Reading Time: 4 minutes When I was a young woman, tending house for the first time after leaving my community of origin, I would surprise myself while washing dishes in the sink, as the water turned playfully pink, and I didn’t know why. Sometimes I would see bright droplets of blood on the floor and follow them like breadcrumbs, […]
women’s bodies
Posted inHealthcare
Is Spain’s new menstrual leave policy a good idea?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Chances are good that you know someone who suffers from intense menstrual distress: cramping, headaches, nausea, and diarrhea, just to name a few. You might even be that person. I’ve been lucky in that, despite having a uterus, it rarely acts up too badly. But I see it all around me: in family members, in […]
Posted inCulture, General
Shut Up About Bodily Autonomy…Because Public Health
Reading Time: 7 minutes Of course I’m in favor of bodily autonomy: who, especially those of us who consider ourselves feminists, wouldn’t be? But alas, COVID is testing the limits of this word’s meanings, and I think many are missing a key point.
Posted inEducation, General, Myth & Folklore
What I’ve Been Up to in the Folklore World
Reading Time: 5 minutes A lot of academic work is invisible and goes unrewarded…well, somehow a bunch of rewards just dropped into my lap all at once, so I thought I’d share them here (since my blog varies in its folklore content but that’s kinda my main profession, at least for now!).
Posted inCulture, General, Sex & Gender
If American Belly Dancers Protested Colonialism As Much As Our Dance’s Sexualization…
Reading Time: 5 minutes If you’ve ever chatted with a belly dancer from the U.S., you’ve probably heard some riff on the phrase, “It’s not sexual, it’s sensual.” Americans dancers have done a lot of activist work here…so what might the dance scene look like if we took on colonialism, too?
Posted inCulture, General, Sex & Gender
Legalizing Sex Work to Stop Male Violence Is As Bad As Jordan Peterson’s Enforced Monogamy
Reading Time: 5 minutes In the wake of yet another mass shooting, I’ve seen men on Twitter suggesting that we legalize sex work in order to give these poor sexless dudes an outlet so they don’t go on shooting sprees. But this is just as bad as the enforced monogamy nonsense from Jordan Peterson, and it relies on women’s bodies and emotional labor to build peace.
Posted inCulture, General, Sex & Gender
Stop Building Plots on Women’s Bodies
Reading Time: 5 minutes This post contains spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Consider yourselves warned (fyi, the blog image is from the trailer, so it is not itself a spoiler for anything).
Posted inCulture, General, Sex & Gender
Dear Democrat Women: I Will Vote for You, But Please Stop Terrorizing Sex Workers
Reading Time: 4 minutes I see a lot of excitement about Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris running for president of the U.S. And yeah, I’ll vote for them if it’s them or a Republican, but I’m not thrilled about their policies on sex work.
Posted inCulture, General, Sex & Gender
The Impact of the American Plan
Reading Time: 7 minutes The anti-sex-worker bias seen in the American Plan dovetails with forced sterilization and medical experimentation, as well as straight-up misogyny. It was enforced until the 1960s and 70s, if you can believe it. Here’s a rundown of the American Plan’s impact.
Posted inCulture, General, Sex & Gender
The American Plan and World War I
Reading Time: 5 minutes We can blame war for a lot of things; among them is America’s decision to lock up women suspected of being sex workers, and to do so indefinitely while forcing dangerous medical treatments on them.