*Warning: some foul language is used in this post and in one of the images. Last week while I walked to work in downtown Harrisonburg, a group of men in a truck drove past me, honked, hooted, hollered, and whistled quite obscenely at me. My initial reaction was one of fear—I quickened my pace to […]
Read More Lookin’ Good, GirrrrlWelcome to my fourth installment of Imposed Cultures, a series that takes a closer look at common societal practices and beliefs to reveal that what we often think of as “natural” is anything but! Today we are going to explore the popular idea that “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” While many people use the […]
Read More Imposed Cultures: Men Are From Mars, Women Are From VenusIn the wake of the Sheryl Sandberg’s provocative book Lean In, urging women to speak up against workplace inequality, the social consciousness of women’s inequality is rising in general. Amid debate over Sandberg’s standing on the subject and other matters of social unrest, an unlikely subject caught my eye for this week’s post. Last week […]
Read More Unequal Standards: Involved FathersI read an article about a month ago by Fox News contributor Suzanne Venker, entitled, “To be happy, we must admit women and men aren’t equal”. Uh, what? While many of my peers rolled their eyes and gave me that “what did you expect?” look when I told them about it, I still maintain that […]
Read More Why I need feminismSitting in the beautiful spring sun, a girl from my dorm and I were enjoying the welcomed breeze of fresh mountain air. We were on the subject of our perspective futures, brought up by the fact that our first year in college was drawing to a close and we were both considering switching majors. Emily […]
Read More Social Constraints: Emily’s StoryI recently wrote a post on whether Pinterest is killing feminism, and stipulated that Pinterest isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, it can be used to promote pro-feminist (or, at least not anti-feminist) sentiments. More fundamentally, Pinterest is a user-generated platform, meaning it is reflective of what the users themselves choose to pin. And […]
Read More Constrained Choice: More power to us?Apart from this above image I wasn’t really explicitly told what it meant to be a man in my childhood. You hear of the sex talk, but I don’t remember my dad sitting me down one day and telling me the birds and bees of manhood. So when I was sent a link to an […]
Read More Failure of Upbrining: Hegemonic/Toxic MasculinityA friend of mine recently introduced me to the concept of “crab mentality.” This concept refers to a common occurrence in buckets of crabs: if one crab attempts to escape from a bucket of live crabs, the other crabs will pull it back down, rather than allowing it to get free. Often, the crabs will wait until […]
Read More Crab Mentality: How women hold each other backI recently read an article on how Pinterest is “killing feminism.” When I first discovered the article, just a couple of weeks ago, I knew immediately that I wanted to do a blog entry on it, as I’ve felt pretty strongly about the issue since Pinterest’s inception in 2010. I’m surprised at myself as I […]
Read More What’s So “Pinteresting”?Since I was a teenager I have been wondering, can I have a career and a family? Is there any way to raise kids AND be successful in the workplace? I hardly manage to pack my own lunch and make it to school on time now – where would I ever find the energy to get […]
Read More Imposed Cultures: Kids or Career?
ShoutOut! James Madison University 