In an Oscars ceremony marked by questions of representation and cultural politics (host Neil Patrick Harris quipped early on that this was “A night to honor Hollywood’s best and whitest”), there were no shortage of social issues at the forefront of this year’s Oscars ceremony. Long before the ceremony unfolded, actors and activists took to […]
Being smart and working hard might never be enough. Earlier this month, the African-American Policy Forum released a report—entitled Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced, And Underprotected—on the treatment of black girls in schools. According to their research, black girls are suspended six times more than their white peers (while black boys are only suspended […]
For a country so taken with the idea of ‘family values,’ we do a remarkably terrible job at helping people start families. For a country so taken with the idea of “family values,” the United States does a remarkably terrible job at helping people start families. We are the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have […]
Our society stigmatizes people who suffer from mental illness to avoid examining the public policies that ignore the emotional well-being of those most at risk. Last week the Washington Post ran a version of my last Role Reboot column on how a nervous breakdown helped me to come to terms with my Facebook addiction. Excited […]
My high school refused to print my picture in the yearbook because my A-cups were demanding too much attention. “I can see your cleavage all the way across the court.” That’s what my female Bible teacher told me when I was just 15. I was the new kid at a private Christian school. What could […]
Nothing says “I love you” like Victorian ideals of kept women and the powerful men who keep them. Hanging on a bulletin board across from where I’m sitting in a cafe is a flier announcing a workshop on divorce recovery. The flier is awkwardly bookended by two other ads: one for a Valentine’s Day massage […]
No one needed or desired these products to be more sex-specific. If I had a dollar for every time I wished they made earplugs just for women, I’d still have only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. And yet! The marketing world never sleeps and R&D has a job to do, so lady […]
The Internet does love a good story of a bad mother. Social media is buzzing today with the story of Samuel Forrest, a dad living in Armenia who has opted to keep his newborn son with Down syndrome even though his wife has abandoned the child and is now seeking a divorce. The Internet does love […]
