Feminism | Posted by Jenny P on 04/15/2013
Time to Talk
*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 night before, told that her daughter was expressing suicidal thoughts, and asked to please come pick her up from the Metropolitan Hospital emergency psych ward as soon as possible.
“You know,” Mom began, “you didn’t really look scared or angry or anything when you were in there.”
A good observation. I wasn’t scared or angry. I was mostly just tired.
“You looked like you were thinking, ‘One day, I’m going to write a book about this,’ and like you were already writing it in your mind,” she said.
In a way, I was. That night, …
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Feminism | Posted by Collette C on 04/26/2011
Dear Feminism
Dear Feminism,
In case no one has told you recently, you are a loaded gun. Some see you as a helpless victim, pulling your woman card and begging for your right to abortion, always complaining about your time spent in front of a hot stove. Others see you as a butch, bullying your way into careers rightfully belonging to men. Seems like you’re always burning bras, abusing your right to free speech, and holding offensive picket signs. Many consider you a flaming lesbian, or at least Hilary Clinton’s part time lover. You whine, you refuse to let him open your door, and you can pay for your own damn dinner. In fact, you’re a full blown man eater.
I have heard these rumors. I see the news; I hear the …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Talia on 01/25/2011
Boycott “Monster”
When I first read this article on Experimentations of a Teenage Feminist, the first thing I said to myself was “good God.” It wasn’t a good “good God.” It was a BAD “good God.” A REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, HORRIFICALLY BAD “good God.”
Apparently, parts of Kanye West’s upcoming music video for the single “Monster” were leaked online. (I would like to point out that the album’s title is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.) In the video, half-naked women are drugged or dead, hanging from chains, as West, Jay-Z, Rick Ross, and Bon Iver make sexual advances towards them. Nicki Minaj also makes an appearance in the video.
The lyrics of the song are pretty bad, too. Bon Iver asks, “Are you willing to sacrifice your life?” Rick Ross then …
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Feminism | Posted by Rosamund C on 01/17/2011
When the Perpetrator Goes Free and the Victim Is Imprisoned
It seems impossible but it’s true: although her sentence has just been overturned, in Britain recently, a woman was sent to jail for accusing her husband of rape, then retracting the accusation.
Although this story has received little coverage except in The Guardian, a left-wing daily national, it caught my eye at once. The story goes like this: the woman, ‘Sarah’, was being repeatedly abused by her husband. One night, after brutally raping her, she summoned up the courage to dial 999 and her husband, ‘Ray’, was arrested. However, one year on, it was Sarah who was sent to prison and Ray who walked free.
After Ray was arrested, Sarah was put under increasing pressure to retract the rape allegation. This she did, after emotional blackmail from both Ray …
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Feminism | Posted by Lily N on 01/6/2011
Good Girls Don’t Go To Jail
I hit him out of frustration, or maybe out of love. I hit him because I was scared and confused and hurting, but none of that mattered. The part that mattered is that I hit him. I found out that jail was exactly what I thought it would be. It was the stale cold from a poorly heated building in a Colorado winter and the pinching of the handcuffs on my outer wrists and heels. It was the pit in my stomach as I held back the tears in my mug shot and the hard cringe as I stripped my clothes off for the female officer. Mostly it was the rush of disappointment and confusion as I removed the pink bow from my hair. It reminded me that good girls …
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Feminism | Posted by Liz P on 12/16/2010
Speaking Out Against Sexual Abuse
When I was twelve, I was the only person I knew of who knew people who had been affected by sexual abuse. When it had been disclosed to me, I didn’t know what to do with the information, and didn’t even write about it in my journal. Until high school, the only person I told was my best friend, and we talked about it only once. Twelve year olds tend to not know what to do with that kind of stuff. As I got older, the number of people that I knew who had been affected by sexual abuse, unfortunately, grew. In high school I learned that a friend of mine had been sexually abused and was having difficulties dealing with her Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, her family, her abuser, …
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