vegan staple foods, I had basically the same food for every meal – and despite constantly exercising, my metabolism slowed and I gained twenty pounds over a five month period. Both of my parents’ cholesterol dropped by one hundred points and they were losing weight, so why wasn’t I? My doctor told me I was still growing, not getting necessary nutrients, and eating too little, therefore I had to return to eating meat and oil (which we were also avoiding).

In a way, I felt like a failure, but I decided to focus my energy on smaller goals,…

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Feminism | Posted by Selena T on 12/6/2010

You Will Get Pregnant And Die

Sex education is an experience that brings two memories to mind- the first of walking, red faced and weak kneed, to the desk in front of the class room, on which a monstrous, purple, shiny, plastic penis stands erect next to a trojan condom. I am expected to slip the condom onto the penis, but my hands are too sweaty to open the wrapper. The class breaks down into hysterical laughter, the kind of hyena-like shrieks that only a room full of 12 year old girls can produce. I repeat “this too shall pass, this too shall pass” over and over to myself while trying to figure out how to possibly stretch such a small condom over such a large phallus.

The second takes place 4 years later in high school.…

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Pop-Culture | Posted by Brian C on 12/5/2010

Support Women Artists Sunday: Chew Lips

Chew Lips are an East London based dance-pop trio, formed in spring of 2008. They consist of singer Tigs (Alicia Huertes), and multi-instrumentalists Will Sanderson and James Watkins.
After forming in early 2008, and writing ten songs in their first rehearsal session, the band played its first gig at a friends’ house party in New Cross on May 10, 2008. After performing fourteen live shows, they were asked by BBC DJ Steve Lamacq to feature on the BBC Introducing stage at the Electric Proms in October 2008. Lamacq has continued to support the band who, to date, have won his Rebel Playlist vote more times than any other act. The name Chew Lips comes from a character in the Brendan Behan book Borstal Boy.

Chew Lips headlined the inaugural Don’t Feed Oscar…

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Creative | Posted by Lindsay T on 12/3/2010

All You Wanted

I cannot be what you want.

It is this thought that wakes me, that draws me from a fitful sleep in sweat-dampened sheets, that pulls me down the hall. My eyes are closed still, shut tightly against what will come next. I am safer this way. The real monsters do not invade my dreams. The real monsters haunt only during consciousness.

But it doesn’t matter if my eyes are closed or not. I know this route too well. I know that tonight will be like all the nights before.

My fingers are shaking as they close around the pewter doorknob, twisting it open. I slip inside. It is just a whisper of a movement made by a whisper of a girl. The door closes silently behind me. I am good at this, at…

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Feminism | Posted by Reb V on 12/2/2010

Tell It Like It Is: Demystifying Childbirth for Teens

THE ENEMY …?

Last Sunday the Guardian website published an article highlighting the rise in reported birth trauma in the UK. The piece, reported on the National Health Service’s response to the number of women requesting caesarian sections for second births, after bad first experiences have left them too scared to opt for traditional methods.

Tocophobia, or the fear of childbirth is said to be increasing at an alarming rate on these shores and an official study is now under way. As someone who last year had a child of her own, I read the Guardian’s article with great interest, even more so when the selected interviewee Angela Almond described a ‘traumatic’ childbirth experience that was not too dissimilar to that of my own and other mothers I know. Now I would never…

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Feminism | Posted by Julie Z on 12/1/2010

Reproductive Rights: The Stuff That Got Left Out In School

This year in school, I’m taking an elective called Gender, Culture, Power (pretty badass, right?). We’ve covered all kinds of feminist topics from gender stereotypes to domestic violence to sex trafficking to reading about rape as a war crime in the Lynn Nottage play Ruined. It’s been a pretty enlightening experience, but when the time to choose our final projects rolled around, I knew what had been missing from the course and what I was eager to look into further: reproductive rights.

Knowing about our bodies should be such a basic thing — something our parents, schools and even the government should make sure that teens are well informed about. And yet today we are not only ignorant in many ways about our bodies, but we seriously take our rights involving them…

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