By Elle Stanger (January 29, 2020) When I was a teen-adult, I worked in mall jobs for a couple years. One day, a twenty-something man talked at me for thirty minutes in an empty store while I set up the t-shirt displays: He followed me around explaining in GREAT DETAIL all of the tattoos he planned on getting, where and…
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By Elle Stanger (October 9, 2019) I’m a sex worker who recognizes that many of my man clients are afraid to express their discomfort or pain because it makes them seem less “manly”. Before I begin touching someone of any gender presentation I always say, “Let me know if something is uncomfortable or you need to adjust”, and cis men…
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By Teka Lark (May 17, 2019) My mother said when she was pregnant with me the doctor asked her if she wanted an abortion. My mother was married, a housewife, had no other children, and owned a home with my father, but still that was the first question that the doctor asked when she went to the doctor to confirm…
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By Sonia Gutierrez (May 15, 2019) Dear White Guy, You Don’t Own My Body I had a miscarriage. At the clinic, the doctor told me I had a blighted ovum and said she was sorry. According to her, I would have to go to the hospital for a procedure—if nature didn’t take its course. Well, I didn’t want that and…
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By Theresa Hogue (May 14, 2019) There are plenty of valid criticisms floating about regarding Game of Thrones’ brutal penultimate episode, many of which focus on the unexpected and frankly wild veering that many beloved characters do from the path the writers had previously put them on. Whether it’s Jaime’s sudden crash from his redemption arc with Brienne to Dany’s…
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By Elle Stanger (January 23, 2019) I asked a man to stop bothering the three women at the table across from him while they were trying to eat; he was asking about their work, clothing, and the final straw was when he asked if they wanted to date his friend or him, They were giggling and trying to shut down…
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By Rachel Wagner (January 15, 2019) In one of my groups, there’s a discussion going on about whether or not it’s “exclusionary” to ban TERF and SWERF views (presumed “feminist” views that exclude trans-women and women who engage in sex work). Those “radical feminists” who wish to exclude trans women and sex workers from feminist spaces are upset that they’ve…
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By Teka Lark (January 8, 2019) When I have events I never have music. I don’t like music. I came of age in the 80s and 90s. I came of age when music was getting pretty mean and I knew immediately that I did not like hiphop. I didn’t like hiphop, because it seemed to specifically be talking about how…
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By Irami Osei-Frimpong (December 18, 2018) Race IS a deformation of class. As gender IS a deformation of class. So if you keep class politics, but don’t go after race politics, you’ve ignored all of the ways in which class politics comes in as race politics. If you go after gender and don’t go after class, you’ll have created two…
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By Ana Castillo (October 15, 2018) When catastrophic natural disasters devastate towns and islands & the president doesn’t bother to make an appearance with sincere condolences, instead chooses to attend campaign fund raisers and nationalist rallies, continues to mock minorities, the disabled and disenfranchised, routinely lies, dismisses abused women, and ignores the suffering of children, who practices nepotism, racism, misogyny,…
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By Alexander Reid Ross (October 1, 2018) Rebecca Solnit’s courageous piece is empowering and exciting. What turning over the rock from under which Kavanaugh crawled did was expose the horrible abuse pretty much all women are subjected to in the US from a very young age. It’s societal and systemic oppression in which specific, discrete acts of sexual misconduct and…
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