It’s unconventional. It’s also awesome. My sons can hear me unscrew a bottle of nail polish from across the house. All three of them, ages 6, 4, and 2, come at a run. They barge into the bathroom, sucking up all the breathing space with their energetic boyness. “Paint my nails!” they howl. “Do my toes, […]
When men are taught that the natural state of affairs is for their female partner to be younger, less educated, and forever conscientious of her success in relation to his, we are categorized as “unwomanly” simply by trying to carve out individualities the way men have always done. At Hood College, it was tradition for […]
Does he defend Bill Cosby? Run. Seriously, run. I’ve been on this planet for more than three decades now and I’ve learned a lot about being a straight feminist woman post-puberty in romantic relationships. Importantly, I’ve learned that there are some generally solid ways to figure out if the guy you’re dating is worth the […]
While folks of a more old-fashioned bent might disapprove, mostly people tell me they think my daughter’s name is adorable. It doesn’t go the other way at all, though. No one thinks it’s quirky and charming if you name your son Clara. When my partner was about three months pregnant, we got together with some friends […]
When a man says “I like going down on a woman,” there’s very often a subtext of “Doesn’t that make me awesome?” We’re starting to talk more about giving equal weight to women’s pleasure in man/woman sexual encounters, and that’s awesome. As a woman, you’d think I’d be all for focusing more on women’s pleasure in sex. […]
The flipside of misogyny is toxic masculinity. This is the masculinity that tells men to “man up” and prove themselves with violence or rigid gender roles. I recently participated in a panel on the war on women put together by New York State Senator Liz Krueger. One of the questions addressed to me was how the war […]
I think she looks fabulous, but people sure have a lot of opinions about it. My 9-year-old daughter has never been shy about her preferences and opinions. Right before she began kindergarten, she asked if she could cut her hair short. Since then, it has varied in style, but has stayed pretty short. Over the […]
Dear Dana is a bi-weekly advice column for humans who engage in romantic relationships. Please send your dilemmas, issues, conundrums, assumptions, conflicts, anxieties, worriments, obstacles, complications, predicaments, queries, questions, and any other synonyms for “problems” to deardana@rolereboot.org. Dear Dana: After a couple of failed relationships over the last year, I’m back to online dating, but not […]
We need to start talking to our sons, and tell them that it’s OK to feel and express emotion. That it doesn’t make them any less of a man. Raising boys can sometimes stink. I’m not talking about all the dirty socks, but rather the toxic culture of masculinity that surrounds our boys and that […]
Roughly 63% of working mothers agree with the statement “Sometimes I feel like a married single mom.” Many women know all too well how it feels to try to accomplish the suffocating expectation of succeeding as a full-time professional while also being a full-time mom. They know the true meaning of catching conference calls on the […]
We don’t want our son to grow up with 1950s-style ideas about gender roles. Recently, I got off work and did a bit of grocery shopping with the family. We came home and I proceeded to sit on the couch, eat bean dip, and watch the Heat play while my husband made dinner. My husband isn’t […]
The fact that my son has two mamas does not mean that one of us needs to take on the role of father. In the early years of our son’s life, my partner Valerie and I struggled at times to define complementary parenting roles. As lesbians, we did not fit neatly into traditional mother-father gender definitions. […]
