We are intelligent, educated, articulate Americans empathetic to one another’s stories, with a sense of history that extends beyond the Yankee Doodle Dandy drums and fife. As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain Dissolved into the bells of the lightning Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake Tolling for the […]
The percentage of costs that go to childcare varies from state to state, with the national average measuring 30%. New York and Massachusetts came in at 80% of a minimum wage worker’s yearly income, and D.C. measured an impossible 102%. Surprise to no one, raising children is not cheap. Especially if you are making minimum […]
The message that we consistently send out is that in order to achieve any kind of significant career goals, girls need to adopt traits that are typically associated with masculinity. A few months ago, my 4-year-old son went to a classmate’s birthday. The party was superhero-themed and the loot bags were packed with cute little […]
It’s time we ask why it is that men and boys are far and away the most common perpetrators of this kind of violence. “Our thoughts and prayers are not enough.” That’s what the President of the United States said yesterday in Washington, D.C., when he stepped to the podium to make a statement about the […]
I need to understand why people I love and admire no longer want to be associated with the cause that saved my life. Dear Ms. Streep, Allow me to start with a cyber-curtsy, which I believe is the protocol when addressing a queen such as yourself. There are no words to describe the depth of […]
I love those parts that seem incompatible but that, in a person, come together. During my first week of college, I met a guy who, like me, had a long, four-part name. When I told him mine, he said, “Mine are better because they all match.” This guy wasn’t exactly representative of my classmates at […]
We keep having these circular arguments about how many other services Planned Parenthood provides in order to justify their existence, but the truth is, they don’t need to. Birth control prescriptions and UTI medication don’t balance out abortion care; they complement it. Last week, the House of Representatives voted 241-187 to block funding to Planned […]
Our rules, even those seemingly feminist, defining what constitutes a ‘respectable woman’ only reinforce women and girls’ status as sex objects. In a recent interview with NME magazine Rihanna distanced herself from Taylor Swift and the singer’s good-girl image saying, “In my mind, she’s a role model, I’m not.” The words have social media discussing whether or not […]
