Not seeing yourself reflected in media can also lead to low self-esteem. For me, it caused me to question whether my experiences as a disabled woman even mattered. I’ve never been the target audience for a television show, a movie, or a novel. I’m white—but I’m also a woman, queer, and disabled. Growing up with […]
If we are not doing these things—working every single day to take down the system that allows this kind of racist violence to occur—then we are not only complicit in the violence, but we are part of the violence. Last summer, I bought my white daughter a black doll. As I watched the news unfold […]
To say that the 1950s or ’60s were a simpler time, that America was perhaps greater, is to erase a guilt-ridden time from history. I’m tired of hearing that the 1950s and 60s were a simpler time. This statement doesn’t consider rampant discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, or religion. To address […]
Is our sub-par family leave legislation supposed to be equally dismal for men and women? Is this the measure of equality? Today, August 26, is Women’s Equality Day. Hooray for one day! Forgive my cynicism. I’ve long been convinced that true equality requires evolution, and the existing generations are a lost cause. Sexism is far […]
Community college is a space where learners of all ages, income levels, disabilities, career histories, and points of starting over can believe that higher education is meant for them, too. “Community colleges are America’s best-kept secret, and it is time to let the secret out.” – Dr. Jill Biden I left my teaching positions last spring to […]
Tami Sagher’s choice not to make Lindsay the “self-conscious fat girl” seems almost revolutionary, particularly in the world of comedy, where most women comics who lack film or television deals are invisible—and fat women are so often the butt of the joke. After seeing Mike Birbiglia’s new movie Don’t Think Twice, I can’t stop talking about […]
As I listened, I respected more and more the tough decisions these women had to make, and I began to understand those decisions as theirs to make. I prayed to God—if He’d just get me out of this situation, I’d devote my life to ending abortion in America. I begged. I was 15 and I […]
The entire point of Trump is that he is a logical, even predictable, product of American culture. By now it is obvious that Donald Trump revels in the kind of puerile and manipulative bullying that a maladjusted third grader indulges in. It would be an easy mistake, if you simply read a text of his […]
